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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Posts
    4

    Default Omission of extra easement in house closing

    I live in Huntersville, NC and recently bought a house that sits on .94 acres. It has an existing gas line intersecting the corner of the property. I realized that there was going to be a approx. 15 foot easement on either side of centerline of the gas line. What was not disclosed to me at the time of sale was that the original land owner who sold the land to the builder that I bought the house from, had been paid money by the gas company for an additional 20 foot easement for future pipe line work. This extra 20 feet encroaches on the space that I wanted to build a detached shop on. And, as luck would have it, the gas company informed me of a new main going in the spring of 2007.

    My problem is I cannot prove at this time if the system failed, or if there was willful omission of this easement from the sale of the original landowner to the second owner, or from the second owner (and home builder) to me. In NC, the Registrar of Deeds does not maintain a copy of land surveys, and the local county Land Use and Environmental Services Agency has only a copy of the Building Permit on file, which only has a rough sketch of the intended footprint of the house on the surrounding land.

    I have spoken with the seller of the house and he states that he only knew of the 30 foot (15 from centerline) on the gas line. Unless his survey is subpoenaed, I don't think I can access it.

    Additionally, I had the house surveyed after the sale. Ironically, the surveyor I chose happened to be the orginal surveyor for the foundation work for the previous owner. His survey shows the gas line on the property, but in parenthesis indicates that the Right-of-Way is not known by the surveyor. I thought that that was his job - to investigate what the boundries are...?

    I would have thought that the second owner would have had to research the land at least as good as I did in order to build. A call to a Call Before You Dig Hotline (like I did) would have revealed the same info that I got. It seems like a strange coincidence that the house rear setback was just up to the extra 20 foot easement and not on it.

    I was going to enlist the aide of a local real estate attorney, but came across this great website, and thought I might prep myself with more information from anybody else's knowledge before I made an appointment.

    Thank you

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    98,846

    Default Re: Omission of extra easement in house closing

    If you hire a surveyor to find the boundaries of a property, that's not the same as hiring him to investigate the title history and locate all of the easements. The surveyor probably would have done so - for a greater fee.

    Do you have any evidence that the builder who sold you the land was aware of the larger easement?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Posts
    4

    Default Re: Omission of extra easement in house closing

    I understand what you are saying about the surveyor. I am not sure about the previous owner having knowledge of the larger easement. I would suspect that he did since he had to go down the same road I did in order to build on the property. If you were Joe Builder and bought a piece of land that obviously had a gas line on it (due to the towering 3 yellow plastic markers on the corner of the property), I think that you would research it really well in order to determine where the footprint of your house would be located on the property. It seems rather coincidental that the corner of the driveway just misses the extra easement by only a few feet. Anyways, I digress. The fact is that I do not have proof (i.e. prior survey or title paperwork from his closing on the property) that he had knowledge of the extra easement.

    On a side note, my attorney for my closing reviewed the info and said that the title may have not sent out a flag when it was pulled and researched because the right-of-way agreement from the gas company did not provide a legal description of said land. The agreement referenced the property by it's location in the deed book, not by lot number or parcel number.

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