A few years ago I was hired to build a driveway on an existing farm road; for a family that had just bought about 20 acres from a farmer. The farm road could be described as a squared off "S" in that it came in from the State road a few hundred feet uphill, made a 90-ish degree turn to the left and then a few hundred feet later it made a similar turn to the right and continued back about a quarter mile. Something the homeowner said made me concerned, so I went out into this frozen cornfield the day after Christmas with a metal detector and found all the survey pins. Anyone who has tried walking a frozen corn field knows that it's not fun, but it's a good thing I did. It turned out that the property line cut completely across the first turn, leaving several hundred feet of planned driveway on the farmer's side. We changed the plan to get the driveway completely onto the customer's property, but it wasn't cheap. Mainly because the NEW location was in a big bowl and we literally had to build a 5,000 cubic yard hill. About 100 Tons of Riprap "A" later, we had a hill. Add about 500 Tons of Limestone, several layers of geomaterials and a lot of work later and they had a solid driveway. They probably could have had the farmer throw in the elbow for free before the closing. IF anyone had been paying attention.
Seeing in person is important even for renters, no matter what your renting. My stepmother is an interim pastor. They will research rentals and then get a deacon to go check on the apartment or house. Listings can be made to look fantastic and really be dumps. One look in person and my parents would be told to run from what online looked like a great place to rent.
May I offer a note on having someone look at the land before you buy? Consider having a consulting forester walk the parcel. Foresters have experience with land lines, access, timber values, fire-safe concerns, etc. Also any programs to cost-share forest improvement and conservation work. I've had too many clients that bought first and then got a rude awakening after the fact.
If you haven’t thought of this, Troy, you may want to check into....that constant creek crossing can’t be doing your wheel bearings any good. Please insure to do a preventative maintenance (grease the tar outta them) on them if you haven’t already. Thank you.
sorry to be so off topic but does anybody know a method to log back into an instagram account?? I was stupid lost the password. I love any assistance you can offer me
@Grant Emerson Thanks for your reply. I found the site on google and im waiting for the hacking stuff atm. I see it takes a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
I ran into a similar situation at my first farm in Maryland. The original ROW was eroded and an old farm lane leading past a neighbor's house to his barn was used since the old lane was "lost".. We ended up in court and used adverse possession law and won possession of the ROW. In Md, and many other states, adverse possession laws run from 10 to 40 years. In Md it was 20 years at the time. We could prove the farm lane was used openly since the 1960's using old overhead pictures taken from a plane back then. Without the adversely possessed ROW, our land would also been landlocked, this was another consideration by the judge that won us the ROW.
We have in some of our older suburban areas where all the houses do have street frontage in theory, but there is a cliff between them and the road. So often several houses have a single driveway that goes across the front of all the sections to get to the top of the cliff, starting from where there is a low point and working its way up. Sometimes there is formal easements but often it was never done, it was all just agreements between the owners when they built their driveways. Of course if it ever went to court in the future being the only access to the properties an easement would be given by the court.
General rule: if the land next to any water is flat it is a flood plain. In other words, it is flat because it has flooded many times. Maybe not often, but enough to make it flat. Also look at the county or state flood zone maps, they can impact the insurance rates (a lot).
You hit the nail on the head...never assume just because there is a road or path to a property that that is a legal right away. I have property at the end of a dead end county rd. and can't tell you how many people just assume that they can use my private drive as access to properties behind me. Great advice on this one
Our state was laid out when we were Indian country. Modern surveyors discover all of these "mistakes" in surveys that result in weird slivers of land on other side of roads. Does the legal owner "own" the property? Yes. Has true ownership possibly been loss due to adverse possession? Maybe
if there was one thing i would tell someone who is buying land GET IT SURVEYED. we didn't and it caused major problems when the property next to us was built upon.
I seen a dozen of these videos lately and the one thing I see consistently is the Realtors recommend you don't get it surveyed and people with bad experiences recommend you do get it surveyed. And in one case of 52 acre parcel of land turned out to really only be 39 Acres which significantly change the price.
@@macmcleod1188 understand ALL realtors represent the seller. no one cares about the buyer. the only thing that matter is that a buy happens. no buy. no payday. realtors dont give a fuck what happens to anybody. as long as they get paid. no reason to use a realtor. for anything.
I found this beautiful property in Western Colorado, 36 acres for 45,000 which is incredibly cheap for the area. I found out why. A 1/2 mile driveway would need to be cut through someones property, or we'd have to put a 1/2 mile of switchbacks climbing a steep hogback. Love the rocky mountains
If you had to create easement on your property only you would also create a problem for the county road and weaken the land the county road sits on which could cause a landslide in the future which also could force the neighbor into a easement.
I was looking at land online and found some that was measured in meets and bounds, or something like that. Had to look up what that was, sounded like it could be a mess if you had the wrong neighbors.
Recently looking at some property and the agent listed the lot size in square feet instead of acres. We are looking for acreage and I had to do the math to figure out how many acres it really was. Still trying to figure out why they did it that way???
@@thesquiresworkshop8560 zillow listings are in # of sf and realtor.com is defined by acreage....so the answer likely depends on the resource used by the agent.
Great video. Would you maybe do a video on how you ran your utilities? Are they all buried, and did you do that yourself? It might just be your electricity, but just curious how that is handled with trees, and set back off the road so far.
Agreed. We are looking to buy land and because I don’t know the first thing about setting up utilities, I’ve been tempted to pay more for a property that has them already set up. However, they are hard to find.
I'm not sure; but in the past if you have land locked land in Vermont and you use a road/driveway for 7 years the land owner has to relinquish the right of way to you and not block access.
No one is stealing anything. It is just a right to access the internal parcel. 99 percent of the time the two properties were one and when it was subdivided the owner screwed up by not dividing the land to give the other owners street access. If an easement is required it is through the land that it was previously part of.
Great channel. I love how you explain the five W's in a clear, concise manner. I was scrolling through your old videos and came across the walk through from your brothers living history homestead. How has his dream progressed through the years? I would be interested in seeing the current status of the place.
Yeah I live in the house right where the road turns into crick.... That's wild, Kelly's crossing the creek at flood stage, it must have been real hairy driving it, in those old timey 20's-30's vehicles...
Maybe they DIDN'T cross - the house was right near by - park and walk a little. Arms Family Homestead crosses a creek too - and that floods BAD sometimes. As in "Maybe a full military Humvee with a hood snorkel could make it". Standard SUV? No. They installed a footbridge, and some times they just have to park on the road side of the creek and walk to the house.
I live in summers county and just found out I don’t own my driveway two years after I purchase my home someone bought land next to me and come to find out I don’t own my driveway
You may not own your driveway but you likely have an easement to use the driveway. The easement will be on the deed of the owner's property. Not all wording of easements are the same and the wording of the easement can be to your benefit. If you have an easement to use then no one can legally block your your access to the driveway. Also the owner may be require to maintain which includes plowing the driveway for your legal easement. * The tricky nasty wording of an easement may give you right to block the driveway and hence preventing the owner from access to the easement. Old deeds are notorious for having vague easements which overly benefits the party who has the easement. The easement may not say "share" which can be interrupted as you have exclusive right.
@@johnhanselman6371 Good point; I recently purchased and my neighbor has an easement to use my driveway. The contract is very much written in is favor. I fear I've given up more land than needed to drive on after reflection.
Troy, I really enjoy flying around over prospects using Google Earth Pro. It's great to look back at how the woods vary and seeing where the sun comes up, but I'm not satisfied with my estimated calibration of the 3D topo rendering settings. I've gotten pretty close, but when you showed your the 3D of your property and the "live" shot of the road I had to wonder; are you using the default setting? I started out there, but it seemed to exaggerate contours quite a bit when I tried to use Google Maps' various street views for reference. I suspect you being able to compare in person might well provide a more accurate reference than anything I have access to at present. Everywhere around me is far too flat to help when all the much more contoured properties I'm considering are a quite a few hundred miles away and too far apart to see more than 2-3 a day when I can get up there. Long question, I know; so what setting are you using for Options>Terrain>Elevation Exaggeration or are you just using the default? It still doesn't seem that my setting of .3 look so accurate in most instances. Got any more tips about using Google Earth? I'd hate to get 500 miles away and not be able to recognize what I thought I'd seen on standard topo charts.
Back in the day before lawyers make the law, neighbors didn't worry about official easement. Are we better today or would you rather have neighbors who work together.
What do you mean by survey map? What is a survey map? I have hired a surveyor to mark my property and they gave me a drawing of the lot, is that what you are talking about?
@@Vegatable it’s more for people that are moving several states away and may not always be able to travel back and forth in the process of buying a property
A few years ago I was hired to build a driveway on an existing farm road; for a family that had just bought about 20 acres from a farmer.
The farm road could be described as a squared off "S" in that it came in from the State road a few hundred feet uphill, made a 90-ish degree turn to the left and then a few hundred feet later it made a similar turn to the right and continued back about a quarter mile.
Something the homeowner said made me concerned, so I went out into this frozen cornfield the day after Christmas with a metal detector and found all the survey pins. Anyone who has tried walking a frozen corn field knows that it's not fun, but it's a good thing I did. It turned out that the property line cut completely across the first turn, leaving several hundred feet of planned driveway on the farmer's side.
We changed the plan to get the driveway completely onto the customer's property, but it wasn't cheap. Mainly because the NEW location was in a big bowl and we literally had to build a 5,000 cubic yard hill. About 100 Tons of Riprap "A" later, we had a hill. Add about 500 Tons of Limestone, several layers of geomaterials and a lot of work later and they had a solid driveway.
They probably could have had the farmer throw in the elbow for free before the closing. IF anyone had been paying attention.
Seeing in person is important even for renters, no matter what your renting. My stepmother is an interim pastor. They will research rentals and then get a deacon to go check on the apartment or house. Listings can be made to look fantastic and really be dumps. One look in person and my parents would be told to run from what online looked like a great place to rent.
May I offer a note on having someone look at the land before you buy? Consider having a consulting forester walk the parcel. Foresters have experience with land lines, access, timber values, fire-safe concerns, etc. Also any programs to cost-share forest improvement and conservation work. I've had too many clients that bought first and then got a rude awakening after the fact.
I can't believe you haven't built a bridge. Wouldn't your hardwood make a sufficient structure?
Could just build a concrete ford if flooding is an issue too, as a bridge might have to be built really high to pass a flood and not wash away.
If you haven’t thought of this, Troy, you may want to check into....that constant creek crossing can’t be doing your wheel bearings any good. Please insure to do a preventative maintenance (grease the tar outta them) on them if you haven’t already. Thank you.
you cant grease sealed wheel bearings. lmao.
sorry to be so off topic but does anybody know a method to log back into an instagram account??
I was stupid lost the password. I love any assistance you can offer me
@Jackson Draven instablaster ;)
@Grant Emerson Thanks for your reply. I found the site on google and im waiting for the hacking stuff atm.
I see it takes a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
@Grant Emerson It worked and I now got access to my account again. I'm so happy:D
Thanks so much, you really help me out !
This makes a lot of sense. I have been looking at tax maps in WV on property and this clears up alot of questions.
I ran into a similar situation at my first farm in Maryland. The original ROW was eroded and an old farm lane leading past a neighbor's house to his barn was used since the old lane was "lost".. We ended up in court and used adverse possession law and won possession of the ROW. In Md, and many other states, adverse possession laws run from 10 to 40 years. In Md it was 20 years at the time. We could prove the farm lane was used openly since the 1960's using old overhead pictures taken from a plane back then. Without the adversely possessed ROW, our land would also been landlocked, this was another consideration by the judge that won us the ROW.
We have in some of our older suburban areas where all the houses do have street frontage in theory, but there is a cliff between them and the road. So often several houses have a single driveway that goes across the front of all the sections to get to the top of the cliff, starting from where there is a low point and working its way up. Sometimes there is formal easements but often it was never done, it was all just agreements between the owners when they built their driveways. Of course if it ever went to court in the future being the only access to the properties an easement would be given by the court.
General rule: if the land next to any water is flat it is a flood plain. In other words, it is flat because it has flooded many times. Maybe not often, but enough to make it flat. Also look at the county or state flood zone maps, they can impact the insurance rates (a lot).
#6 go and talk with the neighbors, take a six pack and ask about the area.
many moons ago i was taught a six pack of Guinness will accommodate many work discussions
You hit the nail on the head...never assume just because there is a road or path to a property that that is a legal right away. I have property at the end of a dead end county rd. and can't tell you how many people just assume that they can use my private drive as access to properties behind me. Great advice on this one
Our state was laid out when we were Indian country. Modern surveyors discover all of these "mistakes" in surveys that result in weird slivers of land on other side of roads. Does the legal owner "own" the property? Yes. Has true ownership possibly been loss due to adverse possession? Maybe
if there was one thing i would tell someone who is buying land GET IT SURVEYED. we didn't and it caused major problems when the property next to us was built upon.
I seen a dozen of these videos lately and the one thing I see consistently is the Realtors recommend you don't get it surveyed and people with bad experiences recommend you do get it surveyed.
And in one case of 52 acre parcel of land turned out to really only be 39 Acres which significantly change the price.
@@macmcleod1188 realtors opinion are absolutely useless.
@@macmcleod1188 understand ALL realtors represent the seller. no one cares about the buyer. the only thing that matter is that a buy happens. no buy. no payday. realtors dont give a fuck what happens to anybody. as long as they get paid. no reason to use a realtor. for anything.
I found this beautiful property in Western Colorado, 36 acres for 45,000 which is incredibly cheap for the area. I found out why. A 1/2 mile driveway would need to be cut through someones property, or we'd have to put a 1/2 mile of switchbacks climbing a steep hogback. Love the rocky mountains
If you had to create easement on your property only you would also create a problem for the county road and weaken the land the county road sits on which could cause a landslide in the future which also could force the neighbor into a easement.
Always have loved when you do these type of videos. Keep them coming.
I was looking at land online and found some that was measured in meets and bounds, or something like that. Had to look up what that was, sounded like it could be a mess if you had the wrong neighbors.
Recently looking at some property and the agent listed the lot size in square feet instead of acres. We are looking for acreage and I had to do the math to figure out how many acres it really was. Still trying to figure out why they did it that way???
@@thesquiresworkshop8560 zillow listings are in # of sf and realtor.com is defined by acreage....so the answer likely depends on the resource used by the agent.
Great video. Would you maybe do a video on how you ran your utilities? Are they all buried, and did you do that yourself? It might just be your electricity, but just curious how that is handled with trees, and set back off the road so far.
Agreed. We are looking to buy land and because I don’t know the first thing about setting up utilities, I’ve been tempted to pay more for a property that has them already set up. However, they are hard to find.
I'd love to see some easement and access oddities!
Very informative, thanks for the video.
Thanks for the advice 😊 God bless you.
Excellent points. It amazes us how many people buy without looking at a property. Always enjoy your videos!
As always, great information.
It's all fine to have an easement as long as everyone maintains their bits (if shared) or lets you maintain it (if easement).
I'm not sure; but in the past if you have land locked land in Vermont and you use a road/driveway for 7 years the land owner has to relinquish the right of way to you and not block access.
Gotta love a law that says if you steal from someone for a long time, it's no longer stealing.
No one is stealing anything. It is just a right to access the internal parcel. 99 percent of the time the two properties were one and when it was subdivided the owner screwed up by not dividing the land to give the other owners street access. If an easement is required it is through the land that it was previously part of.
VERY Educational! Yes, I would be looking for land so I can do some camping.
Great channel. I love how you explain the five W's in a clear, concise manner. I was scrolling through your old videos and came across the walk through from your brothers living history homestead. How has his dream progressed through the years? I would be interested in seeing the current status of the place.
Yeah I live in the house right where the road turns into crick....
That's wild, Kelly's crossing the creek at flood stage, it must have been real hairy driving it, in those old timey 20's-30's vehicles...
Maybe they DIDN'T cross - the house was right near by - park and walk a little. Arms Family Homestead crosses a creek too - and that floods BAD sometimes. As in "Maybe a full military Humvee with a hood snorkel could make it". Standard SUV? No. They installed a footbridge, and some times they just have to park on the road side of the creek and walk to the house.
Flatlanders better be ready for bears too.
I just bought a 1 acer parcel I got it about half price because it has easement to get to.
I live in summers county and just found out I don’t own my driveway two years after I purchase my home someone bought land next to me and come to find out I don’t own my driveway
You may not own your driveway but you likely have an easement to use the driveway. The easement will be on the deed of the owner's property. Not all wording of easements are the same and the wording of the easement can be to your benefit. If you have an easement to use then no one can legally block your your access to the driveway. Also the owner may be require to maintain which includes plowing the driveway for your legal easement.
* The tricky nasty wording of an easement may give you right to block the driveway and hence preventing the owner from access to the easement. Old deeds are notorious for having vague easements which overly benefits the party who has the easement. The easement may not say "share" which can be interrupted as you have exclusive right.
@@johnhanselman6371 Good point; I recently purchased and my neighbor has an easement to use my driveway. The contract is very much written in is favor. I fear I've given up more land than needed to drive on after reflection.
Interesting and informative set of videos!
Valley? You live up in a holler. Yep I'm from West Virginia. Born and raised in Logan County.
its a bit inconvenient but i have a county road running through my land
Troy, I really enjoy flying around over prospects using Google Earth Pro. It's great to look back at how the woods vary and seeing where the sun comes up, but I'm not satisfied with my estimated calibration of the 3D topo rendering settings. I've gotten pretty close, but when you showed your the 3D of your property and the "live" shot of the road I had to wonder; are you using the default setting? I started out there, but it seemed to exaggerate contours quite a bit when I tried to use Google Maps' various street views for reference. I suspect you being able to compare in person might well provide a more accurate reference than anything I have access to at present. Everywhere around me is far too flat to help when all the much more contoured properties I'm considering are a quite a few hundred miles away and too far apart to see more than 2-3 a day when I can get up there. Long question, I know; so what setting are you using for Options>Terrain>Elevation Exaggeration or are you just using the default? It still doesn't seem that my setting of .3 look so accurate in most instances. Got any more tips about using Google Earth? I'd hate to get 500 miles away and not be able to recognize what I thought I'd seen on standard topo charts.
this guy is alright. subd
Back in the day before lawyers make the law, neighbors didn't worry about official easement. Are we better today or would you rather have neighbors who work together.
Lol. Yeah there were never any property disputes “back in the day”
@@darwinawardcommittee LOL
What do you mean by survey map? What is a survey map? I have hired a surveyor to mark my property and they gave me a drawing of the lot, is that what you are talking about?
Where did you get the survey map at?
also a $30k bridge leading to the easement. You'd need a US Senator to achieve that. lol.
I hear the Kennedys are pretty good with small bridges.
A good real estate agent will happily go to a property for you and take photos or do a video call for you.
Lol if you don't see somewhere that you're going to live with your own eyes before you live there you're probably missing something
@@Vegatable it’s more for people that are moving several states away and may not always be able to travel back and forth in the process of buying a property
So weird. Ya gotta wonder how drunk these surveyors were when they mapped all this
To get creeks out of the road..... hmmmmm....
Pig update?
Based on you videos you bought the cheapest piece of problematic, scrub land in North America, east of the Mississippi.
West Virginia is the worst to build
Why?
@@mikeb2777 too hilly not cost effective from I seen some parts but I could be wrong