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State law does matter. In Va the utility companies can "obtain", as the law says, the property needed by eminent domain. But the law also says the homeowner can negotiate price.
When you say neighbors, do you mean just one on each side of your house or your subdivision or your larger area? If there are a few neighbors effected, you might explore banding together for a good atty and a few leaders of the group meeting with the atty to ask key questions for your area.
You also need to have a meeting with someone knowledgeable about utilities, their placement, their meters/wherever read, because some may be surprising or upsetting. They'll do what they have to do, but the more knowledge you have, the less surprised you'll be by what happens.
And, yes, this opens the opportunity for utility piggybacking.
We were just talking today at my home about the one meter that has a line to the house so that whole system is covered by the utility company in the event of a problem. Whew. Another supplies the house but the utility company responsibility is only from starting point to meter, which, in this case is in the front yard. So any problem beyond that would be covered by us. Well,us personally or insurance.
You might want to consider your landscaping and who digs what up if anything like that needs to be done carefully.
A good thing is that this burying of lines is usually done especially in areas of high power outages. We have been through a few terrible storms when we saw the people with buried lines had lights and a/c and refrigerators etc working as other neighbors looked on longingly.
Whenever someone with buried utilities wants to put something on top or nearby, they generally make a call or fill out an online form and the Miss Utility or whoever comes out and marks the utilities in the area of any landscaping, and each utility has their own color. Now, you can be charged for a good complete job involving going further than the front yard, going from meter, say, to house.
I think it's even the law in Va to 'call before you dig', or whatever their slogan is regarding this.
A friend in Va had a neighbor's friend park in my friends so called front easement to get off the road. The truck pressed two utility lines together and several houses lost power.
I used to like that Gas company because they did a better job seeding after their gasline work than the landscaper did.
Then I didn't like the gas company because the Restoration guy (yes, some utililty companies have their restoration team that fixes up the displaced rocks and stones and landscaping after work is done) told me he stole a large rock that was well out of the way of the utilities run.
I would guess you will be forced to grant the easement but you could go to court to get higher compensation than your neighbors get IF your attorney convinces the courts why you are more deserving. Keep in mind there is usually only one pot of money for everyone to pull from. But if all the neighbors get together you might be able to fight it
The work being performed only affects two houses; myself and my neighbor. I have an utility pole on my fence line, wires go over my yard into theirs and connect to the pole that is smack in the center of their yard. They plan to remove this pole and bury the wires to that house. I am suspecting that this is an ask from the neighbor and the "easiest" way to do it was to cut through my yard. (I also suspect they plan to pay for some portion/ all of the work). While greatly improving their yard; it makes mine worse.
I have politely declined to sign the easement agreement. While I am all for helping out a neighbor, I am not going to do this at the loss of my property value.
I do not think eminent domain will take effect here.
The work being performed only affects two houses; myself and my neighbor. I have an utility pole on my fence line, wires go over my yard into theirs and connect to the pole that is smack in the center of their yard. They plan to remove this pole and bury the wires to that house. I am suspecting that this is an ask from the neighbor and the "easiest" way to do it was to cut through my yard. (I also suspect they plan to pay for some portion/ all of the work). While greatly improving their yard; it makes mine worse.
I have politely declined to sign the easement agreement. While I am all for helping out a neighbor, I am not going to do this at the loss of my property value.
I do not think eminent domain will take effect here.
Then prepare to pull up your fence. Because that may be where their easement is right now.
Be sure of this...no current easement. And also of rights since they may be deflected somehow since the neighbor is involved. I know people who suddenly had digging and work going on in their front yard and it was guys laying cable with no notice to the homeowners. They did it for several homes, dozens or more and picked a time when some homeowners were improving their front yards for spring. A lot of angry people who already put a lot of time and money into their yards at that point but the cable company didn't care. Didn't even give notice.
There may not be a written easement, but if the overhead wires have been there for any length of time, there probably is an easement in perpetuity for the current arrangement because nobody objected when it first happened. But once they disconnect from the house, that easement ceases to pertain anymore, hence they've asked for the easement they presented you with. I tend to agree with you that this is not a situation to which eminent domain applies. They don't need to do it as there's already a current serviceable connection. The neighbors could presumably pay the extra amount to underground it around the perimeter of your property.
We had very similar situation. Utility company has a pole in the corner of our adjacent neighbor's property and an easement for the rear 3 feet of our property where the wires to the strip of nearby neighbors pass and hang. The connection for the neighbor on the other side crossed from that pole over our property, directly over our pool. We couldn't do anything about it when we bought the house as there was an easement in perpetuity (from the longstanding uncontested use), but as soon as the neighbor's house was sold and demolished for new construction, we advised the utility company that we did not give our permission for the lines to cross our property outside of the existing easement at the rear. The neighbors were ultimately connected using a bridal connection from the wires at the rear of their property.
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