Hartland mortgages — wells, septics and all.

Hartland-area communities I lend in

There is no city of Hartland. That is not a technicality.

Hartland is entirely unincorporated. There is no city, no village, and no separate downtown government — the community near the US-23 and M-59 junction is a census place inside Hartland Township, Hallers Corners is an unincorporated community in the same township, and Parshallville straddles its northwest corner into Tyrone Township. Everything with a Hartland address in the township answers to one local government.

For you that is genuinely good news. In Howell or Brighton, two identical houses can carry different tax bills because one sits inside a city and one sits in a township, and you have to check which is which before you make an offer. In Hartland that particular trap mostly does not exist. What replaces it is a different set of questions, and they are all about the property itself rather than the jurisdiction.

The well. What actually gets required, and when.

Most of Hartland Township is on private wells, and there is a lot of confident wrong information out there about what a mortgage requires. Here is the real shape of it.

FHA does not require a water test on every well. A test is required in defined situations: on new construction, when the appraiser reports a deficiency with the well or the water, when the water is known or reported to be unsafe, when the property sits close to a potential contamination source such as a landfill, industrial site or farm, or when the well sits closer to the septic system than FHA’s separation distances — one hundred feet to the drainfield or seepage pit, fifty feet to the septic tank. Outside those triggers FHA itself does not require a test, but your county health department, a local transfer ordinance, or an individual lender still can.

The standard the water has to meet is local, not federal. Under FHA, water quality must satisfy the health authority having jurisdiction — in your case the county health department. Only where no local standard exists does the EPA’s National Primary Drinking Water Regulations become the fallback. VA works the same way with one more rung: local health authority first, then the state, then EPA if neither has a requirement. So the panel your sample gets run for is set by the county, not by the lender.

You cannot pull your own sample. Both FHA and VA require the sample to be collected and transported by a disinterested third party — the local health authority, a commercial lab, a licensed sanitary engineer, or another party the health authority accepts. The buyer, the seller, the agent and the loan officer are all disqualified. This is the single most common reason a Hartland file has to redo a test late in the process, and it is completely avoidable.

On a VA loan, the result has a shelf life. Water quality test results are valid for ninety days from the date the local health authority certifies them, unless that authority says otherwise. On a long closing or a build, that clock matters.

Shared wells — get the agreement recorded

Shared wells are common on older Hartland parcels and they are financeable, but the paperwork is not optional. FHA will accept a well serving no more than four living units, with a binding shared well agreement between the owners, and expects the well to deliver a continuous supply to every connected home simultaneously with a shut-off valve on each service line so one house can be worked on without cutting off the others.

VA spells out more about the document itself: the agreement has to provide for the cost of repairs, be binding on the signing parties and their successors in title, and be recorded in public records — along with a permanent easement allowing access for maintenance and repair. A handshake between two neighbors who have been sharing a well for thirty years is not an agreement. If the property you are looking at has a shared well and nothing is recorded, tell me during the inspection period. It is often fixable if the other owners cooperate, but not in the last week.

Septic, and the rest of the property list

An individual septic system has to dispose of waste in a sanitary way that does not create a nuisance or endanger public health. On VA files, health authority approval of the system is required on new construction, whenever the appraiser notes a problem, and in areas known to have soil percolation issues — which is worth knowing on the heavier clay pockets around here. Routine inspection is not universally mandated by either agency, but a county transfer inspection may still apply, and you should assume the buyer of a rural Michigan home is getting the septic looked at regardless of what the loan requires.

A few others that show up on older Hartland property:

Access and private roads. VA requires safe, adequate pedestrian or vehicular access from a public or private street with an all-weather surface. A private road has to be protected by a permanent easement and maintained either by a homeowners association or a joint maintenance agreement. Unrecorded two-track access on an otherwise perfect ten acres is the quietest deal-killer in this township, and nobody discovers it until the appraisal comes back.

Heat. VA requires permanently installed heating that maintains at least fifty degrees Fahrenheit in areas with plumbing. A non-vented unit still has to be safe and meet local code.

Paint on pre-1978 houses. On an FHA loan, the appraiser must inspect a home built before 1978 for defective paint surfaces — paint that is cracking, scaling, chipping, peeling or loose — and defective surfaces have to be cured before the loan is endorsed. Federal rules also bar curing it by machine sanding or open-flame torch. On VA, defective paint on a pre-1978 home is treated as a lead hazard that has to be corrected unless testing shows no lead, with compliance verified on a VA inspection.

Roof. On a VA file, where a defective roof already carries several layers of shingles, expect to strip the old material rather than lay another course over it.

Termite inspection. Michigan currently sits in the lower termite-probability band, so VA does not require a wood-destroying insect report here — one is required only if the appraiser notes evidence of infestation, damage, or conducive conditions. That comes off the termite probability map rather than a fixed state list, so I confirm it address by address. And contrary to what a lot of people still repeat, since 2022 a veteran is permitted to pay the pest inspection fee where the Notice of Value requires one, though negotiating it to the seller is still the better move.

Veterans buying in Hartland

Hartland is a strong VA market, and the VA loan handles acreage and outbuildings better than most people expect. No down payment, no monthly mortgage insurance, and with full entitlement there is no VA loan limit at all — the constraints are what you can afford and what the appraisal supports. I am a Marine Corps veteran and I will pull your Certificate of Eligibility with you.

If you receive VA compensation for a service-connected disability — or are entitled to it but take retirement or active-duty pay instead — the funding fee is waived. And if you are rated one hundred percent permanently and totally disabled, hold individual unemployability, or received a specially adapted housing grant, Michigan may exempt your principal residence from property tax entirely. On a Hartland tax bill that is not a rounding error. Here is how the exemption works and how to file.

Building in Hartland

Plenty of Hartland transactions are not purchases of existing homes at all — they are a lot, a builder and a plan. Construction-to-permanent financing covers the build and converts to your permanent mortgage without a second closing, and on new construction the well and septic requirements above tighten up rather than relax. If you are buying land first and building later, talk to me before you buy the land. The parcel decides what is financeable on it.

First-time buyers in Hartland

Hartland Consolidated Schools pulls a lot of first-time buyers into a township where the housing stock skews larger and newer than Howell’s. FHA and conventional both carry low-down-payment options that work here, and USDA zero-down financing is address-specific — parts of the township can qualify. Send me the listing and I will check that exact address against the map. The first-time buyer guide covers what you need at the table.

Loan programs that fit Hartland

Looking in the neighboring towns too? Same approach in Milford, Howell and Brighton.

Property requirements described above reflect FHA and VA program guidance in effect at the time of writing and are summarized in plain English, not quoted. Requirements change, and the health authority with jurisdiction sets the applicable water and septic standards for your address. Nothing here is a commitment to lend or a guarantee that a specific property will qualify.