New here. Shared driveway issues w/someone who owns a backhoe, bulldozer, excavator

[Paddy]

Then it sounds like there is no real easement. As said before, let a judge make an easement and it will be 50 feet. I feel 12 feet is a small easement with regards to entry on to a road.

In the end I'd stick with what is reasonable to expect his rig to make the turns.

My 2 cents

 

[Orangecrush68]

This driveway has been 12ft wide for 75 years, to which the neighbor has used it for 25 of those 75 years, with no problems. Only in recent years he has started driving in my yard. It's not a semi truck that he's driving; it's a dump truck that has a trailer attached to move his backhoe/bulldozer. The previous owner of my house was his sister, who he knew he couldn't get away with driving through her yard. She would have flipped and gotten grandma involved. She and her brother took over these homes at the same time. Grandma owned both of them. So brother only started cutting into my yard after I moved in...

I take full responsibility for not doing something sooner about it. But I genuinely felt he would clean up the mess he made.

I watched him pull out a few days ago in the morning, turning left on my side. It was the first time he was doing it with the dump truck and trailer. He made it out, but the trailer's back tire clipped a stake on the outer corner. I pulled that stake back by 2 ft, and made him aware of it.

He can get in and out now with ease, and I have now gotten back a good portion of my yard. Plus I've retained a lot of the driveway that was filled with that milling, so at least when I have to repair the driveway in the future (because I know I will) it won't be as frustrating. I still think he should be filling all the holes since it's his equipment doing it, but I'm not going to argue about it. It's just easier to pay $75 for a load of 2 stone every few years and do it myself.

 

[MarkV]

I kind of wonder why you would repair the driveway at all. As I recall in earlier posts you don't use it and have an independent drive. If it gets bad enough those dependent on it will fix it. You did the right thing serving notice that driving on your yard was not expectable. You also did it without being confrontational. That is how I try to do things until they don't work.

MarkV

 

[Orangecrush68]

I kind of wonder why you would repair the driveway at all. As I recall in earlier posts you don't use it and have an independent drive. If it gets bad enough those dependent on it will fix it. You did the right thing serving notice that driving on your yard was not expectable. You also did it without being confrontational. That is how I try to do things until they don't work.

MarkV

Yes, I don't use the driveway, it runs along the side of my yard, and on down past my house to the other houses. This guy never fixes the holes he causes, because he has a dump truck that can drive right over them.

I fixed my part of the lane that I own, because if I don't, the holes in my part of the driveway will just get bigger and bigger, and also deeper, and then further erode my property. Believe me, I am doing this only to protect my property, not as a favor to this neighbor who is causing the holes in the first place.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Hello. The easement is stated as Electric Co. Easement, 12ft wide, with an arrow pointing to my lane of the driveway where it runs along side the pole. The electrical pole is on my property, located on the very edge of the grass, almost touching the driveway.

That is the only easement there is.

That's very unlikely. The electric company would have assured that their pole was on their easement, usually at least a foot to the easement side of the line. Also, an easement does not mean it's not your property, all the easement does is give someone else the right to use your property for access, and give you a legal obligation not to obstruct the easement.

 

[Rock knocker]

That's very unlikely. The electric company would have assured that their pole was on their easement, usually at least a foot to the easement side of the line. Also, an easement does not mean it's not your property, all the easement does is give someone else the right to use your property, within reason, for the purpose stated in the easement, and maintain it as such

Changes noted

 

[dodge man]

I've read this entire thread, and it seems to be a common problem, shared driveways. I am a land surveyor, and I've personally only run into a shared driveway problem a couple of times. As long as everyone gets along, it works out fine. I personally would probably not buy a property with a shared driveway unless there was some very strong covenants in the deeds to protect all the owners.

All I can really add is to make sure you know where your boundary lines are. Like you already understand, you don't really want to go to court over something like this. Even the person that "wins" ends up spending so much money, they really lost when it comes down to the dollars.