At this year’s annual meeting of the Real Estate and Land Use Section of the Oregon State Bar, Dean Alterman shared his advice and analysis of current developments in the regulation of vacation rental homes, 30 years after his participation in the year-long process under which Cannon Beach adopted its 1992 vacation rental ordinance. Joining him on the panel of speakers for a lively interactive discussion were Daniel Kearns of Reeve Kearns and Christopher Crean of Beery, Elsner & Hammond.
Last year I wrote a book on how to draft easement agreements, giving practical advice to lawyers. I had the most fun with the next-to-last chapter, which I called “Ten Ways to Misdraft Your Easement Agreement,” where I described ten ways for drafters to mess up their agreements. The sixth error I wrote about is to not set standards for roads and utilities. If you are granting an easement to allow your neighbor to build a driveway and connect utilities through your property, describe how much driveway you’re allowing. Even if the easement area will be 30 feet wide, you may not expect your neighbor to build a driveway that looks like a public street, with curbs and a sidewalk. You can and should say something like “Within the Easement Area, Grantee may construct a paved driveway up to X feet wide” so that you’re allowing a driveway, not a highway.
Last month our partners Erica Menze and Dean Alterman joined Patrick Bartman of Baird Holm LLP to present a 90-minute seminar on negotiating and drafting leases and easements for the Real Property, Trusts & Estates (RPTE) section of the American Bar Association. The seminar is one in a series, “Lay of the Land,” that RPTE is presenting this year to provide practical technical advice to newer real estate lawyers.