Does Your Property Have an Easement? Here’s How to Detect & Work Around Them
Although we’ve talked about site selection and site development in the past, one particular topic that often gets brought up is easements.
Let’s take a deeper look into easement complications, how to work around them and how to prepare so they don’t become a problem in your process.
What’s an easement?
An easement is a portion of your own property that’s been given to someone else for a specific use. There are many different reasons for doing this—the most common is for your community, like a sewage easement, a drainage easement and any kind of piping or underground utilities.
In a nutshell, anytime your city, county or municipality owns anything underground, they're going to have an easement to that.
An easement typically means you can’t build over that portion of your property. Some communities will actually refuse to give you a building permit to build over an easement. However, since it is your property, you’re able to landscape or install a driveway—just keep in mind that they have the right to tear it up (and not put it back the way they found it) if they need to access the easement. That risk is up to you. My advice? Leave it alone, if you can, with the exception of some landscaping.
Easement Examples In Real Life
One of our current projects at Springhouse is a detached garage in an old city near downtown. After reviewing a series of four old site plans, we discovered a sewer pipe close to where our client wants to place the detached garage. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been officially recorded as an easement on paper. After some back and forth with the city, we finally heard back from the city engineer saying they’re requiring a recorded easement for the existing sewer pipe that the city has running through the client’s property.
True, we could choose to fight back with the city, telling them that our clients own the land and that there was no existing easement to begin with. Sadly, this probably won’t work. Although our clients have the right to take it to court, the city will probably take the land anyway.
Now our project will now have to be pushed back three months because an official surveyor has to come out to find the exact location of the pipe, determine how much of an easement they need, and then record it through the municipality.
Another client of ours recently bought property—unfortunately, neither the seller nor the realtor shared the legal site plan with them. It turns out, no one told our client that there was an easement going right through the middle of the property where the building is planned. As architects, we rely on the information our clients give us, be sure you know you have the recorded copy before you begin a project.
The moral of the story: Don't ever take a final say from somebody who doesn't know. You do have options with easements. It takes some time, but they can be moved and sometimes eliminated if the use is abandoned.
Always Plan Ahead
Don’t let easements scare you! There are many steps to take before starting a big project like this, especially if it's not on developed land or a neighborhood where everything is recorded and every line is the same. If you're in a remote location, do your due diligence and research to find all of the recorded copies with the building department or engineers department in your municipality.
Do all of the work before you get too far—it will pay off big time in the end, and save you a lot of scrambling down the road.
Have any questions?
Although we covered a lot in this post, you may still have some other questions about easements. Whether you’re involved in the custom home process now, or even just considering it, join our free Facebook group—we’ll help you answer any questions you might have! Also, feel free to invite anyone that you think would benefit from this collaborative. You’ll not only get advice from me, but from other people who have been through this, too.
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When it comes to designing and building a custom home, nothing beats having a trusted, experienced team of architects on your side. Let’s set up a call to meet, discuss your goals, answer your questions, and settle your fears. We can’t wait to meet you!