Yet another joy of owning an older home.
Apparently the sewer has (mostly) collapsed in our older rental house. The plumber got his drain snake thingy stuck so bad he had to hook it to his pickup truck to pull it out.
Unfortunately, the sewer goes straight down through the basement floor, and heads off to unknown places. The plumber hooked one of those “tracker” thingies to his drain snake, but it’s too deep to trace where it goes.
My best guess is it goes into a neighbor’s yard, then turns and crosses 2 more yards before hitting a main sewer line in a street about 150′ downhill.
The plumber was kind enough to tell me to plan on spending up to $5,000 if we have to run all the way to the street.
I called the city to ask where the MAIN sewer line is. They basically said they didn’t know. “Just start digging until you find it”.
That part of town had sewers added in the 1950s, so any drawings or blueprints are long gone.
.
But that’s not really my main concern. What I’m worried about is whether easements exist for the sewer that apparently runs through the 3 adjacent yards.
Where do you start looking for such things? I don’t have a clue. Don’t remember seeing anything like in the paperwork they gave us when we bought the house 15 years ago.
Any suggestions would be appreciated…
Ever wonder why sheep don’t shrink when it rains?
Replies
Easements are a creature of law and contract.
If there is a contractual easement, it will be recorded. Pull a title report.
If there is a legal easement, like a landlocked parcel that has an easement by necessity, then it exists in case law and in the mind of lawyers. Call one.
Regards,
Boris
"Sir, I may be drunk, but you're crazy, and I'll be sober tomorrow" -- WC Fields, "Its a Gift" 1934
start with reading your deed.
If it is not there, your bad luck has just begun.
Time then for a trip to a lawyer or to your title insurance company.
Here, before issuing title insurance, deed restrictions and conveyances, and extensions going bnack to the dawn of time are included in the title insurance file. That could save you from having to pay a legal beagle to research all those other lots that you suspect might be where you'll need to dig. Time and money.
I would first try to find the oldest plumber in town for information, if his memory is still clear and you didn't deflower his daughter or anything like that - then you'd want his memory to be a little cloudy...
That the town has no records or maops is inconcievable to me. I have unfolded maps and paper documents goiong back two hundred years that have not seen the sun for a hundred.
It is there someplace. You might just need to find the right notary or clerk to butter up.
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Honestly - I don't know what a deed looks like. Never seen one. (That I remember)
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names. [John F. Kennedy]
It can look like a lot of things. How can you own property without seeing the deed for it? There is a copy at your county court house, and probably at your bank. You can get a copy b ut it might cost a fee.Bill had a real good point about the Dig-safe outfit. Here, if it is not a subscriber using them, the fee is $75.00 At least then, you would know where it runs. if it was cast iron anyways. I ran into one that was a sort of asphalt impregnated pressed cardboard amterial. Very thick - with ID of four inches, but it was crushed and had tree roots growing through it. Fortuantaely, it was all on the same property
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"It can look like a lot of things. How can you own property without seeing the deed for it? "Realy easy.At least around here. At closing the title company writes up a new deed and it is signed by the seller. The buyer does not sign it.They it is sent to the recorder of deeds for recording. After that you should get the now "worthless" orginal mailed to you. But since it comes several weeks or months later it is easily misplaced.
Look at you loan papers. You might have the closing statement and title search/insurance that was done when you bought the place. That title search will show an easement if they found a recorded one.If you don't have the title search/insurance check with the title company and see if they still have a copy in their records.
I'll have to defer to the lawyers on this one, but it seems that some states have something like a implied easement that would grant him the right to repair and maintain what exists now.
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I suspect that you are right.But there are two issues here.First finding out where it is. And 2ndly getting access to it.And that might be complicated by a garage or deck having been built over it in last 50 years.
I appreciate the thoughts so far. The stuff about calling the utility locating service was to me a foregone conclusion, so I didn't mention it. I wouldn't consider NOT calling it. Like I said earlier - I've never knowingly seen a deed. All the stuff we got when we bought the place 15 yerars ago was stuffed in a folder somewhere. After refinancing a few times and moving, God knows where it is. I've talked to 2 out of 3 neighbors. One is O.K. with anything. The other one said we couldn't cross her property, and she was certain there were no easements that would allow me to. (She claimed to have checked) But she's old enough that I suspect not all the fries are still in her happy meal...She did tell me one thing that got my hope up. She said her sewer ran in the street in FRONT of her house. I had assumed it went behind . If she's right, I may just have to get permission from the city to run it on the right-of-way.I'll ahve to ask around locally where to get a copy of the deed, I guess. Hopefully that will provide some insight.
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"I'll ahve to ask around locally where to get a copy of the deed, I guess. Hopefully that will provide some insight."As I said that it is most likely not part of the deed. In my limited experience the deed is a restatement of the orginal plating of the lot.This was done much later and will be separate.Look at the last refi for title insurace or the title company that did it. See what info they have.That is if there is anyting on record at all.Very likely that this was a hanshake between neigbor that all hooked on at thesame time.
Edited 5/18/2005 8:04 pm ET by Bill Hartmann
Hi Boss,
You might want to check your county's website to see if you can search for deeds online. Many states have information of varying quality online. For instance, you can go to http://www.masslandrecords.com to view information from the Massachusetts Registry of Deeds. Not all of the counties are accessible from this one. Some of the counties have their own separate websites. I think the Commonwealth of Mass is working to unify them all. NH's can be found at: http://nhdeeds.com/
I poked around to see if I could find a central site for Illinois but it appears that one does not exist. There are some "Recorder of Deeds" sites but it depends on which county you're in. Some IL counties have a deliberate policy of not allowing this info to be accessible from the internet. So try doing a google search of "<your county> illinois recorder of deeds" to see what you can find.
Good luck with the search.
First call "One Call"/"Dig Right". The name varies, but most states have a one call locator service for utilities. They work from both maps and with tracer equipment and they might have a higher end equipment.However, at least in my location, they only do it for utilites that subscribe. And my small city was not a member."That the town has no records or maops is inconcievable to me. "Yes, but the drawings are not always that accurate.And not only the oldest plumbers, but any former city works employees.And also go to the county courthouse and check with the records department. They might be able to find a plat map or easement that shows them. With out the expense of a title search.I was envolved in the sale of a church. It was built around 1980, so it was fairly new. The land had been purchased from an other organization that had a number of homes and private branch that ran through section that was later bought for the church.While it was clear from the manholes that the sewer in that area no one really knew anything about it.When the title was searched by the buyer a separate sewer maintace agreement and easement was found. However, it showed the sewer as it was before the church was built. The building plans for the church showed the sewer being moved. However it was clearn from the manholes tha the relocated sewer was not at the location shown on the plans.And I live on a small residential lake that formed in 28. There are all kinds of errors in the lot boundries. And around 85 the orginal sewer system was replaced with a pressure grinder system that pumps up into the road where there is a force main. The plans for that show the general locations for the holding tanks and feeds, but they are not detailed enough to guarantee that you dig here that you will hit the line. PS there are recorded easements for the new sewer system and the older one, but they don't give any plans or plates.
Edited 5/18/2005 4:40 pm ET by Bill Hartmann
> My best guess is it goes into a neighbor's yard, then turns and crosses 2 more yards before hitting a main sewer line in a street about 150' downhill.
In that case, ask the three neighbors about where their sewer lines run. It could be that they tie into this same line rather than running separately to the street.
My place is similar. My sewer line runs out the side of the house, crosses the lot line, and joins with the neighbor's sewer under their driveway. One perpendicular run under their driveway connects us both to the city main. The two buildings were built by the same company in 1926, and the lots were divided and sold separately in 1929. There's no record of the sewer being like that, and no easements. I only discovered it when I had the place re-piped in 1999.
-- J.S.
Dig out your deed. There likely are several easements listed. Also, if the line runs close to the street (typically 5-15 feet) it may be in a common utility easement.
If indeed the line runs across several yards then it's likely that the other houses tie into a common lateral. If the collapse is in that lateral you can in many cases actually force the others to help pay for the repairs (tee-hee). In any event, the existence of the line in their yards for decades would probably constitute "adverse possession", meaning that you implicitly have an easement. But only a lawyer who is up on such property law issues can tell you for sure.
The sewers where added long after the house was built.So most likely any easement would not be on the deed, but a separate document.
Just because the existing line might run across the neighbors, does that necessarily mean a new one needs to? Do you know where the sewer line in the street is, and can you get straight there?