Sell Your Lot in Florida Indian River Land Company Tracts

Selling Land in Florida Indian River Land Company Tracts: What to Know

The Florida Indian River Land Company plat is an early south Brevard plat, recorded in Plat Book 1. It split land around today's Malabar and Palm Bay into numbered lots, many of them larger tracts that were never built on. Many have no paved road, and some can only be reached along a plat road that was never opened. If you own one and want to sell, we can help.

EasyLotBuyer buys Florida Indian River Land Company tracts for cash. We make a cash offer within 24 hours, charge no fees or commissions, pay the closing costs, and can close in as few as 7 days. We also buy land with back taxes, liens, title issues or no road access.

What the plat is

The Florida Indian River Land Company plat is recorded in Plat Book 1, Page 164, of the Brevard County public records. Your deed will usually describe your land as a lot number in a given section, township and range of this plat, for example "Lot 18, Section 7, Township 28 South, Range 37 East." Many tracts we see are 1 to 5 acres.

The plat crosses city lines. A tract may be in the Town of Malabar, the City of Palm Bay, or unincorporated Brevard County, and each has its own building rules. Look up your parcel on the Brevard County Property Appraiser website to see which one applies.

Access and unopened plat roads

The old plat shows road and canal rights-of-way, but many of those roads were never built. A road on paper is not the same as a road you can drive on, and it is not the same as a road the government maintains.

In unincorporated Brevard County, section 62-102 of the county code says no building permit is issued unless the lot abuts a public street the county has accepted for maintenance. There are limited exceptions, including some older lots with an approved access easement, and agreements that let owners build an unpaved road inside a county right-of-way at least 50 feet wide.

In Malabar, an owner who wants access, or wants to improve the road to a lot, must file a Road Improvement Application and build the road to the town's standards. Malabar keeps a list of accepted town roads. Since 2021, roads in new Malabar plats are private and maintained by the owners' association. If your tract has no legal or practical access, we still buy it.

Wetlands, flood zones and drainage

Some tracts hold wetlands. Wetland fill needs an environmental resource permit from the St. Johns River Water Management District. Brevard County Natural Resources also reviews new homes for wetlands, asks for a survey of the wetland line, and requires mitigation for any wetland impact it allows.

Check the flood zone on the FEMA Flood Map Service Center. Some tracts lie in the Melbourne-Tillman Water Control District, which runs about 163 miles of canals in south Brevard. The district names lots of this plat in its boundary, and it charges a user fee per acre or portion of an acre, whether the land is built on or not. The fee shows on the county tax bill.

Conservation lands and protected wildlife

Several tracts sit near public conservation land. Brevard County's Environmentally Endangered Lands Program manages the 577-acre Malabar Scrub Sanctuary off Malabar Road, and the county also owns the Jordan Scrub Sanctuary in Malabar. The county says the Malabar sanctuary is a refuge for the Florida scrub-jay, gopher tortoise and eastern indigo snake.

Land near scrub habitat may have the same wildlife. Inside Palm Bay, a citywide federal permit lets owners in mapped scrub-jay areas build, with an extra $125 per quarter acre on the permit and no clearing from March 1 through June 30. Gopher tortoise relocation needs a permit from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission anywhere in the state. Outside Palm Bay, ask the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about scrub-jay rules before you clear land.

Well, septic and what you can build

Many of these tracts have no city water or sewer at the lot line, so a home needs a well and a septic system. DOH-Brevard takes septic permits, and its fee for a new system without a site evaluation is $510. In the Indian River Lagoon Protection Program area, a new system since January 1, 2024 must connect to sewer if available, or be a nitrogen-reducing system that removes at least 65 percent of the nitrogen.

In Malabar, much of the rural land is zoned RR-65, which allows no more than one home per 1.5 acres. The RS-21 district allows up to two homes per acre. Malabar allows a mobile home or RV as a temporary dwelling only after a building permit is released, and it must be removed within ten days after construction ends. Rules change, so call the Town of Malabar at 321-727-7764 before you rely on them.

What these tracts sell for

There is no public sale price data for this plat alone, so these are ZIP code and county medians from recent market data. In ZIP 32950 Malabar, the median land sale was $114,250 across 22 sales, or about $56,700 per acre. Across Brevard County, lots of 1 to 2 acres had a median sale of $95,000, and lots of 2 to 5 acres had a median of $190,000.

Those medians include land with paved roads and dry building sites. A tract with no road, heavy wetlands or a deep flood zone usually sells for far less, because a buyer has to pay for access, fill, a well and a septic system before building.