We have found five acres for sale and we are very interested in it. The property is at the end of a road with 5 - 16 acre parcels on each side. The owner of the land we intend to purchase has the 16 acres and according to the realtor, the property owners take care of the road. Well, the road deadends at the property we are interested in. What can we do to make sure that the road is, in fact, taken care of? Some of the ruts were pretty deep and I'd hate to get stuck after alot of rain. Should we talk to the neighbors before we make an offer on the property to see how they have handled the road issue in the past? Have any of you encountered these kinds of issues? We are from the city and this would be the first time we purchase land. Thanks for your advice.

-- Gerhild Turner (turner72@earthlink.net), April 01, 2001

Answers

We live on a dirt road that is owned by the property owners whose land abuts it. We have a homeowners association to which we pay dues, and they are responsible for maintaining the roads. Every year they regrade with a bulldozer-like machine, shaping the road so that there is sort of a hump in the middle, and small ditches on the sides.

In other areas where there is no homeowners association, the property owners are responsible for the road up to their driveway, I believe. I imagine the rules are different in different areas. Make sure you check with your county (assuming you are rural) or else your city, because road maintenance can be costly if you have to maintain a big chunk of it yourself. And ask the seller's realtor, if they have one. The one who represented the property my husband & I bought was able to tell us not only about our house, but about the whole area and some of the neighbors, which was extremely helpful.

-- Leslie A. (lesliea@home.com), April 01, 2001.

Doesn't sound like an easement problem to me. An easement gives a third party the right to trespass on your land and put in power, water, phone service, roads and similar things. Sound like you have a neighbor hood cooperation situation.

-- Lynn Goltz (lynngoltz@aol.com), April 02, 2001.

To answer the first question... when they say out here that the property owner takes care of the road, it means just that. If I buy a piece of the property, the road and all its headaches are mine.

If the owner of the 16 acres is still there, ask them if they are going to do it or if you would need to take care of part... There might be a cost involved. I know there is here... One guy owns a grader and everyone on the road pays a few bucks a year. Its still cheaper than when you pay it on taxes...

My buddy down in MO just uses his 4x4 with a railroad tie and a few rocks tied onto that. Depends on what kind of road you have.

Where I want to buy (hubby doesn't, because of the road) its FS land that the road is on. First you have to get permission, then you have to either hire it out or do your own. I want to do our own. Since we have 4WD, I think I could do a decent job of it. Rich just doesn't want the extra work. Right now, well actually a couple weeks ago... you'd need a snow-mobile to get there in the snow. Since it has no driveway either, the whole mess would be ours.

-- Sue Diederich (willow666@rocketmail.com), April 02, 2001.

Everyones definition of a road is different. I would talk to the neighbors and see what they say. They may want it rough and the way it is, so you might ruffle some feathers if you decide you want to drive your Rolls Royce on it:-) Often times it's left up to one or two owners as the others are too lazy or don't care about the road. If you're at the end you may be stuck, so plan on lots of work. I'm at the end of my road, 1/2 mile, and for years was the only one maintaining it. It started out as no more than a 4x4 road thru swamps and brush. I have a JD tractor that I use with a box scraper that works well. I've gone thru 3-4 brush cutters over the past 12 years and there is quite a bit of work involved keeping the road up if you do it yourself. I now have a new black top road about half way in with a new 20 home development going in. The 40 acs adjacent to my place is up for sale, so I doubt it will be long till my little road is a memory. Of course the property taxes went up 84% this year and it's getting to where I can't afford to live here. That's progress I guess!...you can have it I'll go back to the swamp and brush. Here's a pic of my road that I took yesterday. The 40 acs to the right was logged off 4 years ago and replanted. It's up for sale now for 229,000. Please someone buy it so they don't put in another housing development!

-- Kent in WA (kent@premier1.net), April 02, 2001.

Gerhild

I am a licensed Professional Land Surveyor and deal with Private Road situations all the time. This is what you are dealing with. The physical road serving the lots is either within its own tract which is owned in common by the various owners of the 5 acre segregation, or it is within an easement that crosses portions of the other parcels. You really should demand to see a preliminary title report on the parcel before closing any deal. For your own protection, there should be a Road Maintenance Agreement. This will spell out the rights and responsibilities of each parcel owner served by the road and make provision for legal action against any owner who refuses to participate in reasonable maintenance. Gentleman's agreements won't protect you from the jerk up the road who decides to use his five acres to park heavy equipment which tears up the road, but who refuses to pay his fair share in maintenance. Grading and gravel are very expensive, and with you living at the end, you are concerned with the entire length of the road. If there is no maintenance agreement I would recommend passing it up. The Road Maintenance Agreement should be in the form of a signed and notarized declaration executed by the owner of the 16 parcels and recorded with the County Recorder's (Auditor, in some localities) office. If properly executed, this document will put the owner of every parcel on notice of their rights and responsibilities.

Don't take either the seller's nor the agent's word for any of this as they are obviously biased and want you to buy. Land is the single biggest life investment any of make. I stronly urge anyone not experienced in real estate transactions, easements, etc. to consult with a real estate attorney to make sure your future rights and enjoyment of the land are protected. Private road easements can be a nightmare without proper paperwork. You have to remember that you will not own the road in any sense. You will only own the right to travel over it between your property and the public road (ingress and egress) and the right to have your land served by public utilities such as power and telephone. Any other use is not permitted under common law, unless it is specifically granted by recorded instrument. Further, you may be limited by what you can do on your land if it creates more usage of the private than would be considered normal for a private residence. For example, opening a business where you had numerous customers everyday could be considered "over burdening" the easement and could theoretically result in your loss of all easement rights. Likewise, recreational riding of an unlicensed dirt bike is not a permitted use. (Riding up and down the private road, but never accessing the public road is not "ingress and egress". It is recreation. Recreational rights were probably never granted.

Hope this helps. Any other questions, feel free to email me.

Skip in Washington.

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), April 02, 2001.

Thanks to all of you who have responded to my question. I knew I could count on your help! In the meantime I also found out that one of my co-worker's mother had to fix the access road to the property she intended to sell. The cost was $8,000.00 for about 1/4 mile! Taking this into consideration, the cost for the 5 acres just went up! Based on my observation of the residents living there, we would have to maintain the road. We already know that the owner is in bad health and intends to move to town next year. We'll just keep looking until we find the right place.

-- Gerhild Turner (turner72@earthlink.net), April 03, 2001.