Easing Your Mind About Charlotte Real Estate Easements

So, you’ve found the perfect home on the perfect property and your Offer has been accepted! Everything’s going great until you dive into the Due Diligence discover the term, “Easement,” which leads you to believe that your Charlotte real estate may just come with some serious baggage.

Don’t be anxious; easements are a common occurrence and usually don’t affect your property tax or day-to-day activity. They just give a person or entity the authority to use land which they don not own. However, if you notice this term, bring it to the attention of your Realtor® if he or she has not brought it to yours. An easement can very well affect your future property value.

Here are a few common easements that you may run into while performing your Due Diligence on your Charlotte NC property purchase:

Right of Way – This is one of the most common easements, allowing someone to cross through your land or allowing you to have access to someone else’s land.
Utility – Telephone, electric and cable companies all need places to set up their equipment, and this easement gives them permission to do it on your property. It generally allows them to have regular maintenance access to your Charlotte real estate as well.
Construction – Developers have to have an easement that grants them access to property for future builds sometimes. This construction easement typically expires once their project or development has been completed.
Private v. Public – Private easements are restricted to a list of people stated in the Contract, while public easements allow any individual or entity (such as Duke Energy) to have access to the land.

Easements are sometimes created after an owner assumes possession of a property. These Contracts can be written to allow access or to ban it from certain people or certain types of activities. Easements can be set up to expire on a certain date and some are terminated due to lack of necessity. If one is to be terminated, it can either have an expiration date and require no future signatures or all parties involved may need to provide legal signatures stating that the easement has been terminated.

We hope that this has eased your mind about Charlotte real estate easements. However, if your new property has easements that are a bit more complicated, your Realtor® can further guide you. You may also want to consult your real estate attorney if you or your Realtor® are concerned about future value of your new Charlotte property.

Charlotte home buyers, if you are thinking about buying a Charlotte home for sale and would more information on the home buying process, please call me at (704) 491-3310 or email me at Debe@DebeMaxwell.com for more information. If you’d like more advice on negotiating, we can help you with that as well!