Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Mississippi

Re: Land and Utility Companies Use

Ask Mississippi attorneys, not CA.

Re: Land and Utility Companies Use

Disclaimer: The materials provided below are informational and should not be relied upon as legal advice.

If there is no easement or lease to the utility companies, they may be transpassing on your land. I am not familiar with Mississippi law, but there is often a measure of damages you can recover, unless these utilities companies can assert a proper claim for adverse possession and/or a prescriptive easement. You should immediately consult a Mississippi attorney to protect your legal rights.

Re: Land and Utility Companies Use

You are getting answers from California attorneys (like me) because LawGuru distributes questions to attorneys based on BOTH the state whose law probably applies (based on the question asker's input) and the residence of the asker. You will probably get more answers from Calif. lawyers than Miss. lawyers because there are more of us. That doesn't mean any of us are qualified to give opinions on Miss. law!

Nevertheless, rather than have you get no responses at all, it's probably better for a few of us here in California to make educated guesses as to how Mississippi might handle this subject. Based on my experience with PG&E and a few other California utilities, I find that they are very, very careful about assuring that they have an easement and that ALL of their construction and facilities are physically within the boundaries of the easement BEFORE they contruct any facilities at all. Obviously, with all the work they do, they'll make mistakes every now and then, but they will never intentionally install their facilities on someone else's land, even if the result is that an entire new subdivision shivers in the dark for months.

Also, you should be aware that not all easements are going to show up in recorded deeds, parcel maps or title searches. This is partly because of the numerous ways in which easements can be created, some of which do not require recording, or even a written instrument.

It is also possible that Mississippi has laws giving certain utilities the right to "construct now, negotiate later" or some special kind of eminent domain rights.

So, I'd be cautious about stating "There is no easement......" At a minimum, there is probably, by now, a prescriptive easement. You might want to see if a Google search yields any useful results for search terms "Mississippi" and "prescriptive easement." (I haven't tried it).

Good luck.....and I hope you hear from a LawGuru Mississippi lawyer.