Shared Road Issues

[plowking]

I have customers on two long lake shore roads and some are mobile homes and stick built houses. They both have associations and post [pass at own risk] so they aren't liable. Occasionally the home insurance companies or their agents will come inspect the road and if they don't approve, then the homeowners get their insurance cancelled. I had a customer who couldn't get house reinsured until improvements were done. In other towns, the town plows but sends the road owners or their association a maintence bill. Also in N.H. if a mobile home park is run down, the tenants can form an association and buy out the landlord. When it becomes a co-op, the state will loan them low interest loans for capital improvements [water, sewer, roads, etc.] In my town, the selectmen had to send letters to homeowners on unaccepted roads that the highway dept. would keep roads clear in winter for emergency services. This was a requirement of the insurance companies as well and some banks because they had loans on houses on these roads. plowking

 

[LoneCowboy]

well
Interesting this topic comes up
I live on a 1/2 mile long private dirt road. (although at some point the city came thru with a sewer, but they don't touch the road, ever)
As you may know, colorado got a crap load of snow last week (26" plus drifts). Of the 7 people on the road, 4 of us own tractors, 3 of us were out there working away, clearing with everything from a 55hp JD compact brand new to an old 8N with a back blade. However, the one neighbor who always wants something but never supplies comes out, sees us working and waves. I say "Hi George, go hop on your tractor"

He says "not my turn" and goes back inside.

WTF?, was I mad. Now, the people who don't have tractors, we cleared their driveways, because there was no way you could do it by hand, but the guy with a tractor just says "not my turn" and expects us to do all the work so he can go out?

We buried his driveway with the snow we moved.
Forget him, he was a lot longer digging out than it would have cost him to help us.
Community, it's not just a word.

But yeah, road maintenance here is an issue, we just suck it up and move it around. At some point I'll have to collect to get some more road base in. It just is. And people like the George are always going to freeload.

 

[Ifixcars]

We live on a private road too. 5 houses on a shared 1500 foot road. We have a homeowner's association drawn up by a lawer. Each house pays a yearly fee, and snow removal bills are divided equally. The yearly fee goes into a bank account, and is used when repairs are needed. That's the fair way to do it. I didn't want to move into a house with a shared road, but the price was right. The politics and bickering that goes on whenever a road repairs are needed are a pain. But at least we do all pay our fees equally. Maybe you could form an association, and do the yearly road fee thing too. Small yearly fees are not so hard to take, and add up after a few years. After you get your road in shape, maybe a small fee of 100 a year per house wouldn't be to hard to swallow, and would come in handy every other year for tune ups. I believe property values would be positively affected by a decent access road. That might help you sell the fee. A one time fee, while better than nothing, is not going to solve your problem. If you want, I can dig out our Association language and e mail it to you, I don't know if that would help you or not.

 

[rox]

Ifixcas,

i think it might ahve been on another thread about a shared road, that I saw a really good post on how to distribute the cost of the road. Actually the first house doens't use the road allt aht much and why shoudl that first house pay an equal sahre. Likewise the guy who has the last house uses more of the road than anybody esle and should logically pay more. That was a really good post how the guy did the math to prorate it according to where the properties were situated on the road. To me that is the msot fair system of all. If I'm hosue number 1 or number 2 on a long road, I wouldn't want to pay and equal share becasue I am not using the road equally. I ahd actually never heard of splitting the costs this way but I do think it is the most fair way to do it.

 

[Ifixcars]

Well, I should say that our road is set up so that there is a long access road leading to a culdesac that all 5 houses' driveways tee into. So we all share the same length of road, and share the culdesac evenly. Not hard to figure out that costs are divided evenly. But if instead of the culdesac, we had driveways branching off of the main shared road, I could see a different solution could be reached. If driveways were evenly divided, you could still say that payments could be the same, basically each house paying for the road upkeep in front of their house. If frontages were uneven maybe a fee based on road frontage would be fair. If one person has 1000 feet of frontage, and the rest have 50 feet, then maybe that one person should pay more. I'm sure with some thought, you and your neighbors could work something out.