DCC2023-00063_ Possible Easement from respondent 9-29-2023Dear Mr. Ross:
While filing the documents I emailed to you yesterday, I noticed a detail on the Tax Lot Map that seemed significant. The easement across our Tax Lot 6503 referenced a recording date
in 2007, not 2002. I've spent some time researching this and it may be that FPTV does have an ingress-egress easement for the south driveway of our lot.
Our files show that the surveyors for the America's Tire property for whom we granted a sewer easement, proposed some minor corrections to the access easement language to ensure it would
always extend to the 68th Parkway right of way and not fall short because of an incorrect location of the property line between the two properties. I found an unsigned draft of that
easement in the file with the name of the owners of the Quality Inn property at the time, but not a recorded copy. It's possible that the document may be with our Carrow's files stored
off site, which was the tenant leasing the property at the time.
It could be that a second draft was made that changed the name to the Bank of Salem before it was signed and recorded. My late father would have been the person who signed it. I did
check the Preliminary Title Report we have on file from 1012 when we refinanced the property, and it does include an exception to the 2007 document with a grant to, "Adjacent Property
Owners to the East."
FPTV's title company, Old Republic is the source of this error as it does not include the 2007 easement in the list of exceptions in its Preliminary Title Report. Exceptions 13 and
14 only reference the two 2002 easements recorded for the Bank of Salem, and those were the documents I looked for. Of course, the seller of the Quality Inn should have had a copy
as well, unless the document was corrected in favor of the Bank of Salem.
Had FPTV negotiated with us over the License Agreement we forwarded to them, we would have used First American Title and Old Republic's error would have been discovered. If the 2007
document was recorded in favor of a previous owner of the Quality Inn, it would have rendered the transaction moot.
As it stands, we have not blocked access to 68th Parkway via the lower driveway, but FPTV can confirm they have the right to use it by ordering a copy of the recorded document from the
County. Whoever it is granted to, it is only an access easement through the lower parking lot and not a shared parking agreement.
Anyway, I thought you should probably know about this. If you have any questions, please call me at 503-347-5605.
Have a good weekend.
Ken Lee