Call the utility provider if you want to know where any utility easements are on your property. Alternatively, go to the county land records office or city hall and request a map of the easement locations from a clerk. A property survey will also reveal the location of utility easements.
What are the most typical easements used by utility companies?
While there are many various types of easements, the following are the ones that most typically affect a property owner who wants to develop or remodel on their property:
Utility Easements
A utility easement, the most common sort of easement, permits a utility company to run its pipes, lines, and other equipment beneath or on other people’s land to service its customers. Rather than purchasing all of the land required, utility corporations work out easement agreements with landowners. Due to the high cost of constructing and maintaining utilities, these easements typically last a long time, if not forever.
Drainage Easements
A drainage easement is land that has been given to a municipality for the purpose of water runoff drainage, flood management, or storm sewer access. In these locations, the landowner retains ownership of the property and is responsible for paying taxes and maintaining it. The drainage easement, on the other hand, may have an impact on insurance costs, the ability of a mortgage lender to finance the acquisition, and future construction plans.
Sidewalk Easements
A sidewalk easement, which is one of the most frequent types of easements, permits visitors to access your property from the front. Even if there is no real pavement, the title report may nonetheless show an easement.
Driveway Easements
Larger parcel properties with long drives are more likely to have driveway easements. For example, if a previously divided deep lot adds a nearby property, the adjoining property may require access through your driveway to acquire street access.
In Texas, how wide is a utility easement?
Kenneth Lynch, Tommy Batchelor, and Twant Wilson are the appellees in this case, and they all possess property in Bowie County, Texas, that is burdened by utility easements in favor of the Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO). SWEPCO was awarded these easements in 1949, when the land was still owned by the previous owners.
The issue is that the language in the easement documents does not indicate the easement’s width. The easement has traditionally been thought to be thirty feet wide (fifteen feet on each side of the power line).
SWEPCO attempted to persuade landowners in 2014 to agree to the easement being officially set at 100′ across. SWEPCO accessed their land anyhow, claiming the 1949 agreement, despite the four landowners’ refusal to sign the agreement.
Lynch and the others filed a declaratory judgment complaint against SWEPCO, requesting that the trial court rule that the company’s earlier usage of various utility easements over their particular tracts of land limited the easement’s width to thirty feet.
They believed that the broad easements granted to SWEPCO limited their ability to utilise their land to its full potential. SWEPCO claimed that the 1949 documents allowed a general easement with no width restrictions.
The trial court ruled in favor of the property owners, stating that SWEPCO’s earlier use of the easement across their properties limited its current and future usage to a thirty-foot width. The landowners were also awarded attorney fees and expenses by the court.
What is a California public utility easement?
Any privately held land in which the City maintains an easement for public utility uses and purposes, regardless of whether or not any “public utility,” as defined in California Public Utilities Code section 216(a), has an easement for identical public utility uses and purposes.
What is a Florida utility easement?
Many Sarasota area houses have electricity lines running through their yards, either underground or overhead. Legal easements are granted to every utility company, such as Florida Power & Light, on the land over or under which their lines run. They can only utilize the property to access their equipment, which includes powerlines, electrical poles, and towers. This is likely to be the case if you live in a more rural region. However, the land is not owned by the easement holder (the electric company).
What do you call a utility easement if you don’t know what it’s called?
PUEs can be found in almost every property. The term PUE refers to a public utility easement. A PUE, like other easements, gives the easement owner specific rights. If you own your property, a PUE could explain why you awoke to discover an electrician on your backyard utility pole without first asking your permission (that being said, the power company will generally reach out to you before just sending someone to invade your backyardbut, they legally do not have to).
PUEs and their scope are familiar territory for our real estate attorneys.
Is it possible for a property owner to obstruct an easement?
You may be wondering who has access to and who can cross over your land if you’ve discovered an easement running through your property. There are a variety of easements available, each of which allows for diverse property uses. We’ll go over each of the different forms and explain who has access to them in each scenario.
An easement is, at its most basic level, “the right to use another person’s land for a specified purpose.” The easement could include the entire land or just a portion of it, and the’stated purpose’ could include anything from laying water pipes to gaining access to a site that is otherwise inaccessible to connecting two independent properties. An easement is a legal right provided by one property owner to another that prohibits the original landowner from building on or around the easement or limiting access to it.
A sort of easement is a right of way. Adjacent landowners typically agree on a right of way easement. This could be because it’s essential to cross one property to go to another, the easement provides a far more convenient point of access, or it permits one property owner to cross another’s land to get to public land. For example, a property owner may grant an easement to someone in order to promote access to historically significant public woodland or a fishing river. It’s also crucial to think about the public right of way, sometimes known as the “right to roam.” Usually, this is allowed for one of two reasons. Either the landowner has granted permission or the right of way has been used by the local community for many years.
There are several sorts of easements, each of which outlines the set of events that led to the easement’s creation. They are as follows:
- Grant made on the spot This is usually spelled down in a property’s deeds. It commonly happens when someone sells a portion of their property but wishes to keep some of the rights to the land they sold. This could include the ability to maintain utility infrastructure or the right of way.
- Prescription
- When a person has been openly exploiting land in a certain way for more than 20 years, this law takes effect. If they can show that this is the case, they may be given an easement to continue using the land.
- Grant that is implied (easements of necessity)
- This is also common when a portion of a property is sold. Its presence, however, is implied by law rather than recorded into the property’s deeds. An easement of necessity exists, for example, if the land that was sold is the only way to reach the area that was kept.
Only those who are properly using the easement for its original purpose (e.g., for general access or to maintain utility infrastructure) should use the right of way when it comes to private easements and rights of ways. ‘Right to roam’ easements, on the other hand, are open to the whole public and cannot be restricted in any manner.
There are two primary distinctions to make when it comes to easements. Any member of the public with a ‘right to roam’ easement is allowed to cross the area. Only a tiny number of persons have access to private right of way easements. This agreement will exist between two property owners in the great majority of circumstances. An agreement between a landowner and a business, on the other hand, is possible.
If you have access points or easements on your property and are unsure about your rights to police access (either under public or private easement regulations), consult a property lawyer.
Which of the three types of easements are there?
Easements come in a variety of forms, including:
- Easements for public utilities.
- easements granted to individuals.
- By necessity, easements exist, as well.
- prescriptive easements (acquired via the usage of one’s property)
Is it possible for a neighbor to obstruct a right of way?
Q We have a right of way over the garden path at the back of the house next door, which we use to put out our garbage. Our next-door neighbor padlocked a gate across the walkway and gave us the key. Is it possible for us to raise an objection to this?
In common law, any serious interference with a right of way is considered a nuisance. If the landowner (or “servient owner”) restricts the right, the owner of the right (known as the “dominant owner”) can seek an injunction and damages in court. The question is always whether the right can be exercised as easily as before, both practically and substantively.
Is it legal for me to build a gate across a right-of-way?
My client (“D, the Defendant”) owned a house near the “mouth of the right of way,” and his neighbor (“C, the Claimant”) owned a derelict property further along the access, formerly the coach house of an adjoining property, in a case involving a right of way over an access running along the back of a terrace of houses and out to a public highway. C had owned her property for several years and had done nothing with it, despite her unsuccessful attempts to obtain planning permission, and the previous owner of my client’s property (“X”) had erected a gate across the access many years before to improve the security of his and other neighbors’ properties, as it was frequently used by local drunks and drug users for a variety of unneighbourly activities. X built the gate despite not owning the land at the back of his property that the gate closed over or having a formal right of way over the access.
It’s fair to say that C and X (and most of the other neighbors) had strained relations for a variety of reasons, including the gate, and there had been threats of legal action by C to remove the gate and restrain X (and others) from various alleged behaviors, of which my client had little knowledge before purchasing his property. However, D received a demand from C for a “inherited debt of 127,000” allegedly arising because X’s gate had prohibited C from developing and utilising her property, and C’s partner arranged for the barrier to be removed shortly after (and then sought to bill D for the storage of it).
My client decided to erect a new gate in the same location as the old one, and it was quickly damaged by C’s partner (who was later convicted of criminal damage), prompting C to file a claim for an injunction to have the gate removed and to prevent my D from interfering with or obstructing her right of way.
The judge who presided over the initial hearing issued an interim injunction (my client agreed to leave the gate locked open until the matter was addressed), and the subject was brought before the Court for final resolution eight months later.
It is well established that a gate can be erected across a right of way (Pettey v Parsons (1914)), and that such a gate can even have a lock (Johnstone v Holdway (1963)); the question for the court is whether the gate (or other obstruction) constitutes a substantial interference with the convenient use of the right of way (see B&Q v Liverpool & Lancashire Properties (2001), Siggery v Bell (2007), or Bradley v
A situation in which a user would have to park his or her car, get out to open the gate, drive through the gate, and then get out of the car again to close the gate has been deemed unreasonable (Siggery), as has an arrangement that would require a user to park his or her car, get out to open the gate, drive through the gate, and then get out of the car again to close the gate (Bradley), particularly if the gate is so close to the highway that it creates a
In this case, C claimed she couldn’t open the gate (despite the fact that cross-examination revealed she had never tried) and that she needed regular access (again, in evidence she indicated that, at most, the property would only be used for storage and so accessed infrequently). She also had to concede that, while claiming that the gate was always locked when she applied for the injunction, she had no evidence that it had ever been locked. She further acknowledged that her spouse had sent the demand for the “inherited debt” with her knowledge and consent, despite the fact that it was a totally unjustified and bogus claim. In short, the Judge determined that she was a completely untrustworthy and dishonest witness.
The Claim was dismissed as a result, and C was ordered to pay my client’s costs (approximately $14,000), as well as her own legal costs of nearly $46,000 (the bill was nearly twice the value of C’s property), not to mention the damage to C’s reputation as a result of the Judge’s assessment of her evidence!
In Bradley, Norris J said:
“I’m trying a case involving a pair of gates in Formby, much to my surprise: surprise on at least two counts.” First, no one should take a neighbor issue to court, where even the victor isn’t necessarily a winner (given the blight which a contested case casts over the future of neighbourly relations and upon the price achievable in any future sale of the property). Second, the matter should have been heard across three days in the High Court. It’s not that such situations aren’t worthy of the court’s consideration. They frequently bring fresh and complex issues that are unquestionably relevant to the parties, and legal rights (if insisted upon) must be resolved in the end. But at what monetary and social cost?
Boundary and other neighbor disputes are almost always costly, emotionally charged, time-consuming, and stressful for all parties involved, and often both parties end up out of pocket and dissatisfied with the outcome: it is critical to obtain professional, independent, expert advice as to your prospects and the value of the case at an early stage (and thereafter) and, ideally, to consider alternatives to litigation, e.g., mediation.