Power company wants an easement

my brother-in-law had something similar regarding easement.
the very first thing he asked for was time compensation.
he said "you are getting paid to talk with me, so you pay me to talk with you.
after the check clears, we will sit down and negotiate in good faith."
 
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If they want it in perpetuity, anything you do get from them should be likewise and transferable to your heirs.
If you plan to be there a while.

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I can’t suggest what you should or shouldn’t do regarding this, but I can tell you how to negotiate with the power company over an easement, because we’ve done it. Don’t return their calls. Do this long enough and they’ll dispense with the BS lowball offers and get their hearts right. In the meantime you be doing your homework about whether you’d allow it at all.
 
Cowboy said:
Well considering the mechanical boars they would have to do to go across the roads are about 1k a foot I'd say you could easily get 15k+.
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Now I know why the county was quick to offer a variance on the requirement that if city water is available that you have to connect and told us to put in a well. Not only would we have to bore, it would have been under a railroad which would have required ductile iron which has a smallest size of 4” making it ~$400 per foot plus the bore plus the engineering.
 
noway2 said:
Now I know why the county was quick to offer a variance on the requirement that if city water is available that you have to connect and told us to put in a well. Not only would we have to bore, it would have been under a railroad which would have required ductile iron which has a smallest size of 4” making it ~$400 per foot plus the bore plus the engineering.
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Yeah railroad bores require not just a special permit but also the boring company has to have been certified by the railroad company. My father in law worked down east a few years ago at a Huge rail yard I think Jacksonville. They had to do 40 hours in safety stuff before they let them on the yard. Then twice while down there had all their tools stolen off their trucks.

I was never asked to join the family business and my wife refuses to go to work for them.
 
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noway2 said:
Now I know why the county was quick to offer a variance on the requirement that if city water is available that you have to connect and told us to put in a well. Not only would we have to bore, it would have been under a railroad which would have required ductile iron which has a smallest size of 4” making it ~$400 per foot plus the bore plus the engineering.
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It was so nice of the county to give you choice to drill a well on your own property. Chatham county commissioners want to make this county just as crappy as the places they originally moved from.
 
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cold1 said:
It was so nice of the county to give you choice to drill a well on your own property. Chatham county commissioners want to make this county just as crappy as the places they originally moved from.
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There are a few folks in the county equivalent of the Deep State that are decent. Probably ones from the Bock, Stewart, and Petty days.
 
I had them ask me if they could run power lines down the edge of my field to get power to my neighbor, the poles would be at the corners and out of my way so I said OK.

Now I find out that they bring in their tracked vehicles every year to cut the underbrush under the line and tear up the ground. Not really torn up but left with the track bumps. Something to keep in mind, they don't just go away, you will deal with them forever.
 
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Catfish said:
It's pretty common for contractors to more-or-less ignore imaginary lines on paper and put stuff where it's easy to put stuff.
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I have a project right now to move a fiber line that was installed in a straight line across a parcel rather than hugging the line and making a 90-degree bend. We're talking dozens of feet outside the easement limits.

Regarding the easement in this post...
The $1 offered is actually $0. There's some obscure NC law that says "donated" easements still need to show $1 for compensation. I would call you a fool for NOT asking for a healthy amount of compensation for the line. Three components should make up your valuation:
1. Loss of use of your property.
2. The money you're saving them by letting them take an easier route.
3. The money they're going to make off of that line for decades to come (see lower in my post for some info that'll help set your mental state for asking for a healthy sum).

They'll likely give you a sob story about being able to provide power to the masses and its essentially a public infrastructure necessity. Or they'll counter at some joke of an amount. Be ready to stay straight-faced and demand your amount or they pound sand.

To help understand the money they make...assuming this is Duke or a company of their like...
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article204293519.html
"Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good made $21.4 million last year, an increase of 55 percent from the year before and her highest ever as chief executive, according to the company’s proxy filing released Friday..."

Share the wealth, baby.

Gotta pay to play.

Don't hate the playa, hate the game.

Take your pick of quotes.
 
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Simple solution
Make sure any paper work gives you the right to recend if that is possible. That way it they piss you off you can tell them to pound sand.
 
Schattenreiter said:
Simple solution
Make sure any paper work gives you the right to recend if that is possible. That way it they piss you off you can tell them to pound sand.
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That'll never happen with a utility that's spending money on infrastructure to be placed within the easement. They'll go somewhere else or move to condemnation long before they grant that sort of provision.
 
You can get paid, once, for the easement. It won't be a huge sum, so visions of early retirement are premature.

Those suggesting a continuing revenue stream have never dealt with the power company putting a line through your property. Push it too far, and as previously stated you may become intimately familiar with eminent domain.

Get a survey plat, keep them as close to the line as possible, squeeze every penny out of them you can if they insist and really push it. Be on site if it happens make sure the contractors "stick to the plan".

As previously stated, do nothing, wait for them to send an official letter/packet. You never know, they may just find an alternate path or just drop the whole thing and it's all just an interesting tale at the next BBQ. I've had it go both ways.
 
LesBaer45 said:
Push it too far, and as previously stated you may become intimately familiar with eminent domain.
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Sounds like an effing threat, and eff that. We took DOT to court in front of a jury (although we were the ones "being served with papers") because of a grossly unfair offer on property.
They lost their hindquarters.
In front of a jury.
Makes me smile to this day.
 
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It would be nice if you could just LEASE them access, then you could just charge them more each year....
as much as you wanted... with a clause that maintains the landscaping to your wishes...
 
Although my situation was much more complicated and a different type of issue, take the advice of getting an attorney.

They are necessary evils but you have to use evil to fight dirty. I did and I came out on top.

You are ahead of the game. They are asking you. I had an existing easement and the tree contractor for Duke wanted to deforest my entire property.

Needless to say, it didn't happen. It would have had I laid down and rolled over like a good boy. I'm not a good boy when it comes to my property.
 
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