I bought a house two months ago. I informed the HOA of my intent to build a fence. The HOA informed me the property was in violation of a 150 ft landscape easement agreed to with the city when it was built for noise purposes, with only 25 ft of the easement remaining. They intend to reclaim 75 ft of the easement, bringing the total to 100 ft. This would halve the useable space of the backyard, although nothing is built on the easement. My closing documents included a plat number of my neighborhood, and the HOA President showed me a plat map which was not included in my closing documents confirming this.
On my Sales Disclosure Form, the seller indicated “No” on “Easements or right of way grants”. The warranty deed says the property is subject to all easements amd covenants. The HOA documents provided to me do not indicate any easements on my property. On another Disclosure Form the seller indicated “do not know” when asked if there was any violation of the covenants. The lot appraised including the easement.
We are of course going to be looking into a lawyer next week. Based on what I said, what should be our likely course of action/options? We have title insurance. We would have thought about the purchase of the property based on this information.
I do not intend to rat out my neighbors, but they are both in violation of the 150 ft easement, although not as egrigiously. Based on Google Maps, this violation has occurred since at least 2018, further images are too blurry to tell.
Location: Indiana
Comments
Your survey would should all registered easements. If you don’t have one, get one.