I’ll try and keep this short and sweet because I’m not sure what to do.
I’m in the process of buying a non-HOA home where there’s a large easement/right of way in the back with power lines running perpendicular to it. Seller put up a brand new fence that goes between the house and ends right under the power lines. Meanwhile, neighboring fences are set back about 15 feet from them.
During and right after the negotiation period I explicitly asked all parties about this, didn’t really hear much other than attorneys were working with the seller on making sure it was approved by the easement owner. This went on for weeks, not really much word back.
Meanwhile, because I was very skeptical, I read up on the utility’s right of way requirements. I drove around looking at nearby with the same H-frame power lines and saw some with fences extending underneath. Seemed fine. Some friends even said I was being paranoid.
Now we’re days past the contingency period still waiting on hearing back from the seller on formal repair requests acceptance, and I come to find out today from my realtor that the seller/seller’s parties spoke with someone at the utility/easement owner on the phone (nothing written), and they now have to pay to bring the fence in-line with the neighboring fences. This reduces the backyard pretty substantially than what I was expecting.
When I asked about alternatives or figuring out if I could possibly extend the fence all the way with appropriate access even at my own expense (12-16’ fence gate for example), apparently I was supposed to do that as part of my due diligence. Which may be true, but am I now forced to accept this much smaller fenced-in backyard with no other alternatives?
I already sent an email to the utility company today asking about proposed options for fence extension that could possibly be approved, but that’s up in the air and I’m not the property owner so who knows if they’ll even follow up. Am I now SOL? Is my EMD lost as well if I don’t want to accept this change to the property?
tl;dr the seller put up a fence on an easement that wasn’t authorized, and now post-contingency period they have to reduce the fence space, and I don’t know if I want this house if (1) the useable backyard has to be cut in half, AND (2) there’s no other approved alternatives in the future.
Overhead utility line right of way/easement and fence headache. What are my options?
byu/UnSCo inRealEstate
Posted by UnSCo
5 Comments
You’re past the contingency period so your options are limited. Best case scenario is you walk away and lose your earnest money.
Personally, I would not have offered on a house under a big power line. I’d try to get out of it unless you’re getting a stellar deal and will be renting it to someone else, not living in it.
Your realtor let you down on this one and you shouldn’t have signed off on contingencies. Where are they in their advice? You can talk to a lawyer, but it does seem. The only option is to lose your earnest money on this.
I work with power utility companies for my job. The short answer is you can technically keep your fence where it was and if you didn’t make a stink about it then no one would be none the wiser. That being said what the easement really means is that if they need to work on the power lines they have the legal right to destroy your fence however they deem necessary to do the work and it will be on your dime to repair and fix the fence because it was built in their easement
Now that the power company knows about this fence they likely will not back down and allow you to just build it how you want it to be built. To them it’s just easier for you to not have a fence installed where the easement is
are you an english major, you seem convinced that your prose makes up for a lack of diagram/picture.
they own an easement over the land, but they may not have an easement that extends over the lot line at the back of the lot. if you keep the back fence at the back and install gates for the sides, the part they would travel across on the sides you may be good.