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Gate on easement

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E

EasementGate

Guest
What is the name of your state? CA

First let me state that I did a very thorough search here on easements and this particular issue and didn't find an answer. So if you are going to reply, please offer something besides do a search or get a lawyer. I already did the former and can do the latter if I know what basis to pursue along.

My property has access to a rear garage via an easement across my rear neighbor's land. The easement is stated as being a ten foot wide lane for ingres and egress only. There are no other stipulations or terms of this easement.

The easement gives me a secondary access to my property. The front of my property and my front garage are both accessable from the street that my home faces. The second garage was built before I purchased the house and is only accessable via the easement.

Now the neighbor that owns the land the easement is on and I had a bit of a dust up. A couple times a year I would go to enter my secondary garage and find that the neighbor was washing his car, unloading groceries, loading his RV, things of that nature that would inconvenience me with regard to the ingress and egress of my easement. I might have to call him on my cell phone to let him know I was leaving or just wait a minute or two, but it was still annoying. Also since the back 16 feet of his yard were unfenced, his kids would wander up to my vehicles, grab the garage door, they even took one of my kids toys once.(His two year old took a tricycle and ran off with it)

I use this secondary garage for storage and also have just enough room to park in front of it. The easement is only ten feet, but I was able to park two cars in front of the garage because the driveway along the easement was 16 feet wide.

I called him about the kids and also to complain about him doing things temporarily in the easement. It is supposed to be clear at all times and I told him I aimed to enforce that in the future. I told him that his vehicles should not be in the way of that easement for any length of time at any time. We had it out and he told me that he had researched the easement as well and was allowed to build a locked gate across it as along as he gave me a key.

Well we just arrived back from being away for a couple weeks and now there is a gate across the easement. He had them build a fence to fill in the portion of the driveway that more than ten feet wide and had them construct a ten foot wide, six foot tall wooden gate with an iron frame so it won't sag. I'm sure it won't sag because it is practically too heavy to move.

What are my rights here? This gate is well constructed but I have to get out of my car to unlock it, open it, close it, and then relock it. Additionally it is so heavy that my wife doesn't think she will be able to move it. He did give me a key to the lock, but the lock is on HIS side of the fence. It is probably about half a foot from the top of on his side of a six foot fence.

Finally the gate as I mentioned above is only ten feet wide. It blocks of part of the driveway and I cannot park my second vehicle in front of my garage. Additionally he told me that he had better not see me parking my vehicle on the driveway at all to load it and unload it. As I mentioned I have just enough room to park in front of the garage. I have to pull forward and park to open the door. Now when the door is open I can reverse back onto my own property, but it makes it very hard to load the vehicle as the garage is quite full. I just threw it in park before and loaded. Now my neighbor is claiming that parking there is not part of ingress and egress. He says if I put it in park to load, I am tresspassing.

What are my rights? Can I park to load my vehicle? Can I demand to put the lock on my side of the gate? What is the legal definition of making an easement too difficult to use?

Fred
 


HomeGuru

Senior Member
EasementGate said:
What is the name of your state? CA

First let me state that I did a very thorough search here on easements and this particular issue and didn't find an answer. So if you are going to reply, please offer something besides do a search or get a lawyer. I already did the former and can do the latter if I know what basis to pursue along.

My property has access to a rear garage via an easement across my rear neighbor's land. The easement is stated as being a ten foot wide lane for ingres and egress only. There are no other stipulations or terms of this easement.

The easement gives me a secondary access to my property. The front of my property and my front garage are both accessable from the street that my home faces. The second garage was built before I purchased the house and is only accessable via the easement.

Now the neighbor that owns the land the easement is on and I had a bit of a dust up. A couple times a year I would go to enter my secondary garage and find that the neighbor was washing his car, unloading groceries, loading his RV, things of that nature that would inconvenience me with regard to the ingress and egress of my easement. I might have to call him on my cell phone to let him know I was leaving or just wait a minute or two, but it was still annoying. Also since the back 16 feet of his yard were unfenced, his kids would wander up to my vehicles, grab the garage door, they even took one of my kids toys once.(His two year old took a tricycle and ran off with it)

I use this secondary garage for storage and also have just enough room to park in front of it. The easement is only ten feet, but I was able to park two cars in front of the garage because the driveway along the easement was 16 feet wide.

I called him about the kids and also to complain about him doing things temporarily in the easement. It is supposed to be clear at all times and I told him I aimed to enforce that in the future. I told him that his vehicles should not be in the way of that easement for any length of time at any time. We had it out and he told me that he had researched the easement as well and was allowed to build a locked gate across it as along as he gave me a key.

Well we just arrived back from being away for a couple weeks and now there is a gate across the easement. He had them build a fence to fill in the portion of the driveway that more than ten feet wide and had them construct a ten foot wide, six foot tall wooden gate with an iron frame so it won't sag. I'm sure it won't sag because it is practically too heavy to move.

What are my rights here? This gate is well constructed but I have to get out of my car to unlock it, open it, close it, and then relock it. Additionally it is so heavy that my wife doesn't think she will be able to move it. He did give me a key to the lock, but the lock is on HIS side of the fence. It is probably about half a foot from the top of on his side of a six foot fence.

Finally the gate as I mentioned above is only ten feet wide. It blocks of part of the driveway and I cannot park my second vehicle in front of my garage. Additionally he told me that he had better not see me parking my vehicle on the driveway at all to load it and unload it. As I mentioned I have just enough room to park in front of the garage. I have to pull forward and park to open the door. Now when the door is open I can reverse back onto my own property, but it makes it very hard to load the vehicle as the garage is quite full. I just threw it in park before and loaded. Now my neighbor is claiming that parking there is not part of ingress and egress. He says if I put it in park to load, I am tresspassing.

What are my rights? Can I park to load my vehicle? Can I demand to put the lock on my side of the gate? What is the legal definition of making an easement too difficult to use?

Fred
**A: thanks for your post..
 

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