What is the name of your state? California
I desperately need some help so thanks in advance and sorry if it's too long...
I have owned a piece of property for approx ten years and live on it for about seven years. The property is accessed through a private road that has a locked gate off of a county road. All of the property behind the locked gate has road easement (60 ft), which was granted back in the 70's when the land was split and sold. The only full time residents off this road are myself and my neighbors. Since we have moved in I have made substantial improvements to the road, without any reimbursement as their was no road maintence agreement just my neighbor saying they would put in an automatic gate as an in kind gesture. Our neighbors own the first (2-3 yrs.) and last (20 yrs.) piece of the property on the road.
About six months ago my neighbor began doing things to the gate (i.e. stacking rocks and barb wire) that hindered our easement rights. He did eventually move them, but only after quite sometime. At the same time he moved the location of the gate by creating a narrow barb wire channel (approx. twenty feet in from the orginal gate placement). He also began messing with our combo lock on the gate. We have had to replace the lock on numerous occassions as it has shown up missing, superglued, beat with a hammer, etc. We eventually went to latches as they are much cheaper. This has caused us and our guests to be locked in/out of our property on numerous occassions. Law Enforcement are not being helpful as they say they can't prove it is them doing this to us.
This week our neighbors now say that since they are the property owners in which the gate is installed they have a right to only have one lock (theirs) on the gate as long as they hide a key for us somewhere and that the gate MUST be locked at all times. This seems ridiculous to me that these neighbors can legally play these games and not be held accountable. Can some one make all these changes to the road easement without permission by others?
I desperately need some help so thanks in advance and sorry if it's too long...
I have owned a piece of property for approx ten years and live on it for about seven years. The property is accessed through a private road that has a locked gate off of a county road. All of the property behind the locked gate has road easement (60 ft), which was granted back in the 70's when the land was split and sold. The only full time residents off this road are myself and my neighbors. Since we have moved in I have made substantial improvements to the road, without any reimbursement as their was no road maintence agreement just my neighbor saying they would put in an automatic gate as an in kind gesture. Our neighbors own the first (2-3 yrs.) and last (20 yrs.) piece of the property on the road.
About six months ago my neighbor began doing things to the gate (i.e. stacking rocks and barb wire) that hindered our easement rights. He did eventually move them, but only after quite sometime. At the same time he moved the location of the gate by creating a narrow barb wire channel (approx. twenty feet in from the orginal gate placement). He also began messing with our combo lock on the gate. We have had to replace the lock on numerous occassions as it has shown up missing, superglued, beat with a hammer, etc. We eventually went to latches as they are much cheaper. This has caused us and our guests to be locked in/out of our property on numerous occassions. Law Enforcement are not being helpful as they say they can't prove it is them doing this to us.
This week our neighbors now say that since they are the property owners in which the gate is installed they have a right to only have one lock (theirs) on the gate as long as they hide a key for us somewhere and that the gate MUST be locked at all times. This seems ridiculous to me that these neighbors can legally play these games and not be held accountable. Can some one make all these changes to the road easement without permission by others?