Posted by Hawkster on January 11, 2007 at 18:20:51:
It is very difficult to envision the land and driveway configuration you are describing. Why does the owner of property 2 want to use the driveway? Does it let him get to part of his property that is hard for him to access otherwise? How big are these pieces of land? You say that the new owner has 3 driveways on his 1/4 acre – does not make a lot of sense to me. In the end you will probably have to take it to court and get a ruling. Would you win? Don’t know - but apparently you would be no worse off than now.
Posted by Billie Sutton on January 08, 2007 at 19:54:32:
Here is the story in a nutshell. A piece of property was divided into 3 pieces back in 1936. Two are on the side of a hill (properties 2 & 3), with a 15 right of way (Foot travel only) between them to allow the family who owned all these properties at one time, to get to a family cemetery at the top of the hill.,(property 1). In a deed from 1936 the owners of properties 2 & 3 were given use of the right of way since their water came thru it. The spring has long since dried up so there is no need to maintain the pipeline which has rusted away. Property 3 (my property) has used the right of way as their only means of ingress & egress since 1936. Property 2 has never used it for ingress or egress. Now property 2 has changed hands and the new owner wants to use the driveway across the right of way which I had built 12 years ago. We have been argueing about it for more then a year. In the mean time, the owner of property 1, which owns the right of way, deeded the property to me. Now I own properties 1 & 3. I want to keep my neighbor from driving up my driveway (he has 3 of his own driveways on his 1/4 acre. What steps must I take to deny him access to my driveway? ( The right of way goes nowhere but to my front door. It does not leave the property. I have notarized statements attesting to the fact that this has been a private entrance to my property for at least 65 years.