Easements

[CalTen]

i live in rural west tennessee and have two adjoining pieces of land. They are in a tennessee valley authority tract along kentucky lake (a platted tract of cabin sites). we are in the process of preparing one of these pieces for sale. the piece we are selling has our home on it and the remaining piece is undeveloped. the undeveloped piece is landlocked and we would like to grant ourselves an easement for ingress and egress and in addition would like to make an easement behind our house for the purpose of creating a larger backyard to enhance the lot size. the property line behind the house is irregular and comes too close to the house making the backyard too small. are there special considerations involved in assuring that someone doesn't build anything on the easement behind the house, or is it just a matter of writing easement restrictions into the deed? we had originally had it surveyed to modify the property line and then found out it was "illegal" to "subdivide" a tva platted tract. however we have discovered that easements are no problem.
when we had the property surveyed for the line modification, we discovered that the county now requires a 25' setback for right of way. when they took that 25' we lost approx. 1/4 acre. we front a county maintained road. our surveyor tells me that this is not legal and that he can show me recent legal decisions favoring the property owner in cases that have challanged this "land grab". our deed gives us property ownership to the middle of the road. our surveyor works the surrounding 4 or 5 couties and tells me that our county (henry) is the only county he does business in that does this. any thoughts on this matter?
thanks for your time and help.

 

[HomeGuru]

Hire an attorney and have him contact the surveyor.
Then instruct him/her to send a letter to the County to state your interest.

 

[CalTen]

H.G., Thanks for the response. Not quite sure what you mean by "have an attorney contact the surveyor", is this in reference to the loss of property due to the county taking the 25' right of way,
or to my initial question about protecting my easement from being built upon? My surveyor is writing the legal description for the easement so that we will have it ready for the lawyer when it comes time to write the new deed when the property sells. As far as the loss of property to the county for the right of way, it'll probably take a class action law suit by everyone that has had property taken in this fashion.

 

[HomeGuru]

H.G., Thanks for the response. Not quite sure what you mean by "have an attorney contact the surveyor", is this in reference to the loss of property due to the county taking the 25' right of way,
or to my initial question about protecting my easement from being built upon?

**A: both. It appears that the surveyor knows a lot and has info to help your attorney.
**********


My surveyor is writing the legal description for the easement so that we will have it ready for the lawyer when it comes time to write the new deed when the property sells. As far as the loss of property to the county for the right of way, it'll probably take a class action law suit by everyone that has had property taken in this fashion.

**A: no, the class action will not happen. You need to file your own lawsuit against the County citing cases provided by your surveyor.

 

[CalTen]

H.G., Thanks for the response. I was afraid you were going to tell me that. Well, I guess I'll have to pump my surveyor for more specific information and see where we go from here. Thanks again for the help, I really appreciate it.

 

[HomeGuru]

You are quite welcome.

 

[John Bear]

when your all done where you can mark the other corners of the lot lines with a rock ring ( big piece of wire fence circular shaped filled with rocks about as big as a football ) youll never have to worry about finding the lot lines again