Shortly before our construction loan closing date, we decided to do a little investigating into the official easement on which our driveway was built. What started as a simply question about if we could gate off the driveway turned into multiple conversations with the title company, the bank, our builder, our original builder Bob who sold us the land, and eventually a real estate lawyer. It was a little nerve-wracking with a lot of happy thoughts like "why didn't we look into this last fall" and "I can't wait until our house ends up landlocked -- that will really help its value."
Kidding aside, we got some questions answered and feel good about going forward:
Our driveway is on an easement through State owned tax-forfeited land. This means the driveway is open to the public up to the point where it turns onto our 40 acres. We had assumed this and were expecting this, but now we know for sure. This means we can't officially block access with any sort of locking gate. But Bob told us that in all the years he hunted there, he only had one person come down the driveway, and that was the "front 40" neighbor and his dog just to say "hi". Plus, there is really not much of a reason to go down to driveway as the public land is relatively small (about four 40-acre parcels), its surrounded by private parcels, and a lot of it is borderline swampy.
Our lawyer's opinion was that there were some passages in the easement he would change. There were provisions in the easement that the State could cancel it for mining purposes, or if it wasn't maintained properly, both with 30 day notices. He wasn't particularly comfortable with those passages, even though he wasn't too concerned. He's started the process of editing out those sections and is pretty sure we will get it changed. He was fairly sure the State would not be interested in just selling us the strip of land the easement is on. Maybe after all this dust settles we will look into if we can buy a bigger sized parcel that contains the driveway...but until then we will have plenty of other house-related expenses to drain our wallets.
We did go ahead and close our our construction loan on Thursday May 6. Fairly uneventful except for the 5-figure check we had to hand over the the title company. I guess building a house does cost money.
Later than same day, we met our builder, Mark, along with his excavator (Chris) out at the land to have an initial discussion on house location. We tentatively marked out the outline and location of the house. Seems like we can't push the house as far west as we would like because we have to leave lots of space around the septic mound in the NW corner of the cleared land. We also knew we had to clear some more trees to have a nicer backyard, and Chris hinted that he thought the land was already cleared and hadn't planned for that in his bid.. Mark later told us not to worry, he will get Chris to do it. Mark's been pretty good at coming through on things like that.
Another thing that will have to be done is increase the slope in order to accommodate the walk out basement. I'm not quite sure how they are going to do it as I don't want them to just dig out the backyard and move it to the front. I'm envisioning a very muddy swimming pool in our backyard each spring if they simply do that. We will talk to them more tomorrow about that plan.
We took a few pictures while we were out there that day..not too much has changed from prior pictures so nothing too exciting here...
Getting ready to meet the excavator:
Looking east from approximate location of apron in front of garage:
And looking south from same location:
Earlier today, armed with stakes and yellow tape bought at Home Depot, Christina and I went out to the land to take a second look at the house location. We decided to shift it to the west a little bit, and to turn it more square to the south. The day we were there with the excavator we turned it a little to face the incoming driveway. But in retrospect, turning it more square to the south should give us more sun, and the view approaching the house is still great since it sits back pretty far from the driveway. Tomorrow we meet Mark and Chris back out at the land to hopefully make a final decision for an excavation plan.
Some pictures from today:
Looking south at house location...stretch of tape starting on right of picture is the front of the garage:
Looking northwest toward house location from the east end of the side yard:
And same location, except looking more west:
Coffee break:
Looking north from the eventual backyard toward the house:
Cutest measuring assistant:
Just us and the ticks:
And one other critical issue was resovled today. Yes, you can access Facebook from the land location:
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