Undisclosed easement on newly-bought house

In My Humble Opinion
21

If it has no stamp, and is not recorded in the county, then it is a totally irrelevant document, isn’t it?
It was drawn by a profeessional engineer and probably submitted to the zoning board (or whatever you call the local authority)----but if it was never stamped as “Approved” , then it simply has no legal validitiy. Like a law that was submitted to congress, but didnt pass—it may have been a nice idea, but it’s now a dead idea, and doesn’t give the golf course the right to use your property.

Don’t confuse the signatures of the designers (usually an engineer or architect) with the signature of the county authorities.

22

How long had the pipe been there, unchallenged by anybody? Could the golf course acquire the easement now through adverse possession?

Or, alternatively, could they acquire an easement now through eminent domain? If they can convince the city council that their golf course is The Greater Good, they might be able to do that.

23

Bingo!

24

Depends on the law of the area. Adverse possession has to be adverse. In this case it wasn’t. They were given permission. The property owner can resind permission at any time unless there is some bindimg vontract that says otherwise. Granting use is one of the strongest means of preventing adverse possesion.

They could try to gain an easement through eminent domain. I don’t know how successful that would be.

A property attorney familiar with the areas laws needs to be consulted.

25

Eminent domain would require paying for the loss of value, which is what you are looking for anyway so would not necessarily be a bad thing.

Adverse possession in many locations requires open, notorious possession–that is, the golf club must be publicly seen and known to have their pipe in place, which would be hard to prove on something buried. Also, if the pipe was installed at about the time the house was built (four years ago, if I’m understanding your timeline), I don’t know of any jurisdiction where that is enough time for adverse possession to come into play. However, since it was apparently installed with the knowledge and consent of the previous owner, it’s likely a done deal on that score alone.

What do you want to happen? Do you want to be paid for the loss of value due to the inability to use what you thought was your land? or do you want that pipe gone? The first will be easier to accomplish, and the previous owner and/or their agent/mommy will be your best target. Many (but not all) title insurance policies expressly exclude coverage for unrecorded easements; check your policy carefully. If it’s the American Land Title Association (ALTA) standard policy, Schedule B Part II lists the exceptions, and “easements, or claims of easements, not shown by the public record” is item 3 (unless you paid extra for extended coverage).

26

For actual, usable suggestion:

There are (relatively) cheap free-standing shelters. You sometimes see them one self-serve storage lots for RV. They are also marketed as hangars for small aircraft.

A concrete slab would be nice, but is not required.

As a practical matter, how likely is it that anyone would go to the expense of removing a drainage pipe? Or any other pipe?
Note: check local law, but I think the rule is that the holder of an easemant is entitled to use it, even if the current owner is opposed,

27

That assumes that an easement actually exists.

28

I’m a lawyer, but I do not have any good advice on this. My understanding is that the OP wishes to simply use their lot however they wish, as though the pipe weren’t there. I wonder what would happen if they built a pool and cracked the pipe. Or planted trees that invaded it - possibly causing water problems for their neighbors. Or built a driveway/garage which interfered with future maintenance of the pipe.

My first call would be to the title company, and my second to a local real estate attorney.

29

Agreed. This is looking like a complicated matter. The OP should seek legal advice. (And stories like this make me so grateful I live in a jurisdiction with Torrens land title system.)

30

Very curious about this. This sounds like a law school hypothetical!

31

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I spoke a bit further with my neighbor, and found out that the plat that he gave me was a “representative” plat, one he had the city draw up for him, based on the location of the pipe through our yards. We’ve got the pipe going through our yards, but there’s no official easement due to its location.

Basically, the only official plat is the one the county has. There’s nothing that shows the pipe is there except the fact that the pipe is there. The manhole was buried under about an inch or two of dirt in my back yard.

Some history:

When the house was built, the pipe was found but assumed to be a “dead”, unused pipe. The builder just covered it up. Then, in the spring, the pipe suddenly roared to life- the water burst through the broken pipe, through the dirt covering it, then through the basement window. It flooded the (unfinished) basement about four or five feet.

The city paid for repairs, and (according to the documents I’ve got) reconnected the pipe to the sewer line (and gave the previous owners about 5k for their trouble). I’d say the pipe runs from about a few inches to five feet or so below the ground (my back yard isn’t flat).

Optimally, I’d like the golf course to remove the pipe. I clearly can’t build a pool there, and if I build a garage back there I can see us having problems if the line needs to be repaired. If that’s not possible (which wouldn’t surprise me, given the layout of our neighborhood), I’d like to at least get enough money to landscape the yard such that whomever we sell the house to won’t want to build something there so they won’t see it as a detriment.

32

The city paid for the repairs due to the broken pipe? Does that mean the city owns the golf course? If so, your options may be much more limited than those for a privately owned course.

33

I’d be very interested in hearing what your real estate lawyer has to say about this. Please follow up when you find out.

34

In my previous house, they were doing a major teardown/remodel of the house behind us. During excavation of the new foundation, they uncovered and cracked an unplatted drainage pipe. During an ensuing storm, it poured into the excavation. We informed the village and the builder. The city informed us that it was not uncommon to have unplatted drainage. Since it wasn’t on our property, we didn’t ask what they would do about it. The builder was extremely unscrupulous, and simply backfilled the excavation. Result was that for the couple of years that the site stood vacant (the prospective buyers understandably backed out), the supposed million$ + home had a stagnant cement pond in the sub-basement!

Actually, our property was improved. It used to be that the back of our lot would pool water in heavy storms. After this, our lot no longer pooled - apparently it was all going into the neighboring basement.

Bottomline, I do not expect this to be a situation with a simple solution from a book. It is going to require communication, negotiation, and possibly litigation. The OP is going to have to decide what they wish to do and how best to get there. I’d be shocked if he were going to be able to get the pipe moved - especially if the city is involved either through owning the golf course or installing/maintaining the pipe. So instead, you’re looking at who you can sue for how much in damages. Messy, and whatever you get is not likely to make up for not being able to use your property as you wished. Might at least want the golf course or prior owner to pay for an accurate survey, to assist you in planning any improvements.

Also, now that you know of it, you will have to disclose it should you wish to sell.

Were you planning on building a garage? Installing a pool? Planting trees? Or are you just listing things than can’t be done with the pipe? Also, why do you consider the easement to be 20’ wide? In the towns I’ve lived, I haven’t thought planting/construction had to be 10’ away from gas/water/sewer. One of my concerns would be the places where the pipe is only a couple of inches deep. That sounds awfully hinky. But otherwise, you could possibly site the garage somewhere other than right on the pipe, and have the driveway installed in some way that allows access wiith minimal hassle.

In any event, I would be trying to get some definite word from the city and the golf course as to what they understand the situation to be, and how it impacts me. I’d suspect you’re looking at a few hundred $ off the top for a layer to write some letters.

Hey Lightnin’ - just out of curiosity - willing to offer up the name of your burg and the golf course in question?

35

I’d rather keep a *bit *of anonymity. :slight_smile: Given that info, it’d be pretty easy to figure out which one’s my house.

As for what we were planning on doing with the property- yeah, our existing garage is small, so we were planning right from the beginning to put a garage in the back yard. Apparently the previous owners did too- they’d already started clearing a spot for it. We haven’t been intending to put in a pool, but the next owners might- it’s a great location for one. And yeah, trees are high on our list of priorities- our yard doesn’t currently have any.

Dunno why it’s twenty feet across. That’s just what the drawn-up plat has.

And yeah, it pisses me off that we are now responsible for letting any potential buyers know about it. That’s why I’m fighting on this. The previous owners clearly knew about it, but didn’t let us know. If we’d known, we wouldn’t have paid as much as we did, or would have bought a different house.

36

All understandable. Just saying, figure out your priorities going in, and realize it will likely be a pain in the ass, and that you are not likely to be compensated what you might think it is worth.

But what do I know? Maybe the clerk/court will say go ahead and jackhammer through the pipe, and let the pondwater flow where it will!

37

Curiouser and curiouser! I’m really interested in why the city paid for this repair. Please keep us updated – this story gets more interesting each day. :slight_smile:

38

Wait, there’s a manhole in your yard? With a steel cover you can open and then climb inside kind of manhole? And it was buried under a couple inches of dirt? That’s… interesting, for a couple reasons.

One is, a manhole barely buried kind of sounds like it could be a manhole that was intentionally hidden. I’m just saying, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take some pictures ASAP, especially if it looks at all like the dirt might have been put over the manhole fairly recently (i.e. when the previous owners were getting ready to sell). Your lawyer will be very interested in those, particularly if it (as seems likely to me) comes to suing the non-disclosing sellers.

But second, a manhole makes this sound like more than just a little pipe draining a tiny bit of private property, and makes it sound more like a part of the city’s drainage system. Main thing is you need to get a lawyer to figure out who to sue (no reason you can’t go in on one lawyer with your neighbor, at least for now). But in the meantime, I’d call up the city and ask them if the pipe is theirs, where it comes from and where it goes. And, for that matter, why there’s a city manhole on private property.

[I’m guessing you’re somewhere, say, west of the Mississippi, where a lot of streams only flow in the Spring?]

39

Once you get inside, remember these numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. You’ll need to enter them into the computer every 108 minutes.

40

nm