Hoping that I can get some insight on this complicated easement down the private road that I live on. I own property #2 on the image as well as the easement part #2. Houses # 2,3,4, & 5 all have easement rights recorded with property #1 giving rights to easement #1. Lot #6 is an empty lot with no easement rights which I am considering purchasing and adding to the existing property #2 that I already own. Lot #7 is where the problem comes in. #7 is an empty lot that was recently purchased with no easement rights to use the private road. They had a survey performed last week and it came back they own the portion of the easement labeled #7. There are 4 homes on the entire road and the residents would like to keep it that way. However, new property owner #7 wants to build a house and put it on the back of the property where the red box is located and use the private road. My question is, does she have the right to use the road without easement rights as it was not known that she owned a very small portion of the beginning of the road until last week. This is located in Michigan. I can provide any other necessary information. I am really hoping someone can shine some light on what can and cannot be done in the matter and appreciate all answers.
This will likely be a state specific question. I am not an attorney and not experienced in this area, so I will just speak from my personal experience and not as a professional.
i live on a private road with 9 homes on it - most of the road before you get to the homes is owned by the state, then there after some of the homes (not all) owns the land that the road is on, and there is an easement for each of these that allows for through access for the purpose of other people accessing their residence. For example, my home is near the end of the road, I own none of the road or associated easement, but it is fairly clear no one can restrict access to my home. But our access is not specific to x,y,z property owners. It may be a matter of specific state law - that parcel may be grandfathered in in some manner - were you previously preventing the owner of that parcel access to their own property? Would you bar said owner from accessing their own property to build a home, but not for going camping? In some states, especially when there is already am established easement to allow others to access your property, may be difficult to argue your reasoning of not allowing this person to access their property through the same easement. The easement is a right of access, not a right to control what is done on parcel 7. Especially if the new owner owns the beginning of the road with am easement you have been using for however many years to access your own property!
Also, I guess why so set against someone building a new home? Unless there is a business the added traffic to your private road would be non noticeable, and it is one more person to potentially share in the maintenance costs of the private road.
First, it is odd that 6&7 were created without easement rights. The “people don’t want another house, on 7” is a self centered, restrictive thought process to begin with. They should be reasonable and cooperative....the owner of 7 could build their house, access it through the small piece they own, and potentially block everyone else out. If I owned 7, and got this kind of heat from the other owners, that’s the possibility I would raise. All the neighbors need to be reasonable and “play nice”. A redrafting of the easement seems to be in order, assuming everyone acts like adults.
I am located in Michigan and this is a dead end road. It's all dirt and basically a two track that the four people with easement rights maintain and use. The four homes located on the road are all on large lots with larger homes on them and not viewable from the road. It's very secluded and that is why the residents on this road choose to live there.
To give you a little history...
Lot #6 is a 3 acre lot that lot #1 sold and did not give easement rights to so it was landlocked. The residents on the road let it go because they were friends with the people that purchased that lot. They put a modular home up and maintained their home very well and helped with the road. They sold this home a couple years later. Next person moved in and now since the original owner had been using the road it the new owners did as well and no one said anything. One year after moving in she burned the house down and never tried to clean it up for three years time. She had over 100 hogs and goats on the 3 acre lot and used the basement of the burnt down house as her butcher shop. They lived in a small camping trailer there on the lot with 4 kids and even allowed some friends to build a tent structure to take up residence in. The spread all their garbage across the lot and built fences out of pallets to attempt to keep all these animals in. The other 4 residents on the road have to drive by this to get to their homes. The township finally was able to come in and evict them from the property and clean it up but it took almost 3 years to do so.
That being said, my concerns with #7 are...
- She has already taken 50+ tree stumps to make a fence for yup you guessed it more goats.
- Attempted to build a barn out of a semi trailer shipping container. Township made her remove it because barns cannot be built before homes.
- She wants to run a business selling flowers, eggs, lotions and soaps from this location.
- I'm afraid of when she is planning on building or having delivered for a house.
-She does nothing to keep the road up and it's going downhill very fast because they have 5 cars in and out of there numerous times a day and the tractor.
-She is not included in the road agreement for the road maintenance and therefore would never be able to be held accountable.
-If she does build a home and continue use of the road what happens when she sells and we end up with another lot #6 situation?
From my research I feel like we have an easement by prescription across her 10 feet of easement that she owns since we have been using it since 1974. She does own 100+ feet of frontage on a public road on the other side of her property. She does not want the expense of adding a driveway and that's why she wants to use the private road.
Is the front part of the road labelled 7 hers? If so, then it would look like you'd have to find another way to get access to the road assuming the surveyor is correct. I know you feel burned by the previous owner of lot 6, and this owner doesn't sound like she's off to a great start, but unfortunately we can' pick our neighbours. Make it clear to her that if she uses the private road, she's responsible for 1/7th of the costs to maintain it (assuming lot 1 also contributes, if not then 1/6th).
If the public road isn't busy, I would have put the house off that instead as I wouldn't have to worry about maintaining a private road.
Typically, you can’t block access to other properties just because the survey/deed says so. If the driveway has been there for years, the property owner in #7 has a prescriptive easement, even though it may not be written in. They can’t just put up a gate one day.
Additionally, you and the other properties probably have grounds for adverse possession of that small triangle as you’ve been using it for however many years.
Of course, things like this are better fixed with neighborly friendliness rather than lawyers, who get expensive and combative quickly (not the lawyers per-se, but the neighbors when they get legal letters).
Good luck. It sounds like you have a handful of a neighbor on your hands. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot that can be done. If the other owners didn’t want someone building a house there, they should have bought the land first!
The 'correct' answer will depend largely on State law as well as a very specific chronology of events and ownership. First, lot 6 likely does in fact have the specific and clear easement rights that lot 1 does. The action of selling a portion of a specific parcel with rights, often (not always) would confer those same rights to the subdivided parcels. Also what is not clear in your description is which are the dominant and servient tenements....in my reading of your description for example you show lot 2 (yours) and you show the easement on lot 2. The question is not is there an easement on lot two, the question is who/which parcels are provided rights to that easement.
So going back to your lot 6 example as a template for what you need to understand to answer the question about lot 7...let's say in 1970 'old lot 1' is granted rights across the portion of lot 7 and also grants rights across 'old lot 1' to parcels 2-5. In 1995 'old lot 1' sells off the portion identified as lot 6 and retains the portion shown as lot 1. First lot 6 likely enjoys the same right to cross lot 7 that 'old lot 1' originally had, because the legal description within that easement identifies the rights as being granted to the entirety of 'old lot 1'. Second generally state law allows that a landlocked parcel has rights to cross an adjacent parcel that was previously owned under common ownership if that is the only clearly identifiable means of access. So in that case lot 6 was automatically conferred the same easement rights across lot 1 that 'old lot 1' already had across lot 7. And finally lots 2-5 also enjoy the same easement rights across lot 6 that the previously enjoyed across 'old lot 1' even though lot 6 may not actually be identified by name anywhere.
So now to your new issue with lot 7...you likely need to dig into the same sequence and ownership chain for all of the lots 1-7 and determine who owned what for how long and when....also equally important is not just which parcel the easement is across, but which lots are stated to enjoy use of that easement. e.g. does lot 1 have any access right to the portion of the easement crossing lot 2? That is the info a surveyor, land use civil engineer or land use attorney would use to make a determination of right. It is also the information a court would use to make that determination if you went that route.
