Developers: Be Wary Of Utility Company Easement Forms

A utility company that provides service to an owner's property usually requests the owner to sign a standard form of easement that is intended to allow the utility company to enter onto the owner's property in order to install and service its utility lines. These forms vary from one utility company to the next, but they typically contain a number of customary terms that many developers and builders do not bother to negotiate even though some of them can be problematic.

Many easement forms are "blanket" in nature, meaning that they do not describe a particular easement area where the utility lines are to be located, but allow the utility to place lines anywhere on the property. This may be fine if the property is being used for agricultural purposes (and many utility company easement forms were created with that scenario in mind), but for a property that is to be developed for commercial or residential purposes, a blanket easement presents problems. It gives