Humboldt County Home Purchase: Check Easements and Conduct Inspections before Purchasing a Home

Watch out for easements when buying a home! Today my buyer and I went to various county departments to try to find out where a certain easement lied on the property that she is buying. The title company gave us a copy of the preliminary title report stating that there were two easements, one easement for the water/sewer company to have access of certain areas of the property for repairing water pipes (which we were able to determine where the easement lied), and the other easement was a Humboldt County easement which stated that the county can use the property for a public roadway. We read and researched the document containing that easement, but it referred to other documents; the deed of the property itself, and a couple survey maps.

We went to the county public works department and one of their engineering technicians was able to determine that this easement for a public roadway might have, or should have, been abandoned before the current owners were able to build a house on the property and that this "vacancy" document was missing from the title report. Otherwise, it appears that the county could exercise the easement and my client, the future property owner, would have to comply and remove her house if the county wanted to install the roadway. This is not good for any home owner, so we went back to the title company with our findings and they will look into the matter before we proceed further with the transaction.

These little items on the preliminary title report that the title company gives the agent and client are very important and both agent and client should review each item carefully. I hope that we receive good news and that the county has removed that easement, or that they show the easement covering only a certain part of the property and not the entire lot.