Shared Roads and other issues.

[sanmigmike]

After reading part of that long easmeant nightmare thread I want to bring up our problem. Made the time element seem much more critical!

We live on a private road at a 90 degree angle to a public road. To try to make it easier let us call the property by the public road A, mine B and the last C. It dead ends on our neighbor's C property so it starts on one neighbors A, goes all the way thrugh his property, all the way through mine B and then ends on the last owner's property C.

The deed might (recall it saying that but have yet to find the wording) say that we all pay $100 a year for common upkeep. So far my section of road is in very good shape. I use a box scraper on it now and then and we have dumped gravel once on the full length in almost three years. The last section of our other neighbor C is in good shape with a few small pot holes, they don't scrape it but it has had some gravel over the past few years.

The first section A's, the one we all use is a mess. It has been a mess for all the almost three years we have lived here and our dead-end neighbors C tell us in the end house tell us that no real work has been done on it all the time they have been here, about six years. It is rough in a Range Rover and normal cars tend to bottom at times. The garbage men and the newspaper people refuse to use it! All the work I have ever seen has been for him to toss a few shovels of gravel in the potholes that gets promptly blasted out by the large box van he uses quite frequently on the road, he sells wine bottles.

Okay, we nor our other neighbor have ever paid him or anyone else the $100. To be honest I don't trust the neighbor with the bad road section and I also know that even $300 would just be start to fix it since it is such a mess and if you were paying someone to do the work.

Other issues are that when we moved here he made a big deal about the road being his and we needed to ask his permission to use it, property rights are very important to him.

So come the general election we liked someone he didn't, now his is Austrian, not American, not a citizen so when we put a sign down by the road he blew up. I will admit that he was carefull to put his political signs up in the center of his stretch of road side property.

So, we thought wehave a 20 foot wide strip of land from our main property to the public road on the opposite side of the property than the road we use now. We went down to the road and measured off from the other property line and found that he was growing grapes on our land as well as our neighbor's 20 foot of unused for road land, a total of 40 feet. Grapes as you know are not a matter of just tossing seeds in, there is some structure there. Also note that this is not an easement, it is our property we pay the taxes on it! Honest, it is not an easement!! There is NO mistake on that point, it is ours!

There is nothing in our deed about him growing grapes or anything else on OUR property. However there is the mention of paying $100 a year for taking care of ALL of the road!

So having said that to warn you that I am in a bad mood, he really is a bad neighbor we need to know what are the common ways around to handle this? We have a shared road that part of it is mess, the one that made it a mess is the one that is demanding the others pay for it.

Our long term goal is to sell. Shorter is in the next few years is to cut our road on our 20 strip and fence it. (A major project since we have some trees, big ones and other things) He has property on both sides so he isn't going to like that.

Oh, and when I got my tractor, a dandy Kubota a year ago, I was willing to fix part of the road on his property if he would buy the gravel but when ever he heard my tractor getting close to his property he would come flying out trying to make sure that I wasn't doing anything to HIS road. I took the garbage down to the main road one evening and he came out all short of breath demanding to know if I was working on his road. My daughter got out of his way recently, she was coming in, he was going out in his big truck, the box van and she had only one way to go to get out of his way, toward the grapes, and he yelled at her about it not caring that she had no other way to go. As you might guess she was a bit pissed, trying to be nice and getting yelled at! Just trying to show the type of guy he is... His neighbors at his main storage building for his wine bottles, about a mile away don't seem to find him nice or easy to deal with as well.

The short of it is, how do you handle shared road up keep and just how big of hassle are we going to have to cut a new road both as far as the actual making a road and the part of him having the grapes on there for almost three years of our ownership?

Sorry this is so long but really wanted to be clear... And if I am being the axxhole would like to know that too, I think that I am pretty easy going most of the time but you never know!

I am more than willing to pay the $!00, but if he collects it, it better be a really better road. I am willing to help but on my terms and I am at this point not willing to pay a full third of his road. So maybe I am too pissed about it.

 

[frank29]

Man, talk about a bad neighbor. Too bad A & C are not reversed.

About his using your property, at the very least you need to let him know that you are aware of his transgressing and you have no intention on relinguishing your property rights. You should have documentation of this notice. Whether or not you want him to remove his stuff is another issue.

I have always thought that a land owner should "walk the property line" at least once a year looking for "transgressing". The problem being that when someone has unfettered long term use of another's property, they might attempt to make a claim to an easement.

Listening to your side of the story (no offense intended), your neighbor sounds completely unreasonable. If I were you, I would spend $50 or $100 for a local attorney and get some real advice instead of relying on my ramblings. GOOD LUCK.

Also, common sense makes me think you would have the right to upgrade "A's" portion of the road, what with it being a semi public road. You've got a lot of issues with A. That reminds me: A could stand for something we've all got!

 

[ToadHill]

Does the deed say to whom the $100 is to be paid ? If not I'd demand he pay it to me so I could use it to repair the road. But your best bet is to seek advice from a good property lawyer. have him served with papers to remove his grapes from your property within a certain period of time or rip them out and build your own road.

 

[RobertN]

Wow! First, I would review the deed and verify the easement and any restrictions(ie $100/yr and who it goes to) and make sure of exactly what you have a right to use. Have it verified by a lawyer. Then you could put together a plan of action.

Have you tried talking to him, nicely? When we redid our road a couple years ago, I thought it would be a battle to get everyone to chip in(we had the work done by a road company). Everyone actually agreed pretty easily whne we had a cordial neighborhood meeting to discuss it. OIf course, I did all the work, taking time from work to arrange with contractors, billing, ect. But, by nicely approaching them, I was able to get things rolling much easier than I thought(This is not always the case, I know for sure).

 

[EddieWalker]

Robert brings up a good point.

I had a house that was shared by three other people and two of them didn't get along. It was one horror story against the other the entire time I was working on the place.

When I was done rebuilding the house and ready to fix the road, I talked to them seperately and was able to get them to agree to help "me" with the upgrades to the road. No way would the help each other out and had spent years being stuborn about it and driving down a rutted, washed our road.

Sometimes you just have to take the lead and pretend like their whining isn't some childish drival. Makes them feel better about themselves and I was able to accomplish what I wanted and sell the house for a nice profit.

An added advantage to my kissing butt to all of them was the title company didn't want to issue title insurance without an updated road agreement. This could have been a disaster if I'd been more aggresive with them, but since I'd done such a good job of kissing butt, they all signed on the the road agreement and easment papers.

Eddie

 

[sanmigmike]

Found our papers from buying this place. Should have read the fine print. There is a 20 foot easement across the south edge of all of our properties... Written in...there in black and white, no need to ask permission as we have seen. And along the north edge of my property going all the way to the pubic road is 20 feet of "C"s property and I do have a 20 foot strip, growing some one else's grapes.

The easement has a covenant that seems to say to me, not being a lawyer, that we all pay thirds for all of the road... But, get this, not more than $100 a year each. No, it did not say who is supposed to get this and have the road work done. No responsible party named. Think I might post some pictures tomorrow of the road sections and also ask for advice on taking care of our section as well as comment on others.

Going to talk to a lawyer and then talk to "A". If we can resolve it without letters and threats would much rather do that. But if we cannot I think we have seen here that we HAVE to get him off of our property!

Oh, one more thing, a neighbor of "A"s was trying to divide his property and needed access to the public road. He saw the road that we use, the road that is a 20 foot easement and asked "A" about it. He was told that it wasn't 20, it isn't since there are grape growing stakes and so on in it and that it wouldn't work. Think we might stop by and show the neighbor that was trying to divide his land that there is indeed an EXISTING 20 foot easement. So, does the easement mean that nothing can be there or does it mean that crops or indeed something can be built that would cut into it? From the other person's troubles I tend to think that you can't do anything to block like build a shop or something but crops would be fine?

A rather painful lesson for one of us here had me start thinking and working....great place eh?

 

[riptides]

Easements are specific in purpose. On your deed it should have stated what type of use. Ingress/Egress, Right out Way. etc.

I doubt growing Grapes is classified as right of passage.

Good luck.
-Mike Z.

 

[sanmigmike]

The grapes I did not see as a real problem, even with their supporting structure as far as the easement but there is also a wooden fence. I still feel that the grapes on our land is indeed a real issue, more so with "A" being concerned about his rights including some he doesn't have but not bothering to tell me about him being on my land. Will consult with a lawyer and see what they say. I hope that all it will take is a reminder of what he can and cannot do in the strip of land.

I don't want people to think that this is just one way, I have an easement as well and so far we had never given any thought to putting anything like a shop or structure anywhere near it (we have almost 8 acres so why put something right next to the road) but soon we will know what we and "A" and "C" can do and can not do! Educational eh?

 

[Phils]

After the thread "Help! I need legal advice re: easements" I think many of us are evaluating and re-evaluating easement situations. Hard to believe the outcome on that one. And I must live somewhat near him and could get a similar jury/judge combination, if not the same one.

Phil

 

[newcountry]

What I had been told about easements in the past - you own it, and you can build something on it. But if the energy company, water company, etc need to get onto that easement, they can do whatever they need to whatever you've built on it. For instance, I'd bought a house that had about a foot of the deck on an energy easement. If the company needed to get in there, they had the right to tear out that part of the deck. I'd consider moveable structures, but would never put anything like a building or shed on an easement.

The grape incursion definitely needs nipped in the bud. Give him a time frame to have them out or you'll start cutting and digging.