I did talk to the agent and the way the easement is written, he is fully responsible for the maintenance according to the way the easement is written. The driveway was not written as ever being shared (the township no longer allows this situation as it has caused so many problems.) The previous owner and myself have tried to work with owner of the property to no avail so that pot have been overstirred! He will allow me to restone the drive but refuses to share the cost (that’s where the small claims court will have to come in.) He’s a very uncooperative individual with all of his neighbors. We have all had to place concrete monuments as he won’t accept the whole property line concept. I think I’m going to have the entire driveway done with large shale or scrub rock so that it can withstand the plowing (maybe get lucky and break the plow) so that it can be safe and avoid damage to my vehicles. I’ve already engineered my drive as his drive had been washing my drive out. He wasn’t happy with that as now the runoff from his drive runs across and into a ditch on his property. I gave him the engineering plan for his drive but he knows much more than me so he didn’t want to hear it. Well, I’ll have to use my engineering with the scrub stone and try to recoup some of my cost through small claims. My advise, if the only access is via easement, put the money out and build your own drive! Just too much agravation.
Asked this before, I’ll try again. Access to my property is via a deeded easement. Property owner refused to repair the part of the driveway that is in easement. Property owner has damaged/destroy driveway with his snowplow. Drive is dangerous due to the holes. Without a definitive answer, I’ll have to go to small claims court to sue for the cost of repair and maintenance as the property owner refuses to do so. ANY ONE WITH ADVISE PLEASE ANSWER.
Re: Maintenance of Easements - Posted by River City
Posted by River City on August 08, 2005 at 06:33:42:
I will take a stab at this, although, I am not an attorney. IMO the easement would be maintained jointly between you and the other owner. I would suggest getting some prices on fixing the easement and present them to the other owner and ask him/her to split the cost. If you want the other owner’s cooperation, do not point fingers as to the blame, because you probably cannot prove it anyway and it will just serve to stir up animosity. If you make them angry, you probably will not get any cooperation. After this is over, you should work up some sort of a maintenance agreement for the drive. That way, the responsibility is set in stone.
Also, if you have homeowner’s insurance you might want to check with your insurance agent to see if repairing the drive is covered.