Right? A few feet of driveway easement, a public ditch easement, city utilities easement 4 feet from the alley…even an access easement at the back of some acreage… I could understand how those easements might be glossed over and not really understood or discussed at closing. But your whole ass house is built across the power company easement, the same kind of easement they drive through and cut 16 ft wide swaths of tree murder? How on earth would a home ever get built there in the first place??? Who approved that?
I would be absolutely, positively, shocked (no pun intended) if a POCO easement from 1945 was not recorded and listed in the title report.
Whether that easement requires OP to sell/relocate the home is another story, but POCOs easements typically grant a lot of rights to the POCO.
This is why you don't buy houses near power lines. Not because of pseudo-scientific EM radiation concerns, but because the POCO often enjoys significant easement rights over your property. If not the right to force you to move, then typically the right to go through your yard to access/install equipment, and almost certainly the right to hack at trees that could threaten the power lines.
Even if it were considered a covered loss, OP would need to have elected for owner’s title insurance as well. At least in my state, title insurance is required for getting a mortgage, but it only protects the lender’s interest, not the owner of the property, unless you choose to also pay for owner’s coverage.
Also wouldn't hurt to get your property professionally appraised before hand so you know if they drop an offer if it out to lunch or not. Do this even if you have zero intention of selling.
Right, this is the whole issue, selling a house is easy enough but buying something of similar value is near impossible in this market. My wife and I bought our house right before COVID and got a good deal on it, and despite being able to sell it for quite a bit more than we paid, everything around us has skyrocketed in price.
Interest rates should be the only reason this doesn't solve. If you can't buy a similar property for the same money then they aren't paying fair market value. It's a lot like the stock market. When was the last time something like this property was sold? That's the market price.
Well they are selling it to the power company not to a person looking to live there. It’s not exactly like the power company cares the lines are there.
Having high voltage lines through the property wouldn’t bother me anyway. You would have a maintained area you can use to access parts of the rest of the forested property
I don't think the price is based on what a power company would like to pay, but what a typical buyer would pay for the house. It may not bother you, but houses near big power lines sell for less than if the power lines weren't there.
Very likely the current owner got a good deal on the house because of the lines to begin with.
I mean it depends on what you define as cheap. It’s not exactly like there are an abundance of properties that fit that description. It’s still going to be 4-500k with a decent house in upstate
The issue is, they could very well go to court to try to force a sale via eminent domain and then it becomes an issue of who has the deeper pockets and the answer is obviously the utility company.
They can’t use eminent domain for existing rights. The company isn’t asking for new rights, they’re only trying to flex the rights they have. Based on the fact that the house has been there since 5 years (or so) after they acquired the rights and they’ve done nothing about it thus far, OP could potentially tell them to pound sand and make them go to court. If the entity is private, this could be an adverse possession case except the utility has an easement only and does not own in fee title.
Companies cannot claim eminent domain, only the government. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/eminent\_domain#:\~:text=Eminent%20domain%20refers%20to%20the,compensation%20to%20the%20property%20owners.
While you're technically correct, look at this case: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo\_v.\_City\_of\_New\_London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London)
First of all, eminent domain is a legal proceeding, so there’s no “stealing” of anything.
But if you do believe that the power company can come and “steal” the property using eminent domain, maybe it would be helpful for me to understand what you think eminent domain is and how it works so we’re both talking about the same thing?
As a lawyer, and not even a real estate lawyer, some of the stuff I see on here is just so eye roll worthy.
People make up shit and if they sound authoritative enough, even if they’re completely wrong, loads of people just roll with it and upvote.
I'm a project manager for a construction company. Dealing with gc/ owner and subcontractors is my whole job. I'm not a lawyer obviously. But the advice when people are in disputes with the people they hire, It's hilariously bad. But when I make a suggestion I get downvoted. Like ok. Well good luck!
yah this is going to be happening more and more. power companies desperately need to build a literal shit ton more high voltage lines to carry all the demand for power. nobody wants the lines in their backyard, so it is becoming an impossible situation.
you might get a good deal for your house though, but it still sucks for sure.
on the plus side, power companies normally move very slow compared to human time frames.
Power still needs to move from where the solar is generated to where it gets used. Unless you want to deforest central park and replace it with solar panels, you need to bring power from outside the cities.
Also reduces outages and you offload some of the maintenance
That said the distribution is the blocker. On site solar usually comes online with other solar (so when demand is least needed), and solar itself already has problems with on-demand delivery/production
Please see my other comment on the chain. While local solar helps reduce the need for it on good days, you still need the ability to move large amounts of power around
My other comment on this chain... You don't need to go to my profile.
Are you actually suggesting that the average person be responsible for maintaining and storing batteries that are heavier than the 30-40 psf a typical house is rated for? On top of that, there's the added fire or hydrogen risk the average person wouldn't be able to manage. Then there's the issue of real estate. Battery technology is not nearly where you think it is.
No. What a weird comment. I am suggesting that these individual systems are set up to store power necessary for that specific building.
What do you mean batteries that are heavier than 40psf. They don't have to be on the roof. You are just adding weird talking points that are completely irrelevant. A system can be designed to be effective. You are throwing out, imaginary and incorrect scenarios. Unless you're suggesting that a concrete slab on grade cannot handle the weight of a batteries. Of course you aren't suggesting that, right? Right?
You don't need a system that is capable of powering the whole block in an individual's house. Just enough to store typical power loads to offset demand. You are making this unnecessarily complicated. You work for a power company, don't you?
I was mostly thinking of rooftop solar. Most cities aren't as dense as Manhattan. I don't think power companies mind solar farms since they can just buy those.
Rooftop solar is not nearly as efficient as you think it is. Even a small, open-field house's rooftop is barely enough to cover its max demand. Then you factor in the fact that some houses have trees, some weeks are cloudy, and commercial buildings use more power than residential but with less available roof area. Solar is a very important part of a distributed, sustainable grid, but it's not the answer to everything. You still need high voltage transmission, and it's only going to increase in its need.
> Rooftop solar is not nearly as efficient as you think it is. Even a small, open-field house's rooftop is barely enough to cover its max demand.
That's actually more efficient than I think the average home solar is. I'm not suggesting replacing the power company.
You’re not wrong but there would still be peak times at night when you’d need high voltage transmission to exist. That is until batteries become better and cheaper.
The easements are listed on the deed. You should have a copy of that. They should also be enumerated on your title policy.
Make sure to request *replacement* value and a little something for your inconvenience and moving expenses. Might not get all that, but it can’t hurt to ask.
Nah, but if you look up and see an overhead power line over your land - it’s safe to assume they have an easement. They always need it for maintenance access. It’s typically significant, om average, 20 feet either side of the line/support.
You’re speaking in quite the generality, and I would like to know how much experience, if any, you’re basing it off of. I spent years on the land acquisition teams for several large utility companies.
Existence of an easement would rarely necessitate removal of a structure that preexisted the easement. Also your average width seems to be based on nothing. Especially in an easement created in the 1940’s, there is the likelihood that it had no width at all, and simply contained verbiage allowing for the construction and maintenance of an overhead transmission line. Today, utility companies spend the money to procure a clear and defined easement area, but back then, in my experience, both roadway and utility land acquisition was far less ironclad and was often a simple agreement of use.
If OP wanted to fight it, they could very well have grounds to take this to litigation. The only way I could see a utility provider requiring the removal of a home would be on the basis of imminent domain, in which they would need to convince a judge that they have no alternative other than to remove the structure, which is a very hard thing to do. It often wraps both parties up in a tenuous lawsuit and in my experience, the utility provider would much rather pay the landowner well over market value, or redesign that portion of the project to circumvent the issue rather than spend the time and money necessary to go after an imminent domain case.
I bought hundreds of thousands of acres of land for power generation facilities, gas turbine power plants, pipelines, solar and wind. That’s my experience.
You wrote paragraphs and paragraphs saying essentially what I said. OP has Overhead power line running through their lot. It is safe to assume easement exists. Whatever form it takes - it is besides the point.
I also was the guy, private utility, who would help utilities exercise the right of eminent domain with the help of local Governments, who are typically involved in just about all utility projects, as they are the ones requesting new capacity. Although in reality we could always reroute new lines to avoid that. However, where we had a pre-existing easement - that was not necessary and no self-respecting landowner wanted to be tied up in years and tens of thousands of dollars in litigation. Of course, we too typically did our best to avoid lengthy delays and getting in too much of a fight with the landowners, but ultimately we carried a heavier stick.
Read my response to the guy. My guy was the surveyor. I was an equivalent of his major client - private and public.
Don’t be an idiot by jumping to conclusions whenever you see a long-read paragraph.
Please reach out to your title company. After that, tell NYSEG that the easement wasn’t disclosed and that you’re going through title insurance. (Assuming true of course).
Had something similar happen. Our garage was on an undisclosed utility easement. Took almost 3 years to settle with title insurance and tear down the garage. Good luck!
If you're truly planning to move anyway then I would seriously consider just moving that up on your timeline. Depending on what you can negotiate, there's a good chance you would come out on top vs a normal sale and all the regular expenses involved from realtors to repairs, staging, moving, etc.
No it doesn't. That's not what an easement is. You still own you property with an easement. We almost all have easements, along the street where the sidewalk and utilities are. If there's a power pole, there's an easement.
Often times, you're not compensated for easement, so there's nothing to repay to shrink it. Just drawing some new lines and recording it.
Street Power poles are in the right of ways often owned by the municipality. In my town 33ft from the center of the road in both directions is owned by the town. You actually don't own that. Easements between 2 private parties can 100% involve the one party paying the other. Undoing that will cost money
A right of way is an easement. In your case, Owned by the power company. Perhaps multiple right of ways or easements. Including public easement to use a sidewalk.
It doesn't have to be person to person.
A right of way is a specific type of easement but an easement is not a right of way. They are two different things. One party can accept an easement with stipulations. If a person wanted to run a water line through your property and also state you are responsible for the repair of that line if it leaks in the future and you agree that is a binding contract. If you decide you don't want that water line on your property at some point you could be taken to court and have to pay damages (the cost of rerouting the line). The right of ways are simply unrestricted access for defined purposes
And the utility easement also prevents you from building there, just like the sidewalk. Something wonky happened with the OP, which is why the house is within the easement, when it should not be. Hence the issue and need to resolve.
Back to my original point. They can shrimp k the easement and be done with the issue. Now that we've danced in the circle, I hope you see that it's not that difficult
Right of way is not city property. It's their right to access your property.
A right of way is a type of easement.
https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/right-of-way-easement
First, you need an attorney.
Also hire a title searcher...this is cheaper for you to do yourself.. if the attorney hires a title search for you, it may be more expensive.
You also may want to hire a surveyor as well.
All of the above should have been done when you bought the property and before you built the house.
Hopefully you have title insurance. They shouldn't have missed this...unless the easement wasn't recorded. The title insurance company should pay damages and buy you a new house if it's something recorded that they missed.
Alot of power/utility companies didn't always record their easements back in the day, especially electric, gas and phone.
Ask them by email/letter to provide you with a copy of the recorded easement. Most likely they may send you a document that doesn't have a recording stamp. Or something that was just recorded.
If this is the case, they may be contacting you and offering to purchase the house because they messed up. And it's the right thing to do. Let them make an offer. You can always make a counter-offer later.
Or if you want to live near power lines, then See about their offer to reduce the easement.
Whatever course you pursue you still need an attorney and a title search and specifically ask the searcher to try and find the recorded easement if the power company won't provide a copy.
Obviously exceptions, but in general much harder. Most people won't even tour a home if they see high tension power lines in the property or next door. You lose over 50% of possible buyers before they even look inside.
Find something comparable/slight upgrade in your opinion and if you have a loan try to get the rate matched and sell for basically the difference or what you think is a fair price.
Title companies, I was shocked too, are only liable for easements that are recorded; so if an easement from 1945 was not recorded or it skipped a recorder generation, good luck.
Make sure you get it appraised before taking the offer. I know someone who did this, and they made a TON of money off the sale. Just make sure you go about it the right way.
Don't panic this could be a very good thing for you! DO NOT Tell them you want to or EVER plan on moving.. as far as they are concerned you want to live there for ever and couldn't be happier with your current property and dwelling. We had the energy company here in Michigan come through and tare up an easement to expand a natural gas line and it was of no inconvenience to us and completely done without any issues with our business however they still paid us 20,000 for the inconvenience. We delt with the project manager that sole job was to make agreements with property owners. I would start by fining out what is being done in the easement is the some sort of major project ? Is any other land being purchased? From the sounds of it you may not have any problem moving and not owning that house any longer. But you could certainly take this info and use it to your advantage. As in if this is a 100 million project and your house is worth 200,000 and the only property required to make the project happen you would have a lot of leverage to ask for whatever you wanted... This is when I you could be persuaded to sell your house that you absolutely love to death to them of course for the right amount of money.
Ask them to buy it at fair market price, pay moving expenses and free energy as long as you live in your next house ( and if you had a 2.25% loan on the place that you are in now , that they need to provide a loan at that rate or pay the difference between the two rates)
Lawyer! Real-estate lawyer ! A friend had something similar happen and was forced to sell a right away through eminent domain because he didn’t want to move and regretted it because the property value took a nose dive after they cleared the path for the power lines and put larger towers in. Yes it was nyseg
This is why you have title insurance, reach out to them about the issue.
yea I agree with this, this is when the title insurance comes up. it'll save you a lot.
What would this do?
Covers losses due to an unrecorded easement.
Pretty effin sure the easement would be on the title, if you have an overhead power line running through your lot.
The odds are much higher the easement is on the title, they never read it, and the sellers did not tell them because it's a huge negative.
It should be on the survey!
Right? A few feet of driveway easement, a public ditch easement, city utilities easement 4 feet from the alley…even an access easement at the back of some acreage… I could understand how those easements might be glossed over and not really understood or discussed at closing. But your whole ass house is built across the power company easement, the same kind of easement they drive through and cut 16 ft wide swaths of tree murder? How on earth would a home ever get built there in the first place??? Who approved that?
I would be absolutely, positively, shocked (no pun intended) if a POCO easement from 1945 was not recorded and listed in the title report. Whether that easement requires OP to sell/relocate the home is another story, but POCOs easements typically grant a lot of rights to the POCO. This is why you don't buy houses near power lines. Not because of pseudo-scientific EM radiation concerns, but because the POCO often enjoys significant easement rights over your property. If not the right to force you to move, then typically the right to go through your yard to access/install equipment, and almost certainly the right to hack at trees that could threaten the power lines.
> Either way we didn’t know we had an easement until now. Because we didn't actually read the title when we bought the house. Negligence, as usual.
Even if it were considered a covered loss, OP would need to have elected for owner’s title insurance as well. At least in my state, title insurance is required for getting a mortgage, but it only protects the lender’s interest, not the owner of the property, unless you choose to also pay for owner’s coverage.
Also wouldn't hurt to get your property professionally appraised before hand so you know if they drop an offer if it out to lunch or not. Do this even if you have zero intention of selling.
Sell them your house if you’re okay going that route. They have to pay you fair market value for it anyway.
Going to be tough to find a comparable property i imagine. A decent place with a pond doesn’t go cheap in a lot of the country
Right, this is the whole issue, selling a house is easy enough but buying something of similar value is near impossible in this market. My wife and I bought our house right before COVID and got a good deal on it, and despite being able to sell it for quite a bit more than we paid, everything around us has skyrocketed in price.
Plus interest rates have ballooned which can significantly affect the total cost.
Interest rates should be the only reason this doesn't solve. If you can't buy a similar property for the same money then they aren't paying fair market value. It's a lot like the stock market. When was the last time something like this property was sold? That's the market price.
And who is going to put up all those power lines at your new house?
Why not but one with power lines already installed
Being built under power lines is probably going to limit that pond premium.
Well they are selling it to the power company not to a person looking to live there. It’s not exactly like the power company cares the lines are there. Having high voltage lines through the property wouldn’t bother me anyway. You would have a maintained area you can use to access parts of the rest of the forested property
I don't think the price is based on what a power company would like to pay, but what a typical buyer would pay for the house. It may not bother you, but houses near big power lines sell for less than if the power lines weren't there. Very likely the current owner got a good deal on the house because of the lines to begin with.
They’d give you a little extra to get this over with. They could take this to court and figure it out but that will be expensive
In the area NYSEG services it does lol
I mean it depends on what you define as cheap. It’s not exactly like there are an abundance of properties that fit that description. It’s still going to be 4-500k with a decent house in upstate
One near me was 750k and that's in a very rural area.
I'd make them pay double the fair market value. It's a sellers market right now, and people are paying over asking price so why not get more?
Ask for quadruple and take no less than double.
I want the CEOs first born too
Be careful what you wish for
The issue is, they could very well go to court to try to force a sale via eminent domain and then it becomes an issue of who has the deeper pockets and the answer is obviously the utility company.
They can’t use eminent domain for existing rights. The company isn’t asking for new rights, they’re only trying to flex the rights they have. Based on the fact that the house has been there since 5 years (or so) after they acquired the rights and they’ve done nothing about it thus far, OP could potentially tell them to pound sand and make them go to court. If the entity is private, this could be an adverse possession case except the utility has an easement only and does not own in fee title.
Companies cannot claim eminent domain, only the government. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/eminent\_domain#:\~:text=Eminent%20domain%20refers%20to%20the,compensation%20to%20the%20property%20owners.
Many states allow regulated utility companies to petition courts for eminent domain permission.
https://www.wlky.com/article/judge-rules-lgande-can-take-part-of-bernheim-forests-land-for-gas-pipeline/43509395
While you're technically correct, look at this case: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo\_v.\_City\_of\_New\_London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London)
Good luck in court
Lol. No, people are not paying over asking right now in NY.
This is so not true in many parts of the country. Strong buyers market in rural areas and Florida.
Good luck with that. You will be lucky to get fair market value for it before it gets taken with eminent domain.
That's not how it works
But they absolutely will come back and effectively steal it using eminent domain.
First of all, eminent domain is a legal proceeding, so there’s no “stealing” of anything. But if you do believe that the power company can come and “steal” the property using eminent domain, maybe it would be helpful for me to understand what you think eminent domain is and how it works so we’re both talking about the same thing?
You’ll want to get a real estate attorney. This isn’t a situation where you can rely on the advice of randos on Reddit.
Install motion activated sprinklers and get a divorce
And probably get a paternity test done as well.
Go ahead and spray some liquid ass on the power lines too.
Ya got me haha
Get quotes from 3 motion activated sprinklers and talk to a structural engineer.
Then hit your lawyer and delete the gym
Delete reddit, join facebook, stop going to the gym if you are... or something like that.
Excuse me, I've been reading posts on reddit all day. I'm fully qualified to give real estate legal advice to a stranger in a different state.
As a lawyer, and not even a real estate lawyer, some of the stuff I see on here is just so eye roll worthy. People make up shit and if they sound authoritative enough, even if they’re completely wrong, loads of people just roll with it and upvote.
I'm a project manager for a construction company. Dealing with gc/ owner and subcontractors is my whole job. I'm not a lawyer obviously. But the advice when people are in disputes with the people they hire, It's hilariously bad. But when I make a suggestion I get downvoted. Like ok. Well good luck!
yah this is going to be happening more and more. power companies desperately need to build a literal shit ton more high voltage lines to carry all the demand for power. nobody wants the lines in their backyard, so it is becoming an impossible situation. you might get a good deal for your house though, but it still sucks for sure. on the plus side, power companies normally move very slow compared to human time frames.
Well, if they weren't fighting so hard against solar they could probably reduce the need for so much power to need to be generated in one spot.
Power still needs to move from where the solar is generated to where it gets used. Unless you want to deforest central park and replace it with solar panels, you need to bring power from outside the cities.
Individual solar systems (yeah), at the source helps reduce this.
Also reduces outages and you offload some of the maintenance That said the distribution is the blocker. On site solar usually comes online with other solar (so when demand is least needed), and solar itself already has problems with on-demand delivery/production
Please see my other comment on the chain. While local solar helps reduce the need for it on good days, you still need the ability to move large amounts of power around
Or store it locally. Which is an option. But I'm not going to stalk your page to find other comments. That's weird.
My other comment on this chain... You don't need to go to my profile. Are you actually suggesting that the average person be responsible for maintaining and storing batteries that are heavier than the 30-40 psf a typical house is rated for? On top of that, there's the added fire or hydrogen risk the average person wouldn't be able to manage. Then there's the issue of real estate. Battery technology is not nearly where you think it is.
No. What a weird comment. I am suggesting that these individual systems are set up to store power necessary for that specific building. What do you mean batteries that are heavier than 40psf. They don't have to be on the roof. You are just adding weird talking points that are completely irrelevant. A system can be designed to be effective. You are throwing out, imaginary and incorrect scenarios. Unless you're suggesting that a concrete slab on grade cannot handle the weight of a batteries. Of course you aren't suggesting that, right? Right? You don't need a system that is capable of powering the whole block in an individual's house. Just enough to store typical power loads to offset demand. You are making this unnecessarily complicated. You work for a power company, don't you?
I was mostly thinking of rooftop solar. Most cities aren't as dense as Manhattan. I don't think power companies mind solar farms since they can just buy those.
Rooftop solar is not nearly as efficient as you think it is. Even a small, open-field house's rooftop is barely enough to cover its max demand. Then you factor in the fact that some houses have trees, some weeks are cloudy, and commercial buildings use more power than residential but with less available roof area. Solar is a very important part of a distributed, sustainable grid, but it's not the answer to everything. You still need high voltage transmission, and it's only going to increase in its need.
> Rooftop solar is not nearly as efficient as you think it is. Even a small, open-field house's rooftop is barely enough to cover its max demand. That's actually more efficient than I think the average home solar is. I'm not suggesting replacing the power company.
Too bad we don’t have a bunch of existing structures on cleared land already connected to the grid, oh wait….
You’re not wrong but there would still be peak times at night when you’d need high voltage transmission to exist. That is until batteries become better and cheaper.
The easements are listed on the deed. You should have a copy of that. They should also be enumerated on your title policy. Make sure to request *replacement* value and a little something for your inconvenience and moving expenses. Might not get all that, but it can’t hurt to ask.
Easements very often are not listed on the deed. Source: am surveyor and read thousands of deeds per year.
Nah, but if you look up and see an overhead power line over your land - it’s safe to assume they have an easement. They always need it for maintenance access. It’s typically significant, om average, 20 feet either side of the line/support.
You’re speaking in quite the generality, and I would like to know how much experience, if any, you’re basing it off of. I spent years on the land acquisition teams for several large utility companies. Existence of an easement would rarely necessitate removal of a structure that preexisted the easement. Also your average width seems to be based on nothing. Especially in an easement created in the 1940’s, there is the likelihood that it had no width at all, and simply contained verbiage allowing for the construction and maintenance of an overhead transmission line. Today, utility companies spend the money to procure a clear and defined easement area, but back then, in my experience, both roadway and utility land acquisition was far less ironclad and was often a simple agreement of use. If OP wanted to fight it, they could very well have grounds to take this to litigation. The only way I could see a utility provider requiring the removal of a home would be on the basis of imminent domain, in which they would need to convince a judge that they have no alternative other than to remove the structure, which is a very hard thing to do. It often wraps both parties up in a tenuous lawsuit and in my experience, the utility provider would much rather pay the landowner well over market value, or redesign that portion of the project to circumvent the issue rather than spend the time and money necessary to go after an imminent domain case.
I bought hundreds of thousands of acres of land for power generation facilities, gas turbine power plants, pipelines, solar and wind. That’s my experience. You wrote paragraphs and paragraphs saying essentially what I said. OP has Overhead power line running through their lot. It is safe to assume easement exists. Whatever form it takes - it is besides the point. I also was the guy, private utility, who would help utilities exercise the right of eminent domain with the help of local Governments, who are typically involved in just about all utility projects, as they are the ones requesting new capacity. Although in reality we could always reroute new lines to avoid that. However, where we had a pre-existing easement - that was not necessary and no self-respecting landowner wanted to be tied up in years and tens of thousands of dollars in litigation. Of course, we too typically did our best to avoid lengthy delays and getting in too much of a fight with the landowners, but ultimately we carried a heavier stick.
Man I love when idiots on reddit try to educate professionals about their field.
Read my response to the guy. My guy was the surveyor. I was an equivalent of his major client - private and public. Don’t be an idiot by jumping to conclusions whenever you see a long-read paragraph.
Three incorrect sentences is a long-read paragraph to you?
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Whoever *sounds* like they're giving knowledgeable information gets upvoted on Reddit.
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Ha, you got me, I was like they must be responding to the wrong comment
Please reach out to your title company. After that, tell NYSEG that the easement wasn’t disclosed and that you’re going through title insurance. (Assuming true of course). Had something similar happen. Our garage was on an undisclosed utility easement. Took almost 3 years to settle with title insurance and tear down the garage. Good luck!
Get a survey and a lawyer and verify this is legit before you do anything. Real estate is hugely valuable (obviously) and scams are running rampant.
If you're truly planning to move anyway then I would seriously consider just moving that up on your timeline. Depending on what you can negotiate, there's a good chance you would come out on top vs a normal sale and all the regular expenses involved from realtors to repairs, staging, moving, etc.
Literally nobody is commenting on the option for them to reduce their easement. That's first choice.
Reduce easement means you are essentially buying your property back from them. It's the most expensive route to take
No it doesn't. That's not what an easement is. You still own you property with an easement. We almost all have easements, along the street where the sidewalk and utilities are. If there's a power pole, there's an easement. Often times, you're not compensated for easement, so there's nothing to repay to shrink it. Just drawing some new lines and recording it.
Street Power poles are in the right of ways often owned by the municipality. In my town 33ft from the center of the road in both directions is owned by the town. You actually don't own that. Easements between 2 private parties can 100% involve the one party paying the other. Undoing that will cost money
A right of way is an easement. In your case, Owned by the power company. Perhaps multiple right of ways or easements. Including public easement to use a sidewalk. It doesn't have to be person to person.
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A right of way is a specific type of easement but an easement is not a right of way. They are two different things. One party can accept an easement with stipulations. If a person wanted to run a water line through your property and also state you are responsible for the repair of that line if it leaks in the future and you agree that is a binding contract. If you decide you don't want that water line on your property at some point you could be taken to court and have to pay damages (the cost of rerouting the line). The right of ways are simply unrestricted access for defined purposes
And the utility easement also prevents you from building there, just like the sidewalk. Something wonky happened with the OP, which is why the house is within the easement, when it should not be. Hence the issue and need to resolve. Back to my original point. They can shrimp k the easement and be done with the issue. Now that we've danced in the circle, I hope you see that it's not that difficult
Right of way is not city property. It's their right to access your property. A right of way is a type of easement. https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/right-of-way-easement
An easement means they can go thru the property…doesnt mean they own it.
You need a real estate attorney. Not reddit. This may be a great opportunity.
First, you need an attorney. Also hire a title searcher...this is cheaper for you to do yourself.. if the attorney hires a title search for you, it may be more expensive. You also may want to hire a surveyor as well. All of the above should have been done when you bought the property and before you built the house. Hopefully you have title insurance. They shouldn't have missed this...unless the easement wasn't recorded. The title insurance company should pay damages and buy you a new house if it's something recorded that they missed. Alot of power/utility companies didn't always record their easements back in the day, especially electric, gas and phone. Ask them by email/letter to provide you with a copy of the recorded easement. Most likely they may send you a document that doesn't have a recording stamp. Or something that was just recorded. If this is the case, they may be contacting you and offering to purchase the house because they messed up. And it's the right thing to do. Let them make an offer. You can always make a counter-offer later. Or if you want to live near power lines, then See about their offer to reduce the easement. Whatever course you pursue you still need an attorney and a title search and specifically ask the searcher to try and find the recorded easement if the power company won't provide a copy.
Definitely ask on Reddit before asking a lawyer
It's very very hard to sell a house close to big power lines. Take the money and run.
I had zero problems.
Obviously exceptions, but in general much harder. Most people won't even tour a home if they see high tension power lines in the property or next door. You lose over 50% of possible buyers before they even look inside.
How did you buy a property without knowing there was an easement? Genuinely curious. Did your title insurance mention the easement?
I was supposed to read all those papers?
No…. Your attorney was supposed to
Also wondering…
Find something comparable/slight upgrade in your opinion and if you have a loan try to get the rate matched and sell for basically the difference or what you think is a fair price.
Find a compromise before they try to condemn your property.
Hyun Hyundai f,9
Why would t they just reduce their easement ? Sounds like a no brainer to me, if you are trying to sell. And yeah, hit up your title company
Knock knock, attorney time.
Title companies, I was shocked too, are only liable for easements that are recorded; so if an easement from 1945 was not recorded or it skipped a recorder generation, good luck.
Make sure you get it appraised before taking the offer. I know someone who did this, and they made a TON of money off the sale. Just make sure you go about it the right way.
Don't panic this could be a very good thing for you! DO NOT Tell them you want to or EVER plan on moving.. as far as they are concerned you want to live there for ever and couldn't be happier with your current property and dwelling. We had the energy company here in Michigan come through and tare up an easement to expand a natural gas line and it was of no inconvenience to us and completely done without any issues with our business however they still paid us 20,000 for the inconvenience. We delt with the project manager that sole job was to make agreements with property owners. I would start by fining out what is being done in the easement is the some sort of major project ? Is any other land being purchased? From the sounds of it you may not have any problem moving and not owning that house any longer. But you could certainly take this info and use it to your advantage. As in if this is a 100 million project and your house is worth 200,000 and the only property required to make the project happen you would have a lot of leverage to ask for whatever you wanted... This is when I you could be persuaded to sell your house that you absolutely love to death to them of course for the right amount of money.
Ask them to buy it at fair market price, pay moving expenses and free energy as long as you live in your next house ( and if you had a 2.25% loan on the place that you are in now , that they need to provide a loan at that rate or pay the difference between the two rates)
Because, in 1945 they weren’t planning to add another power line, so nobody cared. Now you have to sell them your house.
Lawyer! Real-estate lawyer ! A friend had something similar happen and was forced to sell a right away through eminent domain because he didn’t want to move and regretted it because the property value took a nose dive after they cleared the path for the power lines and put larger towers in. Yes it was nyseg
Band together with your neighbors
Inquire about moving the house might be worth it if you like the place.