We bought our house 1 1/2 years ago with no easements of any kind disclosed on any closing documents. Back in September two guys showed up at my house from TransCanada gas company and said they were here to do a gas leak test on my property and their pipeline. It turned out that this pipeline runs from one front corner of my property on a big angle across the center of the front yard, under the driveway and next to the attached garage. The gas company employee commented that my garage was too close to “their” easement.
So I got on the gas company web site and after much clicking around found a map of my area that showed gas lines that included my property very clearly. I filed a claim with my Title Insurance Company and obtained what’s called a “tax card” from my Township showing everything about my house and property that I’m paying taxes on. It was all accurate including the garage and history showing the permit issued to build the garage by the previous owner. Accurate that is except I am paying the taxes on all of it including the gas line easement. In the meantime the Title company received and forwarded to me a copy of the original legal easement that was sent by the gas company dated 1951. My house was built in 2000 so the gas line was there first.
Huge problems because of this; First, I was not informed by anyone about this easement that had I known about prior to my purchase, would have caused me to not make an offer to buy. The Township claims that the easement is not recorded as if that gets them off the hook for charging me taxes on property I have no right to use and also for property that my permitted garage was built too close to a gas line on.
Next and bigger problem; Risk and danger living right next to a potential bomb that I will not accept. Upon my own research I discover that the old cast iron pipe used for this VERY active natural gas line running from a well head into a pumping station has a useful life of about 50 years before it becomes a disaster waiting to happen. It is now 65 years old and since we’ve lived here we’ve experienced two Earthquakes that shook the entire house almost to the ground. This is Michigan. We don’t have Earthquakes normally.
I want full reimbursement for every last dime I paid to buy and move into this house as if it never happened. One more big problem; My wife and I both retired as of 7 months prior to the gas line discovery and followed through on plans for this to be our final retirement home. We are living on Social Security and couldn’t get another mortgage if our lives depended on it. I am holding the Title company entirely responsible and they will need to replace this house at zero cost to me plus moving expenses, attorney fee’s, pain and suffering, my time wasted on this and anything else that I can claim. I want and expect a different and fully paid for house at the end of this at the very least.
My Title company is at the point now where they will be getting an appraisal done but I have not informed them of my demands yet. I would expect an offer equivalent to pennies from them so I am looking for a qualified attorney who is not in the back pockets of the Township, Title Company or Gas Company.
Also, the whole point of an “easement” is that you still own the property, but someone else has the right to use it as well. So it is normal to owe taxes on an easement, because it is your property.
More seriously, you get what you pay for, and you are responsible deciding how far you figuratively (and sometimes literally) want to dig before you purchase a property. Title insurance was created to inexpensively insure-over most problems, rather than leaving folks having to break the bank in lawyer, search, survey and locator costs trying to determine every possible defect or problem that there might be with a piece of property.
As far as not being compensated for easements, remember that if it were not for easements, then, you would not have things like water, electricity, gas, telephone, internet and sidewalks without paying a great deal more for them because they in turn would be compensating each and every property through which they passed (and let’s not even get into what civilization would be like if easements did not exist).
The OP here piggy-backed onto another thread. I’ve split it and the responses off into a new thread to keep the older thread’s issue from getting convoluted.
I’d advise you to find a good lawyer to review the title insurance policy. If they promised to disclose any easements and failed to do so, you may have a claim. It will certainly depend on the language of the policy, and they can be tricky to interpret. (Don’t try to do it yourself; sometimes they have exclusions and limitations that are clear, but which are not enforceable in certain jurisdictions).
I would expect some push back from the title insurance company when they hear your demands, so consulting with an attorney in advance would be a good idea And given the magnitude of your demands, spending the money on an attorney to evaluate your options and present your claim would be money well spent. I wouldn’t be too worried about the attorney “being in the back pocket of the insurance company, etc.” Most attorneys (99.9%) take their obligation to serve their client’s interests very seriously. Any attorney with an actual conflict would (should) decline to represent you and offer to refer you to someone else.
I’m in MI and when neighbors claimed an easement across the corner of my property, I contacted the title company. I was told they search back 40 years. If they find nothing, that’s that. My house was about 10 years old. I checked court records. No easement. I finally had my lawyer write to the neighbors, something which greatly offends the natives, and they finally agreed to cease and desist.
However, the telephone company does have an easement, right through the middle of the septic mound which the builders of said mound apparently ignored, ick, and it is clearly marked on the survey and included in the deed.
I post this only because of the 40 year search limit. If your title company searches back farther, yet didn’t, maybe it’ll help?
Does the builder of the house, the guy getting the permits, bear any responsibility?
As to the fun of having an interstate gas pipeline near your house, I’ll update a post I made years ago.
"About [del]10+[/del] 15+ years ago a major interstate natural gas pipeline was dug up less than a block from our house. (It’s never a good thing when a helicopter shot of your neighborhood leads off the 5 o’clock news.)
Big roaring sound all day. Took forever for the excess pressure to drain out.
Anyway, early on a fireman comes to my door and tells me to evacuate. I ask where to? They wouldn’t even let me drive out since I would have to pass by the break. (I had nowhere nearby to go. The only people that’d take me for a day were my neighbors, not a solution.) So I said I was staying put and that was that.
In the evening, Mrs. FtG couldn’t get near the house due to the street being blocked off. So she drove to the other side of the neighborhood and walked home (thru woods and over a creek, in the dark)."
To the OP: You’re moaning about paying taxes on an easement means your really don’t understand the basics of this. Get a lawyer, do whatever the lawyer says. Don’t pretend to you know anything about the law. Be calm and don’t gripe.
Civilian beavers, true. But then there are the mercenary miners employed by TransCan.
And as far as military mining goes, one of them took out the Trans-Canada just south of Sudbury. You’ve heard of golfers hitting a birdie or an eagle? Well I accidentally hit a beaver. The next day the Trans-Canada was cut through by a flood from a breached beaver dam on the golf course.
It is extremely unlikely that you will be compensated for anything. Ulility easements are commonly found under all manner of commercial and residential properties and just because they are taking space underground does not mean that you are not subject to being taxed on that piece of property.
You don’t seem to understand how public utility easements work. Any money you spend on a lawyer to pursue this foolish quest to have people pay you money to get out of that house because you are scared of the gas line being under the property you might as well burn in a barrel.
First, let me apologize for coming across so bitter about this. I should explain that the gas line I’m talking about isn’t a standard, common 3/4 inch pipe found in most neighborhoods. This is a major artery running from the main gas well head to a large pumping station. The well head is where natural gas is being extracted from the ground by the use of fracking.
The pipe on my property requires a 25 foot easement on either side of it for a total land use of 50 feet by about 200 feet. It is common for utilitity company’s doing major exploration and drilling to at least pay the taxes for their portion of land being used. Many times they will pay the taxes on the entire parcel as payment for the land.
What I don’t understand is how a house can be sold to someone without full disclosure of such a life threatening easement. It is the equivalent of finding out you have a nuclear reactor right next to your house. Regardless of Township or County rules or any Title Company steer around, how can anybody expect a new owner to accept the risks without being allowed to make that decision prior to a purchase. The only way I could have known about this prior to a purchase is through disclosure. There are disclosure laws in place and in this case, they were broken.
The best advice I’ve seen here is to get a lawyer which is definitely my plan. I’ve done a lot of research on this but I am not a lawyer. Has anyone else out there had any experience with a life threatening non disclosure issue?
State laws vary and while I might imagine it’s possible a utility may compensate you while actually digging, installing on your property you seem to have extrapolated this into the notion that they should paying your taxes in perpetuity as long as the pipe exists under your property. This is absurd. Why do you think this?
State disclosure laws in real estate usually require (if you are expecting compensatory judgments in your favor) that the selling party or their agents have to be (1) aware of the existence of the item at issue and that (2) this item would seriously impact the utility of the property. Even if you can prove knowledge you then have to prove negative impact. And no your “feelings” about the issue don’t count. For most people a gas pipe is in the same category as a water or electrical line. Your high drama “It is the equivalent of finding out you have a nuclear reactor right next to your house” is not how most of the world sees the real world risk of a gas feeder line (even a large one) in the ground under the house.
I would not take the fact that the title company is bothering to do an appraisal as an indication your have a large compensation payday coming. They are just trying to get the lay of the land in response to your claim.
Having said all this, if you put the drama queen gibberish parts of your argument aside, the only claim/harm you may actually have is (possibly) relative to the garage being built too close to the utility easement, but to be compensated for that that it would require proving the seller was negligent for not knowing about a non-recorded 65 year old pipe when he applied for and got his permit to build the garage. So that’s not a slam dunk.
The title company may (or may not) offer you some nuisance STFU money once the appraisal is done but if the pipe (per your note) was not recorded and they did their job correctly they don’t have to.
The key to this whole thing is the recordation. If the 65 year old pipe was not in the municipal or county land records and was not recorded anywhere but in the gas company records there’s no way a title search, a survey (unless markers are found) or a home owner would know about the existence of this thing. If you want compensation you have to prove (1) they should (somehow) have known and (2) this destroys the value of your property.
You might want to think hard about this is likely to go before you start up a lawyers engine at $300 to $500 per hour out of your pocket.
I’m in no way an expert in Michigan land use law, but if the easement was never recorded, is it really an easement? Sure, the has company has a line under the property, but if they never owned the land or recorded an easement, what legal rights do they have to get access to it or require the property owner to do anything on their property (including not build a garage)?
An interesting point although I would imagine there is probably some master predicate legal authority obtained and recorded at the state/local level that the gas company got to do the pipe installs before they proceeded 65 years ago, even if the city records do not reflect this.
And even if it’s not the OP still has a problem if he expects the title company to pay him compensation or move him.
The OP said “Back in September two guys showed up at my house from TransCanada gas company and said they were here to do a gas leak test on my property and their pipeline.”
The house was built in 2000; the OP bought it a year and a half ago. If the OP bought it from someone who lived in it since 2000 it is extremely likely the gas company did gas leak tests during that interval–this is something regularly done for large pipelines. If less than that there is still a good possibility that a gas leak test was done. So the previous homeowner probably knew.
Maybe or maybe not. I’ve been where I am for approx. 20 years. The only times I have ever seen the electric meter guy is when I am sick during the day because they always come (in my area) during the daylight workday around 1-4. If I had not been home on a weekday at noon he would have just read it and left. I could imagine testing for gas leaks is a much less frequent occurrence than meter reading.
But even so now that the OP has started making lawsuit noises the seller is (if he has any sense) only going to be replying through counsel so good luck getting him to admit on the record that he knew all about this. And even if he did the OP then has to prove he had a duty to make a special point of this and disclose it as a negative impact on value when most buyers are not (real world) going to care all that much about something like that.
I am curious if the OP or the lender had a survey done and if the property is served with residential gas or not.
Testing requirements for gas lines is covered under 49 CFR Part 192. It is every five years for distribution lines, not sure what it is for transmission lines.
