TW contract for easement

I would like to know if any community has experience with being offered or has accepted a Time Warner cable contract for easement and marketing rights.

Our community is small, 81 free standing patio homes in NC. We have been offered a contact giving TW easement rights to our small common areas and marketing rights for 17 years. They will pay us an upfront fee of $16,000. This offer came through our management company who is being fired at the end of the year

Three board members have already voted yes by email; we are a five member board. Our board has not had a meeting about accepting this contract. One member showed the contract to his brother in law- lawyer who sees no problem.

I am the treasurer, very conservative, and feel TW is not giving us this money for nothing. I will be voting no, with a list of reasons to support my vote. We were not aware that this offer expires in a few days so that is why the rest of the board is in a rush to sign it.

I would greatly appreciate any imput about these Time Warner offers.

Cecelia, their offer seems reasonable to me so long as it is not an exclusive agreement which shuts out other cable companies. We have brokered similar agreements. They allow the cable company to have underground cables installed within the common area going to the units being serviced.

I agree, limit it to 5 years. Alot will change in 17 years.

Someone else might offer you fiber optic for $10 month while you may be locked in to timewarner for $80 month with the price rising every month.

Thank you for all your help. Four board members voted to sign the contract-it was signed-- so we will have to live with it.

Mary, you are not far off about towers. That was one of my concerns--Time Warner is into telephone too. Its impossible to know what the technology will be in 17 years(as someone pointed out) and the contract does not specifically say everything will be underground.

I was also worried that having these easements for 17 years might affect future home sales. Not sure if people would want to buy into a community with these easements. Who knows--

Thanks again, Cecelia

Time Warner Cable contacted our association as well, through our management company. They want to renew our easement which was originally set up in 2000 when our units were built - apparently these contracts must be renewed every 16 years, but because of some pending regulations, TWC has approached us - and perhaps other - about renewing now (taking us to 2026). They are offering $200 per unit easement - we are very small and could use additional dollars - can we negotiate the per unit fee?