Beth:
Hi, I am Beth with TB Properties Buys Land. In the last video, we talked about the difference between physical access and legal access, whether you can get to your property physically or without physical access, do you at least have the legal right to cross your neighbor’s land in order to access your own. This is not legal advice but please understand that it is generally considered trespassing to cross someone else’s land in order to access your own property if you do not have an easement or a private road to your property. There area many areas to cover with regard to legal access but regarding today’s topic, we ask: how does this impact the value of your property? Can you sell it? Do people even want to purchase it?
Here at TB Properties Buys Land, we require legal access if we are going to purchase your property. We prefer both legal and physical access but not having a legal easement is a big no for us and I’ll explain why in a bit but first, a quick story from this week: I was speaking with a gentleman with a couple pieces of property they’re trying to sell here in the Texas area. Please understand that every state has different laws with regard to legal access and their ease of getting an easement if there is no legal access. Here in Texas, it’s really hard to get legal access if you don’t already have that. There are ways you can do it. Have you been crossing someone else’s property for the last 10 years and they’ve never complained about it and it’s just generally known that you use that route? Can you prove that in a court of law. Your best bet is to buy an easement from the neighbor but will they grant you one? Is it possible to negotiate with them? Can you even track them down or get an answer out of them? If owned by multiple owners, is everyone willing to sign the easement and get it notarized for you? It has been done before but it is not guaranteed. As for going down the legal path and attempting to sue for access, it is highly uncertain, it can be extremely costly, as well as incredibly time consuming, and it may never even produce the desired results, meaning you may spend the time and money and never win the access easement! This is precisely why not having what we call legal access or an access easement in place can very quickly devalue your property, just because of that uncertainty.
On top of the legal costs, you will have to pay for a survey in order to try to figure where the access easement might need to be placed in reference to the neighbor’s land. Keep in mind that a huge portion of the surveyor’s cost is in the research part. We think of surveyors going out to a vacant lot and posting flags at the corners. There is a lot more work to surveying than just that. There’s a tremendous amount of research you have to do to figure out exactly how the property was passed down, how it was divided, and exactly where it was divided, all based on old, old county documents that may or may not have been clear. Older heirship properties can take much longer to research and can be very expensive in the longrun to survey if records weren’t kept well. Another thing to remember is that just because the survey is completed and mapped out, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be able to get legal access.
In sum, when it comes to selling your vacant land in the state of Texas, do you have physical access and if you do not, do you have legal access? If you are not sure, please feel free to reach out to us. We’re always willing to take a look at it. There are times that when we look closer at the deed we may see that you do have access. Is the property’s access built into the deed, or maybe there’s an old survey, but if your property is landlocked, that definitely changes the value of the property and it could impact whether we buy it or not.
I hope that answers any questions you might have about legal access and physical access. If you have a property, 10 plus acres anywhere in the country, here at TB Properties Buys Land, we purchase through a title company for your safety. We pay in cash for a quick close. Expect about three to five weeks for closing, depending on the title company. If you’ve got inherited land or this is property that you’ve bought and you’re just not using it, we’re happy to take a look at it and get you a quote. I look forward to hearing from you and we’ll talk to you then.