Two things hold up a Holderness closing. The shoreland site assessment nobody put on the calendar, and a buyer who intends to live here in February in a house that was built for August.
Start with the law, because it’s the one that has a date attached. RSA 485-A:39 requires a septic site assessment when developed waterfront inside the protected shoreland changes hands. On Squam and Little Squam that covers most of what trades. It is not a formality and it is not something to discover ten days out from a closing.
The second one is quieter and costs more. A camp system was designed for seasonal use. Change that house to year-round and the system has to be looked at against continuous daily flow — commonly somewhere in the range of 750 to 1,500 gallons a day depending on bedrooms — which is a different design than the one sitting in the ground. Buyers fall for a place in August, plan to winterize it, and never think to ask whether the septic comes along for that. Sometimes it does. On a tight shoreland lot, sometimes there’s nowhere to put what the new use requires.
And then there’s the paperwork problem, which around Squam is its own thing. Property here stays in families. We open tanks on places selling for the first time since the Eisenhower administration, where the system predates any permit trail and the only person who knew where the leach field ran passed away in 2009. That’s not a red flag by itself. It just means the inspection is the record now.
If you’re buying a Squam camp with plans to winterize it, get the septic capacity question answered during your inspection period. It is far cheaper to learn in September that the lot won’t carry year-round flow than to learn it in March with the insulation already paid for.
We pump the tank as part of the evaluation, because an unopened tank tells you nothing. With it down we can see the walls, the baffles, whether the concrete has gone soft at the waterline. We locate and open the distribution box, probe the leach field for saturation, and run water from the house so we’re watching the system work rather than looking at it at rest. Written report with photographs inside 48 hours.
We also answer the question the standard inspection doesn’t: can this system carry the house the way you intend to use it? Those are two separate findings. A system can be in perfectly sound condition today and still be wrong for a buyer who’s bringing three kids up every weekend all winter. You should know both before the inspection contingency runs out.
We schedule around showings and closings and we’ll talk directly to your agent or your attorney. The site assessment and the buyer’s evaluation can usually be done in the same visit.
A full pump-and-inspect evaluation is priced as an inspection, not a service call, and includes the written photographed report. Shoreland site assessments under RSA 485-A:39 can be bundled with it in one trip — ask when you book and save yourself a second mobilization down the driveway.
The week you list, not the week you close. It’s a known requirement on shoreland sales — there’s no reason for it to become the item everyone is waiting on in the last two weeks.
Ask what the system was designed for and what year-round use would require. Those numbers are often far apart. Then ask whether the lot has room for the difference, because on shoreland parcels that’s the answer that actually decides it.
No. It’s common on properties that have been in one family a long time. We locate the components, document what’s there, and the report becomes the record going forward. Buyers are generally fine with that once they can see it.
No, and people conflate them constantly. The site assessment is the statutory shoreland requirement at transfer. The inspection is the buyer’s look at condition. You usually want both, and we can do them on one visit.
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