I’m puzzled as well on some of the details/reasons. The house without gas sits on an odd shaped piece of property, with the house set far back from the road. That house’s neighboring properties are odd shaped as well, so our land (with our fence running near our property line) in places has only a couple of feet adjacent to adjoining properties. So, a 20 foot length of our fence is along the property lines of six different properties, because of the odd shape of each tract. Decades ago all of the land was owned by one woman, and she sliced it up and gave it to various relatives, making for an odd neighborhood. Some of those lots are tiny, some long and narrow, it’s pretty strange.
Our home is on 17ish acres that is reached by a private lane that begins where the road dead ends.
Yeah, a gate is a must according to the gas company, and it will be the deal breaker here. We just put $8,000 into a fencing overhaul, going from electric to hightension, heavy wire. No fucking way do we want a fence in that location. Maybe we’d be willing to isolate the triangle. Maybe.
But the neighbor just ruined things this morning. I was outside with the dogs at 7 am, when the neighbor called and spoke with my gf. He told her the notary was open early and he wanted to proceed right away. He told her we were overthinking things, a lawyer was unnecessary, and he wanted to take care of this now.
She hung up on him and found me. She and I each get one vote (although I’m not on the deed at this time) and I’m pissed off to the point where I’m a solid “NO” vote.
Still meeting with the attorney Tuesday, mostly to thank him and to give him a mix-six I assembled for him. Thanks for all the input! I know way more about easements now than I did a week ago!
Oh yeah, that’s the way to get a favor from a new neighbor!! I’d tell the guy you have no interest in an easement or a gate. Tell him you will sell him the corner at a negotiated price, and he has to have the fence company come and move your fence. It sounds like you are talking about less than a 1,000 square feet of land. $5,000 plus moving your fence?
Hah! Tell him that your instincts say “No” and you’re trying to see if there is way to turn that into “yes” and then ask him if he still thinks you’re over-thinking it.
Is there any way you can sell him the land? He sounds like he won’t be willing to give you a fair price, but at least that puts you more in the driver’s seat and then let him over-think it.
If he’s just gonna flip it there is no call for neighborly love from you. He’s giving you a dollar, taking control of part of your property, and gaining several thousand dollars in value of the property he’s going to sell.
And also, that jerk neighbor and his condescension/pretension can piss off. As my mom likes to say, people in hell want ice water but it don’t mean they get it.
Got it…
Write up a contract giving him the easement as long as he covers all fees involved in making you whole again (ie getting the fence taken care of etc) as well as him paying for any damages resulting from the easement (say, for example, in a year or two the utility trucks have to dig up the area and it costs you money).
That all seems fair, I think.
However, add in a clause that states that you get 10% of whatever he sells his house for.
As long as this easement has the potential to haunt you for as long as you’re going to live there, you might as well profit from it.
Is it still worth it to him? If he just wants gas service to his house, it won’t matter. But if he’s only doing this so he can sell his house for an extra few grand maybe he’ll just give up.
You could even change that to say ‘…if you sell your house in the next 5 years’ or ‘within 5 years of doing large/expansive upgrades’. It would still give him the ability to sign and later move, but keep him from using your property to flip his.
GF was right to shut him down and if he comes around or calls again just tell him you have a meeting with a lawyer on Tuesday to look at the paperwork and leave it at that.
I had more written out, but I think you’re better off not saying what you would do until after you talk to your friend. No point in shooting off your mouth to the neighbor if your friend is just going to tell you to sign the paper and move on.
Having said that, if possible, and you’re okay with it, I’d look into selling him that part of the property. More than wide enough to cover the entire easement. FMV plus all expenses for having the fence reconfigured by your fence company, plus any property taxes that need to be adjusted. On top of all that, I’d have your lawyer add in all his billable hours to make the transaction happen and toss in a few extra bucks for yourself for good measure.
(This would be even better if the area in question can be reached from the street by only driving on his property, if not…maybe you could sell him a strip of land from that area to the road?
I’m sure you don’t want to but I’m just putting it out there. If you have 17 acres, could you part with half an acre for the right amount of money?)
In all honestly, he’ll take it as an insult since you’re asking him for about 5-10 grand for something that he offered you a dollar for and the only thing you’re out is the beer. But if he’s serious, you get paid, the lawyer gets paid and he gets some property.
As I think about this, it’s no different than him coming up to you and saying ‘hey, just so you know, I’m gonna leave you this dollar and I’m going to borrow your car once in a while’. If someone said that to you, it’s not wrong to say ‘uh, no, if you need my car, it’s worth $5000, write me a check and you can have it’.
As much I’m assuming your lawyer will advise you on options such as selling him the property or asking him for a larger chunk of change, maybe in the $2000-$3000 range, which seems low enough that he’ll pay it to keep moving forward. I’m really curious as to what would happen if you marched over there and said ‘hey…about this easement, what’s in it for me?’
My first thought was that there are utility easements everywhere. Anytime you see overhead power lines behind houses, there’s an easement. There’s easements for the water and gas lines to run from the street to your basement etc. I’m sure in his head he may have been thinking that it’s no big deal, just sign it, they’ll lay the gas line, patch up the property and maybe have to do something there once every 10 years.
What bugged me is when he told K’s GF that the notary is open early. That’s either antiquated or him really being a bully, like he’s trying to rush her, trying to push her into making a snap decision right now. It Kayaker were to tell us that he followed it up with ‘you don’t even have to give me the papers if you still want to think about it, but lets just get them signed so they’re set to go’, I’d tell you to rip them up and tell him pound sand.
Every bank has notaries, city hall has notaries, the library has notaries, there’s no shortage of notaries. I’d be willing to bet that if you go to your favorite corner bar and there’s more than 20 people over the age of 40 there, at least one of them can notarize something for you, on the spot.
Rushing your girlfriend because the notary is open early was odd, at best. The only innocent reason for that is if time was of the essence for him. Anything else was either him pressuring her or trying to catch her while you weren’t around.
That may be true right now…but think about the future. (maybe the far future.)
Things change.
Sometime in the future, that land will be used for something.
Maybe not till your grandchildren inherit it, but maybe a lot sooner.
Where there’s a gas easement, it will be impossible to build over it, and it may be necessary to leave access for heavy equipement so the gas company can dig there, etc.
Suppose one day you get a great opportunity to sell your property to a contractor who wants to build several houses on your land; that minor triangle of land and the access to it could become a big obstacle, affecting how the property can be subdivided.
Maybe you’re laughing at me, because it’s totally irrelevant right now…
But do try to think about 30 or 40 years from now. Will the nearby town grow? Will you stll have horses?
it’s nice he is improving the property and that you want to be a friendly neighbor but it sure sounds like he is trying to take advantage of you & your GF.
Being neighbourly is feeding the neighbour’s cat while they’re away, taking in the post and maybe mowing the lawn.
That’s not what this is. It’s a business transaction: should I permanently alienate part of my right to use my land as I see fit? If so, what benefit do I get?
A mix-six is a six pack of beer made up of six different (often high end) beers. My favorite beerporium offers a mix-six with a seventh beer for a penny.
So, we will be meeting with my lawyer Tuesday evening, but at this point I don’t thing there’s one chance in a million we’d grant the easement or sell him any property.
