A neighbor of ours recently purchased a house that had been foreclosed on. He has been working on improving the property, I assume with the idea of reselling it for a profit.
He approached us a few days ago with a generic Easement Agreement[sup]TM[/sup], wanting us to sign. He would like to get gas service to the house (it’s all electric now). This would require running a line across the corner of a horse pasture on our property.
If he were going to be living there we would probably just sign and accept his $1.00 (that’s on the form). But he is going to eventually sell and we have concerns about this negatively affecting the use of our property.
I faxed the paperwork (one sheet) to a friend of mine who is an attorney, so we are awaiting his reply. But I’m curious if anyone here has dealt with anything similar.
You are certainly under no compulsion to sign the easement. If it benefits you (your property) in any way, then go ahead. Otherwise, look at it like the business deal it is. Does it impact the use and value of your property? What is it worth to you to sell the easement right?
You say it crosses the corner of a pasture? Right at the corner, or how far into your site? Along road frontage or at the back of the property? Typically, easements around the perimeter of a property do not cause any problems or loss of value. But easements that cross a property have to be considered carefully, as that typically limits what you can build on top of the easement. You are right to have a lawyer look at it. If there is a question regarding loss of value, a qualified appraiser should be consulted.
The area where the line would cross is pasture land with zero use otherwise. It is far from the house, in a corner that borders other property. We would never use the land for building, etc. But the land is fenced (to keep the horses contained) and my gf read somewhere that the gas company will want to install a gate so that the area can be accessed.
When I asked my buddy if he did this sort of thing as part of his practice, he laughed. Apparently this sort of thing is a major part of his workload. I’m scurrying to learn about easements so I do not feel stupid when we talk after the holiday weekend.
I’ve had to deal with something with property that I owned. The easement does mean you are giving up control of a portion of your property for (presumably) perpetuity. You will likely not be able to build on it, you may not be able to plant trees or shrubs, you may not be able to keep or place a fence, etc. This can reduce the value of your property by far more than the $1 they are offering. By default I would never allow a new easement across any property I owned unless there was a substantial financial incentive for me.
An attorney friend of mine advises me just now if you want to spend the money to can offer a leased easement, where they pay you a fee each year, and the lease has an option to renew each year where either party can cancel. You can then keep the price low (like $1 a year) if you don’t want to soak your neighbor, but also you now have the ability to exit the easement agreement if you don’t like it within 1 year. They do say that this could cost a lot to prepare (in terms of legal fees) so it might not be desirable.
The easement would be with the gas company, not the neighbor. It would be a utility easement, that gives the gas company permission to lay the line and maintain their pipe running through the property. These are common for utilities.
I would look at it as how much is the neighbor’s house going up in value because it now has natural gas instead of electricity only. If the neighbor wants to see this increase in value, he needs to share more of that value than just a $ dollar.
While that’s unfortunate, if they don’t fully accept that you have the right to do what you want to with your property…shrug. It’s one of the reasons that I sold my land - three separate neighbors tried to inflict me with adverse possession claims to steal nearly a full acre from my 12 (that and one neighbor kept coming onto my property to kill the wildlife on my property, DESPITE written notice that there was no trespassing and no hunting).
If it’s of any concern to you that someone else might have undue influence over that piece of land you should consult an attorney. It doesn’t sound like much of an issue but easements are just undesirable. Just its existence could make it difficult if you want to sell your property.
If you don’t care about that land at all and it doesn’t add any real value to your property you could just sell it to him. Include enough in the price to cover moving the fence entirely onto your property and any other costs in addition to the value of the land plus some extra on the top to make it worth your time and effort.
ETA: It sounds like he wants to run the line diagonally through the property. If that’s the case can’t he use less property and just follow the edge of your property and take a right angle turn at the corner?
Well, the way the geometry works, cutting across the corner of our pasture is a straight line. Avoiding our land would require crossing six properties, and six easements.
My attorney messaged me on Facebook and we set up a meeting for Tuesday evening. I feel more prepared now.
He is happy to be helping me. Because we are friends, we have never charged each other. As luck would have it, he has needed me far more than I have needed him. The last legal help I needed was 11 years ago, when my daughter was charged with disturbing the peace. Instead of paying the fine, we showed up in court ready to do battle. He had a paralegal carrying files and boy, was he awe inspiring. He is an excellent orator. The case was dismissed and the cop gave my daughter a sincere apology, which she accepted gracefully. It was fun and she learned a lot about the legal process.
So how much of your land would the easement cover (# square feet or acres)? And would it cause any of your land to be situated on the other side of the easement from your main land?
I’ll have to take a tape measure and calculate the specifics, but it’s a relatively tiny corner. I can measure A and B, and then A[sup]2[/sup] + B[sup]2[/sup] will equal C[sup]2[/sup]. When I walked around looking at the area, the triangle formed by the fence and the proposed gas-line is roughly twice the size of our living room. I know you’ve never been in my living room, but it isn’t huge or anything.
We’ve talked some more about this situation and we are each reaching the point where the effort spent so far is far exceeding the $1.00 offered.
Heh. Any work put into the foreclosed property will be a huge improvement.
He has cut down some nasty locusts that were ready to fall over and he’s had two junker cars towed away.
I’m struggling to picture the layout. Going from the one point it crosses into your property to the point where it crosses out of your property is so short, but a path from those two points that avoids your property crosses six additional properties? I assume he has access to a street. The gas line doesn’t run along that street?
I had a situation similar to yours.
The electric line ended in the middle of my 10 acre property. My neighbor to the north would have had to spend around $15,000 to bring in power if she followed the road. I granted her (actually the electric coop.) an easement to continue the line through my property to hers. Saved her around $12,000 1995 dollars. Didn’t cost me a thing, didn’t charge her a dime. She was a single mother raising 2 small girls in a log cabin with no electricity and, consequently, no water. It was the right thing to do and I’ve never really thought about it since. She is still my very good neighbor.
Not really too similar IMO. You already had the line/easement partway across your property. You were helping someone out whom you considered in need. The OP would be creating an entirely new easement, for someone else’s profit.
If it truly is useless for anything other than pasture, or if his property is so huge he wouldn’t miss it, or if he (or his heirs) never intend to sell his property, it may be the right thing to do. But I’d be hesitant to eagerly accepting an encumbrance upon my property. In any event, I’d suggest it is worth something more than a buck.
This is to install a new line, which will entail removing the fence - or at least two portions of it - and large equipment tearing up a chunk of your land. Even if the easement would be NBD long term, there should be some compensation for the damage to your property now, and the possible decision you may want to make in moving that section of fencing so as to leave the easement outside of it - as someone mentioned above, the gas company will likely want/need access with a gate as well. Plus what may need to happen with that future access, if they need to dig it up again at some point for repair.
I was thinking about the gate, as well. That means someone will be opening it and being in the same pasture as your horses. What if they leave a gas access point open resulting in a leg-breaker for your horses? Just leaving it unattended while getting a tool from their truck could leave your horses in a risky situation. You know they’ll be curious. Also, what if someone leaves the gate open and your horses get out?
Whatever you do, please consider a fence between your horses and this set-up.
