The Five Biggest Reasons Marin County Escrows Fall Apart
Reason No. 4: Easements
An easement is the right to do something or prevent something over the real property of another. At this point we could get into a discussion involving arcane terms like “apppurtenant” and “domininant tenement”, but I’m trying to keep this simple.
Easements that I’ve seen cause problems usually involve the rights of others to use your property. For example, three days before closing on a listing we had, the owner told us he had to record an easement for pedestrian access to a creek that he had promised to the neighbors when he sold them their house. The buyer, to say the least, was not happy. This was new information - the neighbors would be allowed to walk across the yard, in a prescribed pathway, anytime they wanted, to access the creek. The deal fell apart, and never closed.
Others involve encroachment. We discovered in another case that the owner had granted an easement to the neighbor because the building was on their lot. The net effect was that although tax records showed the lot to quite large, the easement meant that for building purposes, it was actually 30% smaller than recorded. That’s a big deal if you plan on building 2400 square feet on an 8000 square foot lot, and find out you actually have 5000 square feet, and can only build 1600 square feet!
Easements are also granted to utility companies, for power, gas, sewage, or water lines.
How do you know if you have an easement on your prospective property? Read the title report, please! If you don’t understand it, the title company officer can explain what it means. A good agent will also always read the title report, and flag any easements as something you should check into. Always ask if the easement is still in effect. Sometimes easements show up that are no longer valid, but no one has bothered to remove them from the record.
It is especially critical to understand an easement if you plan to improve the property or build on it one day. Believe me, you don’t to buy something only to find out the water lines are running right underneath the spot where the family room is going to be built.
Unfortunately, easements don’t usually surface until escrow is opened and a preliminary title report has been issued. And that’s why they cause deals to fall apart - they’re rarely discovered until the contract is in place.
Next: Reason No. 5: Financing
