PA PRACTICE QUESTION ABOUT EASEMENT
Please review the question and answer below.
I'm confused.
A utility Easement is something recorded in the court with the deed, correct?
So how can the owner get permission from the utility company to build on the easement? Who has this authority? Wouldn't that be an encroachment on the survey?
Thank you
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B is correct from my experience. You can put a shed on easement, but you need to know that they can come and move it or tear it down without notice. (It's polite to give notice, but they won't) Recommend to build a shed that can be moved if needed. Yes, it's best to notify the Utility AHJ so that you protect your client and warn him of the risk.
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Really so you can get a permit approved with an easement encroachment? I bel.the realistic real life answer would be change the size of the shed but that was not a choice here.
for the test purpose the books I have read that are referenced by NCARB refer to the easement as being recoded in the court with the deed and the only way to change that is with a new deed recording at the court not with a “permission from utility company “‘NCARB please advise. I believe you need to reword this question.
Thank You -
Hi Yvette -
You're right about easements - they're legally recorded documents restricting the use of all or part of a piece of land. However, just like anything, you could of course negotiate with the utility company to revise the easement so that you can build a shed. I think that 'Request permission from the utility company' would be the first step in that process, and once granted permission you'd need to actually formalize the revision to the easement.
All that aside, I think you can answer this question by dissecting it a bit.
Two of the choices, A and C, are similar to each other in a few ways. They're both absolute - either construct the shed or don't. They also both have a 'because' statement in them - I'm usually skeptical of choices like this and I find that answer choices that have to explain themselves are typically not correct.
Then there's the middle ground choice - ask for permission and see what happens. I think that's a reasonable choice in this scenario and you have to ask yourself, why is this question providing all this information?:
- The proposed structure is a shed - read this to mean 'not a big deal, perhaps movable in the future'
- The side yard is 10', the easement is 4', and the shed will be 7' wide. We're only talking about a 1' encroachment into the easement. Why provide that detail?
Lastly on a technical note, the question asks 'how should the owner proceed with the construction of the shed? I'd say that technically, 'Don't proceed' (choice C) doesn't answer the question of how to proceed.
Chris Hopstock RA
Black Spectacles
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