Zoning

Definition

The local rules setting what a property may lawfully be used for.

Why It Matters

A business can run for twenty years in a place it would not be permitted to open today, protected as a legal non-conforming use, and that protection can end when the use lapses or the property changes hands. That makes it a question for diligence rather than an assumption: confirm the current use is permitted, and ask what happens if the building is damaged. It also caps what you can add, so a plan to put a service bay behind the shop is a zoning question before it is a capital one.

In numbers: A shop operating as a legal non-conforming use can lose that status after a vacancy of as little as 6 months in some codes, and rebuilding to current code on a $1.2M acquisition can add $80,000 of work nobody priced.