Sale of easement in chapter 13?

[lillymarlene]

I have another "property sale" question. I am about 2/3 through my chapter 13 which unfortunately is of the type where my house and car are considered part of the "bankruptcy estate" for the duration. Recently, the property owner of the apartment building next door, asked me if I was interested in selling him an easement to my property. It seems that the steps from the back apartment are jutting out about 3 feet onto my land. He claims he has a buyer for his building, and they may not buy unless he does obtain an easment. He said he will pay my attorney fees, plus cost of this easment, he mentioned $500. Of course I don't think that would be enough for my trouble :-)

So my question is, would an "easement" be considered part of the property? Or is it just considered sale of the use of something, more like a rental? I suppose this is another thing I will have to run by my bk attorney (hopefully he won't start charging for questions.)

Then also, does anybody have any ideas how I would go about researching what people usually pay for an easement of this type?

[LadyInTheRed]

An easement would affect the value of the property. So, I am sure you would need trustee authorization. Yes, check with your attorney.

As far as valuation, you might try asking a real estate agent. But, it is probably a very hard thing to value unless there have been similar easements sold recently. The value really is what you are willing to sell for and what they are willing to buy for. $500 sounds really low to me since the easement will probably make your property a little less desireable for future buyers. I wonder if you can make the easement expire whenever you no longer own the property. You seem to have superior bargaining power. So, you definitely should not take his first offer.

[tobee43]

i swear i could write a book on way to many experiences no one should have to go through during their life time.

when tennessee gas had to work on their easement they also had to take a few trees. so this was more or less a rental situation, we negotiated the price, we ended up getting $1k per tree. well of course they wanted to pay us $100 a tree. they were like 25 foot beautiful trees and personally for me when you kill one of my trees it's like taking a piece of me, but i knew when we purchased the property years back it would be likely at some time or another something would come up with that pipeline.

well it ended up that we got approx 30k from them because they did a ton of damage and to boot we had a capitol loss tax wise because although they paid us 1k for each tree, to purchase and install the same size would run more on line of $5k. the pipeline people were getting to the point they would pay us anything since we were the last family holding out and work was to commence the following monday morning. so we had them between a rock and a hard place, NOT that that is what we were aiming to do, i just was upset about my trees etc.

so, just remember if the amount is over $700 you will issued what should be a i believe it's a 1099S make certain it's not an M. also you now have lost part of your property and if you settle for less than market value you can use the difference as a tax deduction only up to 3k per year but you can continue to roll it over year after year until the total loss is realized.

best of luck! and go get em!!

[lillymarlene]

Thank you LITR and tobee. I mentioned this to a relative last night, and she said: NO WAY, don't do this, you'll have sold something and you'll still be responsible for the taxes, and what do you get? Well, very true, but these steps have been on my property since the 1980's (the person who asked for easement doesn't know how long they have been there.) I'm sure not in any position right now to force somebody to move their steps.

So, my relative says she has a friend who is very knowlegeable about such things, and will see what she can find out as far as prices, etc. I don't want to make any too hasty moves. I would like to just get something out of this.