On 1/12/2011 7:45 PM, Mel Knight wrote:
I just found what appears to be an illegal power pole with telephone
lines (yes, a power pole, with telephone lines) on my property that cross
the property but do not serve my home.

The title company report shows nothing of the sort.

After a week on the phone (off and on) with PG&E, they just now told me
to write a letter stating the 'conflict' (their words, not mine) and what
I'd like the resolution to be.

When I asked what are the available 'resolutions' they wouldn't tell me.

Do you have any experience in this area?

Standard disclaimer- IANAL.
Having said that- sometimes easements for utility right-of-ways are
recorded against the subdivision when it is first platted out, and do
not get spelled out in detail on all the individual land deeds,
especially when the deed is a 'lot number' deed rather than a complete
traditional description. Title company reports are often incomplete,
since they are mainly looking for open liens and competing ownership
claims and such. Too bad most areas are no longer offering abstracts
(and in fact buying up and destroying old abstracts) when property
changes hands these days. There is a reason mortgage companies require
title insurance, in case something like this crawls out of the woodwork.

You or an expert you hire needs to go down to whatever unit of
government (usually the county, but sometimes the township) keeps the
property books for your area. If there was an easement, it will be
recorded somewhere. Unless you live in an older urban area, odds are you
won't have to go back too far. Walk up and down the run of wire, and
look for data plates on the poles. In this part of country, they often
include a year on them. That will give you a place to start backward from.

Unless the pole is causing you problems and/or there is no recorded
easement, what they will probably do is offer you a token sum to sign an
easement and waive the right to sue to make them remove the pole. It is
possible that some installation crew just dropped a pole there because
that is the route they needed to take, and assumed an easement was in
place, because the route was on the work order. If there is no easement,
you could force them to reroute the line (or try to), but whoever lives
at the end of it may then want to get involved, and try to claim an
easement by open and notorious usage or something.

So how mad are you? Is it worth hiring lawyers over? And how long has
the pole been there?

--
aem sends...