Bought and sold undeveloped lots with electric box -- now electric company says there's no box

[xylene]

While it is good to look into a lawyer, and you should, I suggest you start making friends with the adjacent landowner(s) you need permission from.

 

[Lia]

Our lawyer is a real-estate attorney. What he suggests for next step is he will go to the court house library and do the research about the similar cases and what's the possibility of winning it. That means we'll have to pay him for 4 hours.

 

[Zigner]

Our lawyer is a real-estate attorney. What he suggests for next step is he will go to the court house library and do the research about the similar cases and what's the possibility of winning it. That means we'll have to pay him for 4 hours.

I'm sorry, but I simply don't see how this is going to be solved without you spending $.

 

[Lia]

While it is good to look into a lawyer, and you should, I suggest you start making friends with the adjacent landowner(s) you need permission from.

We already know them and are on a good terms. What lawyer told us is that they can't say "no" but we want everything to be nice and smooth.

 

[justalayman]

We already know them and are on a good terms. What lawyer told us is that they can't say "no" but we want everything to be nice and smooth.

Well, in most cases neighboring property owners can say no to a request or a utility easement. You would have to have a legal basis to force them to provide an easement. There isn’t enough info here to guess whether you could force them to allow a utility easement on their lands

 

[HRZ]

I do not follow where you have a winnable case for the power firm whoops ...

You made the mistake of not physically verification of transformer being there...and the language of the deal seemingly says it's up to you to,verify this pig in the pole ...or address errors inside of 10 days and you did not do it.

 

[Lia]

I'm sorry, but I simply don't see how this is going to be solved without you spending $.

I know that and we already are spending $$. I wanted to find out how to do the research myself before getting into serious $$$. PS I didn't come here for sarcasm.

 

[Zigner]

I know that and we already are spending $$. I wanted to find out how to do the research myself before getting into serious $$$. PS I didn't come here for sarcasm.

No sarcasm was intended. I was merely stating my honest opinion.

 

[Lia]

I do not follow where you have a winnable case for the power firm whoops ...

You made the mistake of not physically verification of transformer being there...and the language of the deal seemingly says it's up to you to,verify this pig in the pole ...or address errors inside of 10 days and you did not do it.

It was nearly impossible to walk in those woods and transformer was supposed to be in the middle of 20 undeveloped acres that is surrounded of undeveloped wooded parcels. It was logged 40+ years ago and since then overgrown with pine, brush, blackberries. Add wetlands on top of that and rainy spring when we were doing the feasibility. Since it wasn't ours, we couldn't hire a tractor and clear up the "supposed location". Plus the electric company was telling us that once we bought it, we fill out the application and pay them $200 and they go there and put a meter on one of the lots.

 

[STEPHAN]

Just should have put the transformer in the contract.

 

[HRZ]

You relied upon what was supposedly good faith input from power firm but you have no contract with power firm, so far. And apparently your land deal was you check things out ..and I understand it was overgrown et al, but you failed to dig hard enough and the electric was not covered in contract ...or preserved as an issue .

I have had some limited success getting power firms to put in lines to missing places ....but not in your fact pattern where apparently the seller got money back to not install it . ..if this was same seller who sold it to you " with power"..your attorney might be able to connect the dots as to misrepresentation by seller ...but I think the absent of a preserved issue as to power runs against you ..as does doctrine of merger even if it was there earlier .

 

[Lia]

HRZ, it was not the seller who applied for the transformer but his partner who owned neighboring lot and they were supposed to develop them together but had a fall out due to a lawsuit when they trespassed on the neighboring lot while making the road. Also they filled wetlands without doing the proper engineering and getting all necessary approvals and got moratoriums put on all lots with bunch of fines in 2007. Partner sold his lot in 2011. Nobody wanted to buy these lots until we came along,

And you are right that we made a mistake and relied on electric company's words and emails without physically finding the transformer and went ahead with the closing. We could have lowered the price if we knew that there's no electricity. Another thing is that we sold 3 out of 5 lots as lots with power and now the buyer is waiting on our resolution with electric company before he starts suing us. What are your thought on that?

 

[LdiJ]

HRZ, it was not the seller who applied for the transformer but his partner who owned neighboring lot and they were supposed to develop them together but had a fall out due to a lawsuit when they trespassed on the neighboring lot while making the road. Also they filled wetlands without doing the proper engineering and getting all necessary approvals and got moratoriums put on all lots with bunch of fines in 2007. Partner sold his lot in 2011. Nobody wanted to buy these lots until we came along,

And you are right that we made a mistake and relied on electric company's words and emails without physically finding the transformer and went ahead with the closing. We could have lowered the price if we knew that there's no electricity. Another thing is that we sold 3 out of 5 lots as lots with power and now the buyer is waiting on our resolution with electric company before he starts suing us. What are your thought on that?

You are going to have to put in electric or you will be in breach on the lots that you sold. You are just going to have to accept that. What you end up battling with the electric company after the fact will be a separate issue.

 

[Mass_Shyster]

Our realtor told us that we can't sue the seller.

Do not take legal advice from a Realtor. Talk to you lawyer.

 

[HRZ]

SO one of the partners pulled the plug on power...fact is there is NO POWER ...and it seems clear seller knew the partnership never put in power ...
The legal point your attorney probably will address is if power is part of the deal or the requirement in contract puts the burden to check on you and you failed ( I agree it was hard and you tried ). ..did you do the deal wo counsel ?


As to your buyers ...it's not their problem that you have problems ...absent " impossibility" to perform ....you might be smart to discuss other your attorne ways to reduce you damage exposure ...to me I might offer buyers thier money back as one option ( did that myself when a glitch looked like a long time to solve ...and it was )