You would think after 12 years in real estate, I'd have at least one week where I'm out with buyers on showings that I wouldn't say... I've never seen that before or I can't believe the listing agent didn't know about that. Honestly, other than the teaching aspect of the home buying process, it's what I enjoy most. Buyers and Sellers think we do the job for the money or the freedom, but I don't. I love teaching buyers and educating sellers about their homes, the market and all the nuisance that make real estate exciting to me. Here is a example I share with buyers when they are considering purchasing a home near utility or government easements. Most buyers and unfortunately many agents don't understand easements and what their impacts can be. Many rely on the title company to identify easements rather than being proactive and asking the city or county about them and when they are found during the title search, most never explain potential impacts of the easement and the right of the easement holder.
This is the before and after of a foreclosure listing that had multiple easements on the property. It had high tension electrical wires (washed out in photo)and it had rail road tracks running pararrel to the electrical lines which can be seen in the after picture. This devastation was the result of a comedy of errors both by the lender holding the property, the utility company holding the easement and likely the buyers agent.
Firstly- The bank's third party vendor securing their property posted the wrong contact information on the property and since in most cases the utility notifies sellers of potential work issue via snail mail and not an in person, the lender never received notice of the clearing set to be conducted.
Secondly- The utility hired a third party company to clear the 100 foot easement of medium and tall trees that were getting close to threatening the power lines. However, they did not advise the third party firm how to access the property, where the proper property lines were and that it was private property so that they did tree specific cutting.
So what happened that lead to this. With no notice to the actual owners, the firm hired by the utility accessed the property by using a private driveway that was on the side of the lot that used to access a now removed building. They used heavy equipment and cleared not only the trees, but ever weed, shrub, sapling and pretty much everything including the grass from not only the easement, but most of the properties back yard leaving complete and total destruction. They destroyed the driveway access to that section of the property, tore down the large fence dividing the property from the easement area and left nothing living behind. Unbelievable right? But this can happen to any property that has these types of easements. There is no repercussions for this type of devastation.
You say, "how is that possible"? Well, the utility has a legal right to access the property to access easements. They claimed as they were blocked by high water on the other side of the easement and they had to access from the property side. They have no mandate at any level what they can and cannot cut down in order to protect the utility, so this vendor used huge machinery to clear cut the area in order to save time and money. The utility also mailed notice to the property address, however they never checked tax records for address of property owner of records address which would have identified the bank that owned the property and the correct address. The utility did reimburse for the rear fence and leveled the ground and reseeded the yard, but the expense was nominal compared to the actual cost the bank paid to make the actual repairs. What a mess!
While this is an extraordinary example, it is a potential issue to any home owners that have large utility easements running through or adjacent to their property. Buyers are still willing to accept these easements if the property is right, the price is right and they are educated on what to look for and what to do if they receive notice. Every agent should know how to explain this and allow the buyers to make informed decisions. I certainly would hate to get a call from an angry home owner that came home to a mess like this, so I don't! Be preparred and inform.. Good house hunting!
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