When it comes to property values, most people are focused on things like land area, the homes square footage, home features, and views. When assessing property value, you may also want to consider an easement!
What is an easement? In short, it is an agreement or right to access and /or modify a land area that you do not own by means of a binding document, the easement! There are many ways different forms of easements and ways in which it can provide values to owners of country homes.
Imagine you are viewing a property for sale and thinking that you like it except for one big problem… You’d like to access the property at a different point for landscaping ideas, building a shop, or simply having a different driveway. As you think further about this problem, you learn that the access areas of interest are bordered by the neighbor at one point, crown land at another and yet another by city property, so what can you do?
In all three of these situations, you can request an easement. In the case of a neighbor, it could be as simple as starting off with a conversation to get permission to share a road to access your land at a different point and then to put this into a formal easement. Often crown land can benefit by the cooperation of easements allowing for many benefits including community pastures. And, one of the simplest things easements can do is allow you to modify a sidewalk into a driveway; an easement can be applied to both small and larger properties.
While there are many benefits to easements, you should be aware that there is another form of easement called a statutory right of way. This occurs when a public company utility needs to access some form of infrastructure for things like maintenance through your land and in many cases they have the right to create an easement giving them this right. While many could view this as a negative, it could be to your benefit since the company would build and maintain such as road; leverage!
When you are looking at the land around country homes, don’t limit your ideas because of boarders or existing landscapes; consider what an easement can do to enhance property values.
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