Quantum Fiber Dug Up My Front Lawn Without Consent!!
 

I was out of town and was surprised to learn that a quantum fiber installation project in Liberty Park was recently completed. I was stunned while watching the Ring camera footage which showed a worker using a large machine to remove massive amounts of my lawn and piles of dirt to dig trenches on both sides of my driveway to pull pipe and cable through my property. Further, they put some sort of large green plastic box (crooked and not secure between my property and my neighbors).

My front lawn is destroyed and will require hundreds of dollars and lots of work and time to restore it to the way it looked before this unauthorized work on and through my property. I will be pursuing recourse inclusive of having my front lawn re-sodded.

Are others familiar with this project and has anybody had a similar expedience? I will be curious to hear all thoughts. Willing to bet that this is somehow legal, however, I have never experienced any invasion/destruction of my own property in any other home I have ever owned…the lack of consent and and/or any form of compensation to homeowners all for the benefit of a company arbitrarily enhancing their infrastructure which they will make tons of money from just feels wrong on every level.

Anybody have this happen in their neighborhood and if so, how did it end in terms of repairs. Thx very much

Yep every village will have or already completed cable. They eventually return and sod.

Did they trench in the easement part of your property, that you technically don’t own. However have to maintain

So, Quantum has the Century Link the "right of way" to replace the old underground phone lines with fiber. I'm 100% sure they notified everyone on your street where the work was to be done since it's a legal requirement. You probably missed it. That's on you. Either way, you don't have to give them permission and you have no legal recourse unless when they do restore your lawn, it's not done properly. Also, you would have to check but you probably don't own the land all the way to the curb where they are working even though you have to maintain it.

I would just make sure they restore your lawn to its former condition and if not, contact them and they will correct any problems. Quantum has been installing fiber over the past couple of years now and many have the same complaint as you have but at the end of the day, from what I've personally seen, they eventually do a great job restoring everything where you wouldn't have known it was disturbed.

So often people have posted this wrong opinion about ownership. An easement is a legal grant to allow a utility to come on to your property that you 100% do own to do their work. Repeat, you own the land but a condition of ownership when you bought the land is you must allow certain specific activities on your land.

Dam, I wish they would do that in our neighborhood. It would be great if Xfinity had some competition.

Then change asianthree’s term from easement to right of way and the question stands. From every document I have seen, I do not own all the way to the curb.

Correct. This is most likely NOT an easement, it is a "right of way". You need to examine your official plat. My front property line is located about 7 feet from the curb. The 7-foot section of land between the curb and the front property line is a right of way and it is not owned by the homeowner. OP, before you accuse anyone of tearing up your property, get a copy of your plat and see if you actually own the property.

You're right, most people don't understand easements and ownership.

You are incorrect.

An "Easement" is not a legal grant to allow a utility to come on to your property that you 100% own". Easements have 2 parts ... the Dominant estate and the Servient estate.

It depends on what easement is in questions and and where it's located.

The "Easements" along the sides of Villages roads/streets do NOT belong to homeowners.

Easements between homes, typically belong to abutting home owners, but not always.

In this case, the poster says they were digging trenches on "both sides of his driveway" ... that doesn't make sense. It's not likely there's an easement for utilities, through or over his driveway (other than within the road layout).

It should also be noted homeowners are not allowed to add landscaping especially trees in the easement.

If the work is being done near the road, it is most likely on the right-of-way. This is not an easement, and it is not owned by the homeowner. It does make sense that they would be digging trenches on both sides of the driveway because the homeowner probably does not own the entire driveway because it is part of the right-of-way. Even though you may be using and maintaining the driveway to the street, you probably don't own part of your own driveway. It may sound unfair, but that is the way it is. Hopefully, they will tunnel under the driveway to install the cable.

That is untrue.

It depends on what the easement is and what it is for.

People on TOTV keep talking about "Easements" and lump them all together. Every easement is different, for a different purpose, with different specifics what can be done or not done with the boundaries of the easement.

There is no "The Easement" !

Thanks to all for the mostly well informed responses. As I stated in my initial post, I said that I am sure this was legal or this company would not be doing this in the entire neighborhood.

That said, the trenching was definitely done at least 7 feet from the street and it certainly required digging trenches on both sides of the driveway. There is now also an unsightly approx 2 foot high green square box now proudly sitting next to the driveway (I don’t care who you are and how you feel about easements, it is not a good new look and I am certain you would be unhappy if this new quantum lawn ornament was placed on your lawn or what you always thought was your lawn LOL)

I will monitor the lawn remediation efforts closely (this just occurred). After spending thousands of dollars in top notch lawn care to maintain and improve my front lawn, this obviously came as a surprise to me but it will all be fine. It will be nice to have an alternative to Xfinity so perhaps this will have been a good thing down the line. Thx again all!!

I suppose that may depend on the interpretation of the words. ”2.14 No building or other improvements shall be made within the easements reserved by the Developer without prior written approval of the Developer.”

Definitely under my driveway and nowhere near the curb/road. I will research the existence of the exact easements in my particular instance. It was clear they were dragging this cable under everybody’s driveways no matter what each individual property may stipulate regarding the existence of easements etc. Said another way, they must be batting 1,000 as not a single property was left untouched - all good, I will welcome better fiber for my own use if that is what the project will ultimately yield.

You need to look at your Deed (& recorded easements) and your Plot Plan, very carefully. DO NOT assume what you've been told in this thread is accurate. As I posted, every easement is different.

Every Utility Easement is different. Don't assume the installers know what's allowed and not allowed. There's a very good chance that Quantum does not have an easement to locate anything "above ground". Again, it depends on the specific language in your easement.

In most cases, there are no longer "blanket easements". Easements must have an attached "plan" and a specific description of what's allowed (& what's not allowed).

Brian - thank you very much for this detailed response and recommendation to review all specific docs further. I will do that as soon as I possibly can.

The good news is Quantum can save you a lot of money over what you were paying xfinity.

Quantum dug up our lawn but all grew back and we now have their internet and saving quite a bit over xfinity

Thanks Stu - good to hear!

Isn't this post specifically about the easement in front of his property? No landscaping especially trees are permitted.Utilities need direct access to repair, maintain, or replace.

Flyers were mailed/placed in doors. Looked like this:

Actually, in certain circumstances, a private utility company can use eminent domain to acquire a portion of your lawn, even if it's a small part.

Just about every deed I have ever seen includes an utility easement which gives the utility companies the right to enter your property to install and maintain their equipment.

A right of way is an easement.

Restoring everything so you wouldn’t know it was disturbed
 

That’s not what happened in my neighborhood about nine or 10 months ago. There were damaged irrigation systems, damaged lawn, dead pieces of your front lawn that crew replaced a few inches too high so the grass would not take root and regrow, dealing with workers that did not speak English and good luck finding the specific company in charge of all of this that you need to contact and make a complaint .

I’m so jealous! They can do whatever they need to do to our lawn if it means much better internet than we get from Spectrum. We have no indication they’ll be adding fiber to our village (DeLuna) anytime soon. Fingers are crossed though! Our average of 11 mbps upload speed is a huge joke and pretty useless to me compared to the 100 we had with fiber before moving here.

Kevin....relax. It happens to all villages eventually. Grass grows back and you can't even tell they were there. Just make sure to water everyday for about 2 weeks.

I'm in Deluna and just did a test with Spectrum. 38.7 mbps upload wireless and 82.3 mbps wired. Do you have a slower plan and comparing it to your previous fiber?

A "Right of Way" is an easement, but not all easements have a "right of way" ...

Nor does a "Right of Way" necessarily grant the right to install utilities.

A right of way is merely an easement (license) to pass and re-pass.

Share?
 

Do you mind sharinging as to what upload traffic you are generating that requires greater than 11 Mbps ? Just curious. We have several IP cameras that send to an AWS server and that never creates more than a 7 Mbps load.

Oh really?

A private entity has no right of Eminent Domain, without government authorization and only if for a public purpose. If land is taken by eminent domain, the owner is entitled to just compensation.

Facts matter.

This is not a big deal. Every piece of property can have people come in and dig it up to run cable, internet, electrical, or run piping for water, sewer, and gas.
I’ve had this occur many times and in the end, your property will be put back in the same condition before the work. If you do illegal work on top of these easements then I don’t think the utility company has to legally recover that area to like condition.

Agree!

Folks, with all the posts here today, at the end of the day, whatever you call it, Century Link put in copper telephone lines in these areas near the curb years ago and now Quantum fiber who bought parts of Century Link are using that "right of way" to replace them with fiber optic cables. This is why the Quantum fiber build-out is only occurring in certain areas in the northern parts of the Villages. If they wanted to expand in DeLuna for example, they would have to go to the County and get "permission" and all the paperwork, permits, etc., that's required before they were able to lay any new fiber in that area for example.

Also, anyone in these areas interested in signing up for Quantum please PM me since I can help with the process.

There should be a Utility Easement in front your house that allows them to do whatever they want without prior notice. Check your deed. If it’s not stated in the deed you may have some recourse.

I believe an "easement" is when a utility for example, is working on your property. In this case, I don't believe anyone here in the Villages owns the land all the way to the curb. That 6-10 ft area, not sure exactly the footage, is owned by the county even though we need to maintain it.

Correct. An easement is where you own the property and someone else has a legal right to use it. A right-of-way is the strip of land adjacent to the road that you do not own, but you are legally required to maintain it. You need to cut the grass and to maintain part of the concrete driveway, even though you do not own this land. The right-of-way is not an easement. It is property owned by the county, or in some cases, by The Villages.

Totally agree. I would love for them to come and dig up my lawn.

Of course it is in the easement, I believe the easement is13 feet from the curb. You are right they will take care of the sod.

When living in Lakeland Verizon was installing fiber in my neighborhood. They brought it across my front yard. They came back and fixed it though.

Did you see it? Have you seen the original poster's deed?

The poster said it was installed on her property. A road/utility easement adjoining the curb, is not the poster's property.