Under contract, but survey has some strange carve outs?

[Kimberly Whitaker]

Has anyone seen a property survey where an adjacent property cuts into your prospective property? We are looking at a 24 unit class C apartment community, but the main entrance driveway, the main front grassy area with the signage and half of a back driveway are owned by another entity. This adjacent property is also for sale (about 1 acre of undeveloped land). Has anyone seen this before?

1. Should we try to negotiate with both sellers of both properties to see if we can reconfigure the property lines?

2. Should we look into buying the undeveloped land? There's not much we could do with 1 acre in the narrow configuration it is in currently. 

Is this a deal killer? Any suggestions?

[Christopher Phillips]

@Kimberly Whitaker

That's a common situation. It's called an "easement" if it was done properly with permission.

An easement is a right given to cross or use another person's land for a specific purpose. If you have the permission then it's not an issue.

It becomes an issue if you don't have permission and the title company won't insure that part of the property. Then you'd have to work something out with the other owner.

However, it's an "encroachment" if they did it illegally. Like if the builder was a little overzealous during construction and crossed over the property lines. But many states have rules that the encroachment becomes a permanent easement if it's been going on a long time.

So, you have to determine if you have an easement or an encroachment.