What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Texas. My wife and I purchased a property a year ago and the city was installing a sewer to the neighborhood. They purchased an easement from my neighbor to run the sewer down the edge of his property. The sewer line was to run through bis property adjacent to our boundry line. After we surveyed we realized the city ran the sewer through our lot (they followed a fence, not the property boundry). Is there any recourse that can be had?
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Easement issue
- Thread starter Jestria
- Start date
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honestly I don't think you would have a easy battle if there was any recourse , its in now and unlike say a problem between neighbors where a neighbor is mistaken and paves over part of someone elses property when putting in a driveway. So at this point any action you take is likely going to be spendy on your end, but on a more positive note , if your property has a on site septic system at least you should have no problem connecting some day to city sewer since it crosses through your land you wont have to ask anyone for a easement.
FarmerJ, you tend to post sound advice but I don't think I agree with ANYTHING posted...I'm hoping you were in part being sarcastic about the tapping into sewer line? You are not permitted to do so without approval or permit regardless if the sewer line was installed onto your property.
If the sewer line was in fact installed onto your property then the public entity that owns the sewer line would have to obtain a corrected/adjustment easement and pay the property owner the value of this easement. If you don't want to grant the easement, the public entity can likely condemn the portion of the property with the necessary easement but they still would have to pay the property owner the value of the easement.
Now here's my skepticism towards the OP's assertion that the City mistakenly installed the sewer on your property. I can't imagine any public entity in 2016 not properly surveying the limits and locations of utility construction. Secondly, sewer lines installed outside the public right of way would have to be installed within an existing or acquired (recorded) easement, so did your survey show the location of the easement and are you certain the previous property owner didn't grant the City a permanent sewer and/or temporary construction easement?
FlyingRon
Senior Member
Definitely get a survey. Then if the sewer is on your property, you can certainly call attention to the error. If they paid some nominal fee for the use of the easement, you can certianly make a claim for that, however, in my experience such easements don't involve much (if any) consideration and you're pretty much obligated to allow them.
I have no issues with allowing the city to have an easement. The question was do I have any recourse for compensation since the easement was not listed on my purchase contract (we do have an easement on the other side of our lot for overhead power lines). I will have to declare this when I sell the property. The neighbor does have an easment but there is no record of one for our property. When the company hired to install the sewer line came in they turmed and followed our fence line. I think it was an honest human error but I just want everything above board. I don't want an issue in the future if my neighboror I sell pur properties.
You absolutely have some recourse if the sewer line was not installed in the proper alignment or not within a valid easement. And I would start by contacting the public utility so that can verify or be made aware of this issue.
However, a couple of things of note that continue to make me question if the utility contractor has in fact errored. First you say that your neighbor has an easement on his property, does it abut the property line and how wide is this easement? Secondly, is the fence installed along the property line or relative close to the property line? Most sewer/stormwater utility easements are a minimum of 10 feet in width and can exceed 20 feet in width for larger utility pipes. From my experience, public utilities are installed in the center of recorded easements if the utility has exclusive rights to the easement, which means that the contractor likely has information or is making the assumption that the fence line (and possibly the property line) is the center of the easement. Before any excavation commences, I would assume that the easements were staked. Do you or did you have any survey stakes on your property?
One plausible explanation, and not at all far-fetched, is that the previous property owner granted the city an easement around the time the property was sold and the easement on your property wasn't recorded before you closed on the property or the easements were missed by the surveyor. During my time working with a local municipality, It was VERY common for properties to change ownership in between the time easements were granted and construction work began. And for one reason or another, these easements weren't always picked up by surveyors when performing surveys. So I wouldn't rule this out.
FlyingRon
Senior Member
Compensation from whom? The seller is not responsible for not telling you that someone might come along and put a sewer on your property without an easement.
If there's no easement, it matters not what was going on when you bought the house.
If there turns out to be some undisclosed easement, you can check with your title insurer.
Again, nothing is going anywhere without a survey. Then you can see what recourse you have with the entity that constructed the sewer if indeed it is outside the easement.
If there's no easement, it matters not what was going on when you bought the house.
If there turns out to be some undisclosed easement, you can check with your title insurer.
Again, nothing is going anywhere without a survey. Then you can see what recourse you have with the entity that constructed the sewer if indeed it is outside the easement.
quincy
Senior Member
I agree with FlyingRon's earlier comment that any compensation would likely be minimal at best. By following the property line, there is little if any effect on the value of the property. There is no appreciable impairment of use.
Had the sewer line been run through the center of the lot, there can be a greater loss to the property owner because there is a greater intrusion.
As a note on an earlier comment made by NC Aggie: I see no implication by FarmerJ that a permit would not be necessary. His post correctly noted the possible cost-saving should a sewer hookup be required in the future.
I agree that the amount of compensation will likely be minimal in part for the reasons you referenced and is one of the reasons why utilities, when possible, will attempt to install mains along boundary lines to decrease the impact to property owners. However, there would be some compensation and I honestly don't think it would be difficult or costly to recover as FarmerJ implied.
In re-reading FarmerJ's post, I concur he didn't explicitly imply a permit wouldn't be needed, but I don't think the close proximity of the sewer line is any more or less beneficial for the O.P. I assume the property is already serviced by city's sanitary sewer, but if the property wasn't and they were REQUIRED to tap onto the city's sewer line then the utility would typically pay all costs associated with sewer easements and sewer extension, the tap fee and meter is typically the same set fee for all residential property owners who live in areas serviced.
In my 15+ years working in or consulting with public works agencies, I've never heard of a utility contractor installing a utility without easements and/or utility centerline being staked. I have heard of surveyors making mistakes with their staking but in this day and age when the majority of surveying companies or public agencies are using total station or other surveying equipment of equal/greater precision, I seriously doubt a mistake of this nature was made. I can't imagine a reputable utility contractor using a fence as a guide for alignment of a utility.
quincy
Senior Member
I question your use of the word typically. I do not believe utilities typically pay for the cost of the sewer lines or a homeowner hooking up to the sewer system. In my experience (albeit in Michigan), the costs are borne by the homeowner, whether hook up is mandatory or not.
Homeowners are assessed for the line according to frontage and then pay to hook into the line according to distance from sewer line to home. Therefore, the closer a home is to the sewer line, the less costly it is for a homeowner to hook into the line.
Again in Michigan, block grants are available to homeowners and a lien will be placed on the home for cost recovery when the house is either refinanced or sold.
Again in Michigan, the work on the lines is contracted out.
I know that Michigan is not Texas. I also know that North Carolina is not Texas. I would be cautious about using words like typically unless you know what is typical in Texas.
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Well I feel comfortably saying "typically" based on my experience working on projects for approximately 60-80 public utility entities in 5 different states, though none in Texas. And "typically" by no means is an absolute proclamation, it just means more often than not. Additionally, information I've ascertained through my membership in professional organizations that share information from public utilities across the country is also a source for which I base that belief on.
I understand your point and logic, the homeowner typically IS responsible for absorbing the cost of installation of the sewer LATERAL and clean-outs (including future maintenance/repair) within their property boundary but do you think the linear distance between the house and side/rear property boundary is going to be significantly less than house and roadway and lead to some kind of huge cost savings? Also, depending on the slope of the sewer and the property, it's possible that you could have a sewer main running through a property but your sewer lateral may have to be connected to the sewer main in the right of way.
The more common practice from my experience is that public utilities will pay for costs to install sewer mains to provide service to property owners if they're servicing an area and they typically charge a fixed tap/impact fee based on service type. Note that a "tap fee" is intended to cover cost of materials/labors for the connection AND future impact to the sewer system, hence the reason why it's typically a fixed fee in many municipalities. Now for properties that are not being serviced by a public sewer entity, they can request that service be extended to their property and in cases which utilities are willing to do so, there likely would be additional costs incurred or cost sharing. But back to the original point of debate, I don't believe there's an inherent cost saving as assumed in having a sewer main running through the property.
Holy cow of course someone would have to start with the city sewer dept to hook on to a city sewer. If you think about it there have been many postings over the years by original posters who had HUGE hassles related to getting connected when lines had to cross thru another property not owned by them or even problems that are related to the repairs of lines that went through someone elses property so my line of thought was that if they had to connect some day then it would be less cost and hassle with the line running through their own property and nothing to do with connecting with out approval.
FarmerJ, I corrected myself in my original interpretation of what you posted and your logic isn't off. Your thinking and response appears to be related more to properties in less urbanized/developed areas. Whereas my responses were related to more developed areas based on the O.P. reference to "neighborhood".
quincy
Senior Member
FarmerJ's comment can apply to both urban and rural areas. Neighborhoods exist in both as do city sewer systems.
At least it applies to the farming community where I live and the city of Detroit where I work. I won't speak for Texas.