Mysterious unidentified easements pre sale

RE, the easement should be registered and listed on the title search. You can then search the easement provided you have its registration number.

Easement for power will have been registered by the energy supplier.

 

Is the train line still there and is it in use?

If yes it would likely be for maintenance access. They have large corridors than most and if there is power for the railway it will be their responsibility.

I doubt they'll adjust the easement, unless it was the original one for construction back in the day and they now don't require such large access area... But in saying the railways are the worst authority to deal with so very unlikely they'll answer the phone let alone get rid of an easement.

 

Its not a train line, its a power easement! There's no requirement for access, there's an access road running along the power line. It definitely can't be adjusted or got rid of, I just need to find out what the easement *is* since there is no diagram of it and the easement on the title search I have is useless.

The REA and NSW railways are both allegedly getting back to me about this. Hopefully they can do a different search and find more information about the easement.

How do you even put this sort of thing on a contract as a condition anyway? Will buy subject to clarification of under-documented easement?

 

@RumpledElf the post from @Tim & Chrissy about railway electrical access seems to explain it quite well and sounds like your easement. Did you see it?

 

Yup, that info they posted is from the web page I originally hit when I first tried to get hold of NSW rails to try and confirm if it was the pole behind the block or something else entirely. For all I know there's something else other than that pole, which I won't know without getting more information.

While it is very likely its just that pole on the adjacent land, buying a block of land without confirming the location and limitations of an easement is the issue here.

Photo of the pole attached - those guy wires go a LONG way.

 

Have you got google earth? Not sure if you can see the pole/wires on satellite but you may be able to use the ruler tool to get a rough idea of where the 5 metre exclusion zone extends to.

 

You can see them and I've been up there (hence photo) but the guy wires are a hell of a lot longer than 5m and I don't know if the 5m radius is drawn around the pole or the guy wires. There'd be an anchor point some metres vertically below where the pole is, under the undergrowth. I can't answer anything without something from NSW railways at this point, now I've actually had a look. Which is annoying as I have had an offer accepted. So I have to somehow word this into the contract conditions.

 

It would be 5 metres from any point, poles or wires, because they need access for broken wires, damaged transformers etc.

Also think about when they trim trees near power lines, they put the tiger tails on the wires and need access all the way along the line for the cherry picker.

Suburban power easements - nothing is ever built underneath the wires and as a result the land underneath is used for livestock, golf courses, reserves but no permanent structures.

 

Right, that absolutely explains the easement then. 5 metres from that anchor point. Its right at the steepest point at the top of the block so won't be building there anyway, the only place you can build on this block is down at street level - also need distance from the trees on the other side of the power corridor for BAL rating and maybe 1/4 of the entire block has a low enough slope to even think about cutting into so the easement isn't the only thing limiting the buildable area. I wouldn't touch this block if I was thinking of building anything other than a small weekender with ~80sqm footprint, it is undeniably a difficult site.

Hopefully get this all confirmed during the week.

 

Best of luck

We love the upper blue mountains, would love to buy a heritage restoration project up there one day.

Post some progress pics for the weekender once you're up and running.

 

And it goes on. Agent was convinced it was Endeavour Energy in charge of easements. NSW trains rang back today being puzzled again, clarified what I was asking and is going to pass it on to their property people.

On the upside, if this all goes through, there'll be an actual DIAGRAM of the block and the easement lodged eventually ...

 

Finally found out about it!

It is an easement from back in the dark ages when the land was part of a 500 hectare parcel and it is now a legacy easement from then. The power line was originally for the iron mines and the railways bought it. I still need to check if the guy wires genuinely do cause an easement by coming close to the edge of the railway land (need the block surveyed), but otherwise I got an address to write to to get it removed. There is no railway infrastructure on the block I've got an offer on.

Apparently someone else close by is building and hit exactly the same issue so when I finally got passed to the right person he already had the whole story

There we go, obscure property issue for the week lol

Edit: I also have a diagram now! Its a 100lk wide easement running rather a few metres away from the back edge of the block. Yay for archaic units of measurement

 

Good job, glad to see you stuck at it!

I'm at the end of my tether with my QLD search

 

Well done for persisting. A lot of other people would have been scared off. Don't tell the agent you have solved the mystery in case there are other prospective buyers hanging around and the agent spills the beans.

 

Haha, I left a trail of maybe 10 or so contacts and referrals and forwarded queries. Not an easy one to nail down, I've never hit anything like this before and hope not to again. Now I guess I get to run the gauntlet with the bank getting a loan ...

 

Maybe tell the agent that the easement thing is a real problem but you'll probably press on regardless and just put a tent or something on the land.

 

They already accepted my offer, which was less than the asking price. Same as the block next door sold for and probably equal lowest sale in the town for some time. The block next door has no street level frontage - major earthworks there. The entire frontage is a 4m high retaining wall. I can see why the asking price for this one was just 20% up on the sale price of that block.

 

@RumpledElf
I stumbled across this thread trying to find some info on an 'Easement for Access' located on a block of land I have an offer in on in the lower Blue Mountains. The easement section is a rather large square, and takes up over a third of an approx. 2.5 acre block - and covers a majority of the portion you could otherwise actually build on!!
The block (and easement) nowhere near the Rail line itself, and I think is to do with accessing power or something.
Any advice you can provide to point me in the direction where I could find out more information would be hugely appreciated....

 

I don't think he will be responding.

Last Activity:
17th Apr, 2017

 

Ah well, was worth a try