Sellers, Neighbors & Buyers - the perfect storm.

Life is never as easy as you want it to be.

Apparently the sellers are playing hard ball and really don't care what we think about the easement, how much it will cost to pursue, and the time we've put in to figure it out so far.

This past week, I've spent a collective 8hrs on talking with various real estate attorneys, land survey engineers and township representatives.  To put it simply we have three options in front of us:

1) Do Nothing - we just leave everything as is.  Our land is what it is defined in the deed. Their land is what it is as defined in their deed.  The items of theirs on our property just sit and nothing changes.

• Pro: $0 Cost, 0 Time wasted
• Pro: Happy neighbors.  What happens in the future? TBD
• Pro: Simple & Fast Closing on the sale.
• Pro: We don't care about the encroachment, really.  We don't have any intention of moving their house, AC unit or shrubs - we are just trying to figure out who owns what.
• Con: Plenty of "what if" problems w/ neighbor.  What if their AC leaks freon into the soil and it requires "cleanup".  Technically it is their freon, but it is seeping into our soil. We are responsible for the cost of the cleanup.
• Con: Will there be problems if we sell the property later? If/when we sell the house, what problems will appear in that sale.
• Con: Counts against our impermeable surface calculations.  Since we are building, we need to be concerned with how much soil our home, plantings, driveway, etc will cover.  If we're close to our limit, then this area of theirs on our property counts against our total coverage.  Small, I know, but still... it counts.

2) Re-Deed the property.  Basically have the township re-draw the property lines for both properties.

• Pro: Fully legal and binding.  This would be recorded and passed down forever.  Basically a re-zoning of the property.
• Pro: Most 'complete' of the possible options.
• Con: Very Expensive. $3-5k for legal paperwork, plus $2500 (minimum) for each property in question.  So, we're looking at approximately $10,000 to execute this. 
• Con: Disallowed by Lower Merion township Zoning. Cannot put property into further non-compliance with lot dimension rules.  As it is now, our property is below minimum lot width for the Zoning it is currently in.  Making it smaller puts it further into non-compliance and that would not pass any zoning boards.
• Con: Long time to complete.  Probably a year of wasted time.
• Con: Requires multiple township approvals.  Everybody and their mother has a chance to weigh in on this.  It has to go through multiple township, county, and public hearings. You know that would be a mess. 

3) Grant of Easement - As discussed earlier.

• Pro: Fully legal and binding.
• Pro: Requires only 2 parties to agree. Grantor and Grantee.  There is no need for the township, county or state to get involved. This is just an agreement with the people in question.
• Pro: Grant should be filed with township / county.  We could  submit the final documents to the township and it would stay with the property.  Interestingly enough, easements can have various lifetimes.  You can say it lasts as long as one or both of you own the property, as long as XXX years, or that it can "go with the land".  Meaning, as long as the land exists... the easement exists.  We've been told by the township that they would only allow a "go with the land" option.  How could they stop you?  Well, they are the ones giving us the permission to build, and they can pull that at any time. So, need to keep that crew happy.
• Con: Legal fees = ~$1000. 
• Con: Engineering / Survey fees = ~$1000-$2000.  All about the Benjamins.

4) Grant Permission - Basically say they can use it.  That's it.  We grant permission to use the land with stipulations (they maintain, etc). If they don't agree to the permissions, then they are inherently stating they have right to the land (since they don't have to ask permission) and are therefore responsible for any issues. If they do, then they are agreeing to the stipulations.

• Pro: Needs only to be a mailed document to encroaching neighbors.  Mail a copy to us, and to them - registered, and we're done.  If they refuse it, that is a sign they don't want the property.
• Pro: $0 cost.

 Option 4 is new to us, and it the least binding. But, as is with any law, common sense generally prevails as long as the "reasonable man" would agree.  So while I think we're going to go with the Grant of Easement, it is nice that if we get push-back on that from the neighbors we can go with a one-sided permission document.

More to come.