Tree Limbs On A Shared Road, Opinions?

[troutsqueezer]

My wife and I have been living on a 10 acre parcel for thirty years. The road that leads to it has an easement across another undeveloped parcel whose owner we have never seen nor met. Recently, that parcel sold. Since 1985, I have kept the road maintained with gravel, ditching and constant trimming of trees that either get blown down and block the road or must have branches removed to allow larger vehicles, such as fire trucks, to reach my house. My method has been to harvest as much of the wood as possible and use it in my wood stove and pile the smaller branches in groups on the neighbor's property next to the road.

My wife thinks that when I meet the new owners I shouldn't mention where the piles of branches came from. I think that's ridiculous. I think not only should I mention it, I should also ask if they would like to chip in on the road maintenance (pay for my diesel fuel at least) and help me with any future trimming jobs. If they don't like the piles of branches which actually blend in with the poison oak and undergrowth, they can clean them up since they are the accumulation of necessary road maintenance the original owner did not bother to inquire about.

None of this may turn into a problem, depending on what the new neighbors are like or whether they even build on the property.

What would you do?

 

[KennyV]

Sounds like youhave been maintaining your driveway... (you were the only one on the road)... but you have been piling brush on someone's land. Didn't you say you have 10 acres? Do you not have a burn/brush pile you could have been using?
Brush and the like I suppose could be burned as a disposal???
If you are looking for someone to pay you or supplement you for maintaining your driveway, I think that is likely Not going to happen...

 

[Gary Fowler]

From the description, the road might also be for the land that the easement crosses depending on whether he has access to highway frontage without using the road. If it is solely for your use, then all maintenance cost and disposal of refuse should go to your land.

 

[oosik]

I have the exact same situation as you, Dennis. The only access to my property is along a mile long easement (my driveway) across another persons property. I had the driveway built and maintain it, all at my expense. The driveway goes right down the section line - it doesn't meander all over the place. This easement was purchased when the property was purchased and is given in perpetuity (forever). This driveway provides access to three properties - mine, the neighbor to the north & the neighbor to the south. My property is the only one with a house on it. The other two neighbors live miles away from my house and have access via other road systems. This area is wide open range land and both neighbors have thousands and thousands of acres of wide open range lands. The driveway does provide the neighbors access to a remote portion of their property but actually only goes to my property and house. Both neighbors will use my driveway when moving cows that are in that area.

I have never even thought of nor would I ever ask either neighbor to assist in the driveway maintenance - the driveway is only a benefit to them in that it provides access to a very remote portion of their properties. Years ago I removed and chipped all the tress along the north side of the driveway. This is where the power line come in to my property. The trees that were too big to chip - I cut into 6 foot lengths and collected into a pile on my property. They have long since rotted away.

If the property sold where my easement is located I would not approach the new neighbor. He would or at least should have been advised of this easement by the realtor when he purchased the property. It is not my responsibility to advise a new owner of this easement. If there were a sale - I probably would not know of it until years later or I might never know of it.

Besides all of this is rather nebulous - large chunks(10,000 acre parcels and bigger) of land seldom change ownership around here and are usually passed down from the father to his children. The current zoning - agricultural - prohibits subdividing into small lots. Any rezoning would raise taxes and wipe out the profitability of open range farming. And this land is certainly not considered prime land for residential development. This fact has both a positive & a negative side. The land is not suitable for residential development so I'll never have to worry about close neighbors and because of that there are no right-of-way easements on section or smaller quarter section lines. That's why my driveway easement was purchased.

I completely agree with both KennyV's and Gary's posts.

 

[FTG-05]

In for the discussion.

I too, live at the end of a one mile gravel road. It's now a private road, but used to be public years ago (early 70's). The road has been here since at least the mid-30's (per USGS map dated 1936). There are only four houses on this road, one of which is about 100 yards from the blacktop.

Since at least the last five years, the person who owned my home, worked the road, grading it mainly. I've lived here since last Oct. and I'm the only that has maintained the road, mostly with my box blade and dumping recycled concrete into some of the mudholes. I've never asked for nor recieved any $ for the cost of my time or diesel fuel.

A land owner had previously spent thousands on gravel and asked for some $$$ from the residences and no one offered any except my next door neighbor, so it's left some hard feelings by this land owner. I found this out when I talked to his realtor since the owner has his 85 acres up for sale.

So far, I've taken of two fallen shagbark hickory trees that fell on the road. They fell from this owner's property and blocked access for only us and our closest neighbor, an older widow. I took care of both of them, taking the good wood (most of it was rotten) and pushing the rest of it back onto the property it came off of. I feel no need to inform the absent land owner that I was either a) on his property or b) took the wood that fell on the road. I highly doubt he would care, although I have zero evidence of it - and he's a lawyer too!

FWIW.

 

[jaotguy]

first things first ... meet the neighbor ... get a feel for him ... discuss his plans for the property ... it may turn out they plan to open up the parcel and remove some of the trees them selves ... if it is to your benefit , offer the "help" with some of it ( at least that part that may help you too ) ...

 

[phiferpharm]

You are probably on your own. I am the last property on a 1.8 mile dirt access road, and there are four of us with tractors - graders - backhoes that will go out from time to time and do road - tree- brush - drainage work. There are at least a dozen other families that use the road, and other than the teenage drivers doing everything they can do see how big a rut they can dig in the roads as soon as we smooth them out, don't even say thanks. One even complained that I took away his privacy when I cleared a about a 400' strip on my property to put in new horse pasture.

IMHO, just do what you need to do to maintain the roads for your needs, and leave the neighbor (and his property) out of it.

 

[turnkey4099]

first things first ... meet the neighbor ... get a feel for him ... discuss his plans for the property ... it may turn out they plan to open up the parcel and remove some of the trees them selves ... if it is to your benefit , offer the "help" with some of it ( at least that part that may help you too ) ...

Yep, get off to the right start, discuss ROW, who maintains, etc. Meet with the new owner ASAP and get things clear before a new neighbor decides he owns the ROW.

harry k

 

[ultrarunner]

I'm the last house on property where an easement was purchased.

The property is rented and seldom to I have the chance to visit these days.

I've never been asked to contribute anything... when I'm there I always repair and the neighbor thanks me.

I've tried several time to pay him and he refuses... last visit I had a load of road base delivered and and told him it was for the road as he saw fit.

He was almost offended when I offered money, happy when I could help out and sent me a letter thanking me for the gravel... sometimes a person just lucks out with a great neighbor...

 

[rekees4300]

None of this may turn into a problem, depending on what the new neighbors are like or whether they even build on the property.

What would you do?

Neighbors can make your life heaven or he|| depending on your relationship with them. Meet with them, speak your mind openly and honestly on all issues.

 

[troutsqueezer]

Thanks guys. All good advice. I also am at the end of this two mile long road. I do all the grading and maintenance for the entire thing at no charge to the fifteen neighbors who use it.

I don't see a problem with stacking the brush piles on the property it came from. It wouldn't be feasible for me to haul it up to my property and burning it can only be done a few months out of the year. Besides, it's good for wildlife.

I do plan on getting off on the right foot with the new owners. Chances are they will want to strike up a healthy relationship with a neighbor who has a tractor. When it comes down to it, I would ask for some kind of compensation if they raised a stink about about a few brush piles from trees that came from their property but I do doubt seriously if that would happen and like has been suggested, I'll probably make no mention of existing piles and only discuss how things should be going forward. No doubt they'll be grateful they don't have to pitch in to help keep the other two miles in drivable condition, except for the occasional road base delivery.

 

[TomSeller]

I own property where the easement is across my land to a number of well to do homes. Every year they have the gall to ask me to contribute to the maintenance of the road to their houses. You can use your imagination as to what I tell them. They act like they are doing me a favor by maintaining the road. I could not care less if they have potholes to navigate.

 

[Coyote machine]

Wait for the new owners to contact you, if ever. Then maybe tell them you've been maintaining the road and trees along same. Ask them if they'd like to contribute the road base material, and you'd be glad to spread it for the good of all who use the road. If you ask for/take $ for any work on the road you open up potential liability issues and insurance on you/your tractor by receiving compensation. Forget mention of brush already on their land. It could hurt you, but won't likely be of benefit to you by mentioning it to them. JMHO

 

[zing]

Since it is undeveloped land you can't really bring them pie and welcome them to the neighbourhood, but if you do run into them you can ask them where they are from and if they have any questions about the area like honest local contractors, etc. The subject of the road will come up eventually, although it doesn't have to be the first thing you say. When the subject does come up you can mention how it has been maintained in the past and see how they want to go from there.

 

[Parkanzky]

The home we own has an easement through it for a drive/road for the two parcels behind us. They put in the road (asphalt), pay for snow removal, and deal with any maintenance issues. The easement that they have for our property allows them to use my land to access their homes. It does not require me to provide them the road to get there.

Their drive runs parallel to ours (then ours turns to go to our house and theirs keeps going to their two homes). There is a strip of landscaping, mostly grass but also a couple of trees/shrubs). that one of those neighbors maintains. One of the trees has limbs that are hanging over our drive. We met one of the neighbors shortly after we moved in and I mentioned that I would be trimming a couple of the low limbs from that tree, or possibly cutting it down and replacing it with a series of fruit trees centered between the drives. His response was, "It's all your land, you can do anything you want with it." I offered to take over mowing between the drives, since it really should be my responsibility, but he is happy to continue taking care of it. There's a bit of a washout near the road and he talked about getting some fill to put in. I told him that shouldn't be his problem and that I'd pay for that.

So in short, whatever you have to do to maintain your own drive is your responsibility (and the responsibility of anybody else that uses that easement to access their homes. But if you're the only one regularly using that drive, then you should be the one keeping the trees trimmed to maintain access. Personally, I'd be upset of the neighbors trimmed along their drive and left brush piles on my property. If it's practical for you to clean those up then you should. If it's not, then I think that you should talk to them about a solution for that. Maybe they're happy to have them sitting there rotting, maybe they're not. If I understand your situation, there's a lot of open land there. Maybe they own a clearing close-by that they'd let you use to burn the brush. But remember that they're doing you a favor here, not the other way around. If my neighbors casually asked me for money to help them to maintain their driveway, I'd have to struggle for a polite way to tell them to pound sand.

 

[timster2]

If the neighbors have a problem with brush piles you could always ask them to chip in for a new chipper for your tractor

 

[jaotguy]

seems to be the trees are on the other person's land ... "his" trees fell on the right of way , you just cleaned them up for him ... the branches belong to him and you would be stealing if you took them home , so you just piled them for him to do as he sees fit ... the "firewood" was your payment for cleaning up his mess ...

the township around here , cuts up downed trees covering the roads , and put the pieces back on the property owner's land for the owner to deal with ....

you maintain your ROW itself and don't ask for any help doing it ... ( as it should be )

 

[troutsqueezer]

seems to be the trees are on the other person's land ... "his" trees fell on the right of way , you just cleaned them up for him ... the branches belong to him and you would be stealing if you took them home , so you just piled them for him to do as he sees fit ... the "firewood" was your payment for cleaning up his mess ...

the township around here , cuts up downed trees covering the roads , and put the pieces back on the property owner's land for the owner to deal with ....

you maintain your ROW itself and don't ask for any help doing it ... ( as it should be )

That's pretty much the way I see it.

The land is steeply sloped and full of poison oak so burning it anywhere except in the middle of the road would not work. If the new owner ever wanted to improve the looks of this section he would be in for a whole lotta work given the chaparral and downed trees that are already there. The tree limbs I put there only blend in.