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The county I live in requires that towers of any type have a possible "fall" area of 3 times the height of the tower. A neighbor proceeded to sell or rent rights to his property only to find this out. The cell company offered me $50 for fall rights onto my property. I laughed at that offer and of course refused. I tried to make them understand that I wanted to build a home on my property in the future and didn't want to stare out my front window at a cell tower, go elsewhere. They stated they couldn't, it had to be within a certain signal area of a 1 mile diameter. I finally told them to buy me out for $50,000 and they agreed. (They would then resell the property and keep the tower rights.) As my attorney was drawing up the papers I met with the agent. He wouldn't agree to my 6 months possession time and wanted immediate possession instead. I explained that I would need to find another property to move my sheds to as well as all of my farm machinery. No, he wouldn't allow that at all, he had to have it immediately. I firmly explained that as the seller I could AND WAS making them conform to my terms or not at all. When the agent again demanded immediate possession I simply told him the property was no longer for sale. What a shock, he had never been refused before and tried to back pedal rather fast. Nope, the property was no longer on the market. Bottom line, he tried to locate the tower on another property and adjoining landowner got wind of the deal and petitioned against it. The county denied the request and the tower never went in at all. The agent cut his own throat by not agreeing to my terms. A bitter lesson I hope he learned from. In some places land owners demand and receive a % of income generated from the tower traffic. BIG BUCKS.
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