Buying a home with an easement. Sellers deny that it exists. Real estate agent less than helpful.

[xylene]

I don’t see anything saying there was deceptive conduct.

I'm old fashioned on the issue of self serving willful incompetence, I guess.

 

[aldaron]

B: Neither party shall park a vehicle for extended periods of time or otherwise unreasonably obstruct the joint driveway. Upon request either party agrees to immediately move any vehicle or other item obstructing the joint driveway.
I'd run away as fast as I could from that. Sounds like a nightmare in the making. Might be ok 50 years ago when folks respected each other but not nowadays. Sounds like a single car driveway, imagine if there's 4 or more cars associated w/the other house. ​

 

[FarmerJ]

If your not taking breaks at work then your not calling the agent is totally on you, I refuse to believe you do not even take a break to toilet ! call while your in the bathroom or just insist on taking a break, At the group homes I work in from 11pm to 7a there is no other staff until 7am then when that second staff comes in I make sure I get a break from responsibility for supervising the home, then finish up and normally the shift is over at 9a.

 

[WaY_WeiRd]

If your not taking breaks at work then your not calling the agent is totally on you, I refuse to believe you do not even take a break to toilet ! call while your in the bathroom or just insist on taking a break, At the group homes I work in from 11pm to 7a there is no other staff until 7am then when that second staff comes in I make sure I get a break from responsibility for supervising the home, then finish up and normally the shift is over at 9a.

Some days, no I do not pee until I get home. It just is what it is. You've got 6-7 dogs to get groomed between 10am-4pm and people are crazy if their dog is there longer than 3hrs. If I eat lunch, it's always because the receptionist ran to McDonald's and I'm eating fries, standing at my table, with a dog staring at me. And I wolf those down in about 2 minutes flat and get right back to grooming! I've done this for 11 years and it IS part of the reason I'd like to find other work.

Anyway, an update.

The easement is invalid according to the register of deeds. We ended up calling them. "Exhibit A" doesn't exist in any public record and so the easement is undefined. How true it is that it is invalid? I don't know. But that's directly from the horse's mouth. So, we can't locate it or put a size on it.

We had the inspection and everything came back great. Well, except for the roof and a few other minor things. It's at the end of it's life.

Problem....Our agent took so long to "assist" us with our easement questions, we missed the window in the contract that says we had to have inspection within 7 days.

On top of this, we had let our agent know that we were having trouble scheduling an inspection. Either our calls weren't being returned or the companies were booked further out. We ended up getting the inspection completed July 5th; 16 days after the offer was accepted (offer accepted on a Wednesday if it matters) NOT accounting for the holiday or weekends (when inspectors apparently don't answer or return phone calls).

We are FHA borrowers. The roof is going to have to pass. Sellers disclosure had stated under age of roof "part done in 2017." We understood that as the roof having had a substantial area reroofed at the time and the rest was good because nothing else was said about it. Maybe our bad, but the inspectors couldn't tell where, and suggested we point blank ask the sellers. Also, sellers bought 2 years ago and are selling with the same agent they used to purchase it. So, all that combined, I do feel like they know what the state of the roof is.

We just got the report back yesterday. We let our agent know and she said the seller's agent said they will probably not make repairs because we exceeded the 7 days to have the inspection done. Nothing but indifference from our agent.

I feel like we've been totally failed by our agent at this point and she doesn't have any interest in doing anything to help us buy this house. She is just facilitating contact with the sellers agent and filling out paperwork - that's it. She just wants to close without helping with anything or explaining anything. The delay in getting important information about the part of the property that is shared with the neighbor was not our fault, and we were right to attempt to seek that information before moving forward and paying for an inspection. The delay in inspection was communicated properly by us as was the reason.

 

[FarmerJ]

So if your willing to let this realtor just finish up in order to be done with it , then do so BUT after closing is all done I suggest you consider telling the realtor that you think they did a crap job the way you were represented and wont have a problem sharing your experience with others ( even if all you ever tell someone is that you would never EVER use that realtor again and say nothing more)

 

[WaY_WeiRd]

So if your willing to let this realtor just finish up in order to be done with it , then do so BUT after closing is all done I suggest you consider telling the realtor that you think they did a crap job the way you were represented and wont have a problem sharing your experience with others ( even if all you ever tell someone is that you would never EVER use that realtor again and say nothing more)

We really don't have an option but to continue on with her. We're under contract. She'll get paid no matter what if we can ever get to closing.

But yes, I fully plan on leaving one star reviews on Google, Facebook, and yelp and advising anyone and everyone to steer clear. Hell, if there's been any ethics violations by the time this is done, I also have no problem filing a formal complaint.

Our lender is appalled. They are supposed to have a copy of the contract and they don't. We just found THAT out! So WE emailed it to her. That should have been our agent's job. Our lender is even offering to attempt to light a fire under our agent's a**, if that doesn't tell you something. SMDH.

At this point, I'm ready to just bypass our agent and contact the seller's agent directly from here on out and negotiate on our own. We'd likely be better off just doing it ourselves.

No communication, no effort, no nothing from our agent. I really hate to think she's actually going to get paid for this horrible job she's doing!

 

[NeilTheCop]

Check the bottom of page 4
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/mcl/pdf/mcl-Act-92-of-1993.pdfYou can also file a complaint against the real estate agent and the broker. The prospect of having their license revoked is a powerful incentive for them to do the job they are being paid for.
https://www.michigan.gov/lara/0,4601,7-154-89334_61343_35395_35396---,00.html

 

[paddywakk]

What is the name of your state? Michigan


First time homebuyers.

We're buying a home with a shared driveway. This was not disclosed when we offered, because our agent did not make sure that we got the seller's disclosures.

There is an easement over the driveway too.

I only discovered the easement because we were talking about installing a fence around the garage, looking at pictures, and my husband realized the neighbor uses the driveway to access their backyard. I did a register of deeds search, and there was the agreement from 1998.

We contacted our agent who contacted the seller's agent. At first they said, "there is no easement, it's just a 50/50 shared driveway." When we said that we'd located a recorded easement online, their story changed to "oh we forgot about that."

We asked about "exhibit A the mortgage report from April 26, 1998" referenced in the recorded easement. The agreement itself references this as what would tell us the location of the easement so that we would know how much of it is on our property, and what amount of maintainance we are responsible for. Exhibit A still hasn't been shown to us, and we asked for it on Monday. Our agent even told us at one point, instead of locating the document, that we should just find another house. We don't want to do that. She claims now that she is waiting for the title company to give it to her.

We do not want to back out of the sale because the house checks all our boxes, and after initially being angry about feeling deceived about the driveway and having to share it, we honestly don't care that it's shared at this point... We just want full disclosure about our rights and responsibilities concerning the driveway.

We had also pointed out that we did not have the seller's disclosures too, and it took until today to get that.

In the disclosures, they acknowledge a shared driveway but marked "NO" for easements even though there clearly is one on file with the register of deeds. So they are not being truthful and we do not have all the information we need concerning this situation.

I'm loss as to what to do. Again, we do not want to back out. We just want all the info. If they cannot provide the documentation referenced in the agreement for the location of the easement, do we ask that the sellers provide a recent survey that would show it? If they don't have a recent survey, do we request that they have one done prior to closing to clear up any questions of location? Do we request they pay for us to have one done? Do we close and handle it with title insurance? What do we do?

Based on 10 years of a shared drivewa, RUN! Not worth it, especially when more than one car is involved between the two homes.

 

[WaY_WeiRd]

Based on 10 years of a shared drivewa, RUN! Not worth it, especially when more than one car is involved between the two homes.

There's really honestly enough room to not bother each other...

http://imgur.com/a/pft4Dgp

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

You have no idea who may move into the other house in the future.

 

[STEPHAN]

I would not do it!

 

[Zigner]

I agree with the others. You are buying trouble.

 

[bcr229]

The easement is invalid according to the register of deeds. We ended up calling them. "Exhibit A" doesn't exist in any public record and so the easement is undefined. How true it is that it is invalid? I don't know. But that's directly from the horse's mouth. So, we can't locate it or put a size on it.

I would ask the title company to research this further if possible. I can't imagine a lender would issue a loan on a landlocked property with no valid access easement.

 

[WaY_WeiRd]

I would ask the title company to research this further if possible. I can't imagine a lender would issue a loan on a landlocked property with no valid access easement.

It isn't landlocked. They sit right next door on a city street just like the house we're buying.

They had their own driveway on the other side back in 1973 (I looked up historic aerials and that's the oldest clear photo I could find of the properties). They had a garage that faced the driveway. You can see what was the garage in the satellite photo I posted. They turned that into an enclosed porch instead and took out their driveway. They had a detached garage, but that disappeared sometime between 05-10. They had the original owner of the property we're buying grant then an easement to reach the detached garage as the home was being sold to the current owners in 1998. Probably a requirement from the lender. They don't *need it* but without it, all they'd have is street parking. The old guy that owned the house we're buying seems like he was a SUPER nice dude who just wanted to help his neighbor sell their house, so he granted the driveway easement.

The title company said it doesn't exist too because it was in a mortgage report, and those aren't really done anymore... Nor are they kept track of from the past, apparently. The document just doesn't exist. It's an undefined easement.

 

[WaY_WeiRd]

Here's the aerial from '73, to show what I'm talking about.

http://imgur.com/a/vVTNUxG