An FPL easement agreement is the recorded document you sign to give Florida Power & Light the right to install and maintain utility equipment on a defined strip of your property. To complete one, you get the form from your FPL project representative, enter your name and the legal description exactly as they appear on your deed and survey, sign in front of two witnesses and a notary, and return the original to FPL for filing with your county clerk. Once recorded, the easement runs with the land and binds every future owner, so the details you commit to on the form matter well beyond the day you sign it.
Getting the Form from FPL
FPL does not publish a blank easement agreement for download. The document is prepared by an FPL service planner or project representative as part of a specific project, usually after a field survey confirms that new service or an infrastructure upgrade needs to cross private land. You may receive the paperwork as part of a welcome kit at a pre-design meeting that also covers engineering plans and installation timing.
If you need to reach the right person yourself, go to FPL.com/landuse or call 1-800-375-4375 to be routed to the representative for your area.1Florida Power & Light Company. FPL Easement Agreement Facts
One boundary worth flagging: if an FPL easement already burdens your property and you want to build a fence, driveway, or other feature inside it, that is not a new easement grant. You file a Consent Agreement Application with FPL’s real estate department, pay a review fee, and submit site plans before starting work.2Florida Power & Light Company. Consent Agreement Application
What to Have Ready Before You Fill It In
Mismatched names and vague legal descriptions are the most common reasons FPL sends the paperwork back. Pull these together first.
- Your name exactly as it appears on the current warranty deed, including middle initials and suffixes. If the property is held by a trust or LLC, use the entity name from the deed.
- The parcel identification or folio number assigned by your county property appraiser. It appears on your tax notice, your deed, and the appraiser’s online search tool. Format varies by county.
- A precise legal description of the easement strip. For most parcels this comes from a professional survey using metes and bounds. If the land is inside a recorded subdivision, the plat book reference, lot, and subdivision name may be enough.
- A licensed surveyor’s sketch showing the easement area in relation to the full parcel. FPL often arranges the survey for new service work, but confirm who orders it and who pays before you hire anyone yourself.
Filling In the Form
The document is short, but every field locks in a legal commitment.
The grantor block is where every owner listed on the deed signs. Florida Power & Light Company is pre-printed as the grantee, so leave that portion alone.
The legal description section defines the physical boundaries of FPL’s access. Transcribe the description from your survey word for word, including bearings, distances, and point-of-beginning references. If it runs longer than the space provided, write “See Exhibit A” in the form field and attach the full description as a labeled page.
The statement of purpose describes what FPL will install or maintain: underground conduit, overhead transmission lines, poles, transformers, or guy wires, for example. Your FPL representative can provide wording that fits the project. Pay attention to this clause. It sets the outer limit of what FPL is allowed to do on the strip. A narrower purpose (say, “underground distribution conduit only”) gives you more control over future use than an open-ended utility grant.
What the Easement Lets FPL Do
Once granted, the easement gives FPL the right to build, access, maintain, repair, replace, and upgrade equipment inside the corridor, and to enter to remove obstructions and trim vegetation that could interfere with power lines.1Florida Power & Light Company. FPL Easement Agreement Facts
You keep ownership of the underlying land, but your use of the strip is restricted. Permanent and temporary structures inside the easement, including buildings, barns, storage sheds, swimming pools, and enclosed patios, are prohibited because they block safe access to the equipment. Fences, overflow parking, trees, and other landscaping may be allowed, but only after FPL reviews and approves the specific proposal through the consent agreement process.1Florida Power & Light Company. FPL Easement Agreement Facts
Signing the Agreement
Two Florida statutes govern how you execute the easement: one for the conveyance itself, and one for making the document eligible to be recorded. Skip either step and your utility project stalls at the clerk’s office.
Two Witnesses Under Section 689.01
Florida law requires any instrument creating an interest in real property to be signed by the grantor in the presence of two subscribing witnesses. Both witnesses must sign as well, and their printed names should appear beneath their signatures. No seal is needed for the conveyance to be valid.3Florida Senate. Florida Code 689.01 – How Real Estate Conveyed
Witnesses may appear in person or through audio-video communication technology that lets everyone see and hear each other in real time, as allowed under Section 117.201.4Florida Legislature. Florida Code 117.201 – Definitions
Notary Acknowledgment Under Section 695.03
For the easement to be recorded, your signature must be acknowledged. Within Florida, that acknowledgment is typically taken by a notary public, though a judge or court clerk may also do it, and the certificate must carry the officer’s seal.5Florida Senate. Florida Code 695.03 – Acknowledgment and Proof
The notary verifies your identity from an acceptable credential (Florida driver license or ID card, U.S. passport, military ID, or certain other government-issued documents) and notes the type of identification in the acknowledgment. The notary’s rubber stamp must show “Notary Public-State of Florida,” the notary’s name, commission number, and commission expiration date in photographically reproducible black ink.6Florida Legislature. Florida Code 117.05 – Use of Notary Commission An expired commission or a missing seal element will get the document rejected.
Remote Online Notarization
Florida allows remote online notarization for real estate documents. You appear before a registered online notary through live audio-video, and the notary must be physically located in Florida at the time. The RON platform performs credential analysis and identity proofing, generally knowledge-based authentication questions, to confirm your identity. Both the notary and the platform must comply with Part II of Chapter 117.
Submitting the Signed Form
Return the signed, witnessed, and notarized original to your FPL project representative. FPL files it with the Clerk of the Circuit Court in the county where the property sits. The clerk records the instrument in the county’s official records, which creates public notice of FPL’s interest and gives the document a book and page number or instrument number that makes it permanently searchable, along with the date and time of filing.7Glades County Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller. Official Records
Florida’s base statutory recording fee is $5.00 for the first page and $4.00 for each additional page, and counties add surcharges on top of that for records modernization, court technology, and similar programs.8Florida Legislature. Florida Code 28.24 – Service Charges by Clerk of the Circuit Court Ask your FPL representative who covers recording costs on your project.
Florida imposes documentary stamp tax on documents that transfer an interest in real property, and easement transfers are on the state’s list of taxable instruments. The tax is calculated on the consideration paid. If no money changes hands, the tax may be minimal or zero, but the recording paperwork still has to address the question.9Florida Department of Revenue. Documentary Stamp Tax
After recording, request a certified copy from the clerk’s office and keep it with your property records.
Fixing an Error After Recording
A minor clerical mistake in a recorded easement does not always require re-executing the whole document. Florida’s curative statute, Section 689.041, allows correction of a single scrivener’s error in the legal description, such as a transposed lot and block number or a wrong directional call, by recording a curative notice rather than a new instrument.10Florida Legislature. Florida Code 689.041 – Curative Procedure for Scrivener’s Errors in Deeds
The process has limits. It applies to a single error only. The property cannot be described exclusively by metes and bounds; it must reference a recorded plat, condominium, or section-township-range. And the grantor must not have held title to other property in the same subdivision or section within five years before the erroneous deed was recorded. If the mistake falls outside those bounds, the parties prepare and record a corrective instrument with fresh signatures, witnesses, and notarization.
Before You Sign: Negotiate or Refuse
Signing is voluntary. You are not required to accept the first version FPL puts in front of you, and a few points are worth raising with your project representative or a real estate attorney first.
- Compensation. FPL may offer a one-time payment. The amount reflects the size and location of the strip, how much it limits your use of the property, and comparable deals in the area. You are not obligated to take the opening offer.
- Restoration. Get written commitments about restoring landscaping, fencing, driveways, and grading after construction. Spell out what the property should look like when the crew leaves.
- Scope. The purpose clause is the ceiling on FPL’s activity in the strip. Narrower language preserves more of your future flexibility.
If negotiations fail and FPL determines the easement is necessary for service, the company can pursue eminent domain. Under Chapter 73 of the Florida Statutes, the condemning authority must first negotiate in good faith, provide a written offer, and share the appraisal backing that offer if you request it; if the case goes to court, a jury determines the compensation.11Florida Legislature. Florida Code 73 – Eminent Domain Condemnation is uncommon for routine residential service easements. Most disputes settle during negotiation.
One last thing to keep in mind for resale. A recorded utility easement will appear as an exception on any future title search of the property. That is normal for developed parcels in FPL’s service territory. The point is to make sure the easement is drafted and recorded cleanly the first time, so it reads as a routine entry on the title report rather than surfacing as a problem at closing.