Damage by homeowners in easement

Started by SteveB7 • 4 replies • 1499 views

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SteveB7 (Washington)
Posts: 2

Posted:

A storm drain in an approved easement was damaged by a cable company installing cable to one of the homes in the development. Cable company was hired by that homeowner. This damage was not discovered right away. Now the home sold to a new homeowner who now claims the damage is in the HOA's easement and therefore HOA'a responsibility to fix. I think the responsibilty transferred to the new homeowner and must take responsibility and fix. It is their home that gets flooded because of the damage. The new homeowner should then contact the cable company and the previous owners of the home for repayment.

What do you think?

HaroldS (Arizona)
Posts: 906

Posted:

Who gave permission to the cable company to invade your common area? Do they have an easement for their cable? Seems to me they are responsible for damage, and neither owner. Why has this gone on so long, even thru a property transfer, etc.? If there was water damage culpability at time of sale it should have been disclosed. Unless there was never any storm drainage damage in all that time? As a new owner I would be looking for someone else to fix this problem. Harold

DonnaS (Tennessee)
Posts: 5,671

Posted:

Steve,
I would think that the cable company has the responsibility to fix this problem as they were the one who caused it.
Easements are NOT association property unless it is on common property. Almost every other house in our developement has some sort of utility easement to ensure that utilities and service companys can access their equipment and underground wires and pipes.
Did this not show up until after the new owner took posession and why didn't it? I think that the seller should be responsible if they did not disclose this problem. But it certainly is not the association's problem.

SteveB7 (Washington)
Posts: 2

Posted:

The previous owner gave permission to the cable company...no notice to the association. Each lot has easements for power, water and phone in underground service. The cable company did not use the easement and no easement has since been granted for the present cable.

Why this took so long? The storm drain distribution box had two outlets. The cable company damaged the main drain. a so called 100 year drain line took the over flow for years. The a new house got built and it damaged the 100 year drain line. The 100 year drain line was not located inside an easement or common area. I don't think the previous owner had any odea of the problem because of the 100 year drain line.

BH (Washington)
Posts: 1

Posted:

So here's the story of the so-called "100 year drain" that got installed.
The previous owner of the home with the flooding problems asked the developer to fix the drain issue that was causing their home to have flooding problems. To fix the problem, the developer ran another drain on his private property (at that time) to redirect the drain water away from the problem area. This new drain has become known as the "100 year drain". The developer sold the property to another developer who then sold it to the current home owner. During the time the power and water were being trenched in, the installers hit the "100 year drain" that was not recorded or in an easement area.

There has been issues with this drain since we moved into the association in 2000.

Should the association require the current homeowners to fix the issue or should the costs of fixing it right really go back to the developer (who still lives within the association)? Or maybe the association should just fix the problem?

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