Realtor, Attorney, Appraiser's Opinion Sought on Selling Land with an Easement

[Lydia]

Does anyone know how i should go about looking into selling a portion of my property to a neighbor?

Right now, my neighbor has an easement across my property strictly for the purpose of accessing their home, which is behind mine on an interior lot. The easement is written into both of our deeds. The driveway has got to be at least 200 feet long, and tho it's 'paved,' it's in very poor shape, with broken up asphalt, etc.

They want to repave and improve the driveway, in the winter they struggle getting up there, but they don't like the idea of putting money into it since i still own the property. Even tho i never use the driveway, and no one else does either, they feel uncomfortable spending lots of $ to improve it becus of the ownership issue, which i do understand.

They have expressed interest in buying the land the easement now occupies, and i would like to do so as i could really use the extra money, and the sale of the land won't really change anything, their car will still be going up that way. They own a bunch of land up there and have assured me they have no interest in developingn or subdividing the land, which of course would mean more traffic going up that road (past my backyard). Anyway, it doesn't matter becus i don't plan to be in this house for long and will be selling.

What do i do, and what do i do first? Do i get a realtor, appraiser and or attorney involved? Can a realtor provide a valid appraisal, or should i get an appraiser to do it? Does a realtor need to be involved at all? How in the world would you determine a value for land like this, which, unlike a piece of land shaped like a square, for instance, does not lend itself to any other use except as it's being used now, as a driveway/access. Would they simply determine value based on total square footage or use some other formula?

[Ima saver]

I wish I could help, but I know nothing about this problem. I do not think you should get a realtor involved at all, you will have to pay a commission. We just sold a spec house ourself and saved over $19,000 in commissions.
What are lots going for in your area? It should cost a small percentage of that, I would guess. Find out what they (neighbors) have in mind to pay and decide it you think that is fair. I don't know what an appraiser would charge.
You would need a lawyer to handle the sale and the buyers should pay for most of the closing.

[terry1156]

Welcome Lydia. I'm not sure how much help I can be. If it were me, I would first go to your county records office to see if any other similar sales had recently taken place to get an idea of the worth. If that isn't possible, I would get an appraisal, but make sure the appraiser has done these in the past before hiring them. Good luck with it.

[contrary1]

You could get free info from a realtor......and they are a great source of info. I have a piece of property that is land locked so to speak & I ended up using a real estate attorney for my issue with it. I didn't even know at that time, there were attornies that only dealt in real estate law. Naive to a fault. Got great info, everything was legal & I slept much better!
Best of luck with your transaction.

[VJW]

By all means get an attorney. Your property could be at risk.

If you think you can save money by getting a knowledgeable realtor or some other knowledgeable person to do a lot of the initial work, fine, but run the final draft past an attorney at a nominal charge.

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[nanamom]

Most of the time a realtor will tell you what he thinks he could get for the property you have to sell. You don't owe him anything unless you sign him on as agent. You can tell them you are looking to get three opinions before you decide what to do. I would look carefully at the easement thing before I bought your place so chances are if you want to sell yours you should take care of this first. Or ask your neighbors if they want to buy your whole place. They could rent out your home and have their driveway!