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Ingress and Egress

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fishbo

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Tennessee

In the middle of our 225 acres is a 4 acre tract of land. This tract of land only has ingress and egress, no specified width. What are the "rights" the property owner of the 4 acres has in regards to the ingress and egress. Also the property owner split off 1 acre of land to his son, in the 1 acre deed there is no mention of any type of ingress and egress to the 1 acre property. Will this 1 acre tract of land automatically have the right to ingress and egress? When this land was divided, we were not consulted in regards to access to the newly created lot. Thank you in advance for any advice.
 


drewguy

Member
1) The split off piece should have whatever rights as the 4 acre piece.
2) I assume the 4 acre piece was sold out of your 225 acre piece at some point. In the sale it came with an implied easement. Generally those are defined as what is reasonable.

But since you realize you have to provide this/allow this, why not sit down with the owner(s) of the parcel and negotiate a specific easement that you are both happy with with a route you are happy with.
 

fishbo

Junior Member
Negotiation

Thank you for your response. When the tract was first split off, they came to us with a request to sign a plat. The plat stated we would GIVE them a 50 foot wide piece of land that would be 1500 feet long. Now understand, we would have to survey this property and deed this piece of land to the owner of the 1 acre tract. We would also have to agree to keep up the maintenance of the driveway at 100% cost to us. 1500 feet of fence would have to be removed and a new fence installed. We refused to sign the plat under those conditions and were sued in court. The attorney we hired was a real estate attorney, he informed the property owners they had commited a Class C mistemeanor. Still we were burdened with the cost of that lawsuit so we aren't very negotiable as we should be. The land owner of the remaining 3 acres even refused to give the 1 acre tract of land access across his property. So you can understand how we have become somewhat bitter when the burden of all cost was attempted to be placed on us. To top off all of this mess, the 3 acres (house) is being foreclosed on and will be sold at the courthouse. The farm and all equipment is paid off free and clear, and we aren't interested in going into debt to buy this parcle of land, $121,000.00 is owed.
 

drewguy

Member
Well, good luck with that.

Once all the ownership issues are settled after foreclosure I would consider making a reasonable proposal to resolve the issue. Obviously you don't need to deed them land, nor should you have to maintain the easement for their benefit. What you should look to get out of it is a defined lane/passage so you can work around it in the future.
 

154NH773

Senior Member
I agree with drew, and also; the 1 acre piece should have to use the same access as the 3 acre piece, and it would be up to the owner of the 3 acre piece to grant an easement across his property to get from the easement on your property to the 1 acre piece.

There are some troubling statements in your explanation above. You say that the "tract was split off". If the tract was split off from your property, then you are obligated to at least grant an easement for ingress and egress. What was the agreement at the time of the transfer of property? You should have had some type of maintenance agreement. If you didn't, you are probably not obligated to maintain the easement unless you also use it..

The other thing is; you have already been to court on this issue. What was the outcome, and why didn't that settle the question?
 
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154NH773

Senior Member
If the 3 acre piece is foreclosed, does the bank hold the title? The bank may be interested in resolving the issue so the property would be easier to sell.
 

fishbo

Junior Member
The 1 acre tract was split from the 4 acre tract. We did not have anything to do with the 1 acre tract being split. The 4 acre tract originally came from a 230 acre tract that was split back in the 1950's. The 4 acre tract was awarded an ingress and egress across the property. I understand we have to allow the original access to the 4 acres, but we shouldn't have to give up land for an ingress and egress to a tract that we: 1) received no benefit from its sale 2) did not agree to give nor maintain any such ingress and egress 3) the land owners of the 4 acre tract refused to grant an easement to said 1 acre tract, where the 1 acre tract was sold from. With all that being said, we the land owners of the ingress and egress, should not be forced to financially accept the burden for something we didn't create nor receive benefit. I know this sounds cold, but I have worked long and hard to pay for what we have, no one gave me anything, I don't understand why now I have to provide others with land that I have worked and paid for.
 

drewguy

Member
If the 4-acre lot already was determined to have legal access, then what is your issue? The 1-acre lot that was split off from it gets at most the same rights as the 4-acre lot, but that's debatable. That is, same road, same location, same rights, and same obligation to maintain it. Arguably having two lots share the easement may overburden it (unreasonably) but that's a question of fact, and seems unlikely.
 

154NH773

Senior Member
3) the land owners of the 4 acre tract refused to grant an easement to said 1 acre tract, where the 1 acre tract was sold from.
As drew said, the owners of the 4 acre tract can probably sell the 1 acre piece and it can use the same access easement as was used by the 4 acre piece. The owners of the 4 acre piece must grant an easement or other access across the 4 acre piece to the 1 acre piece, if that is the only way to reach that property without crossing your property outside the existing easement.

I don't understand why now I have to provide others with land that I have worked and paid for
You don't.
You are under no obligation to grant any additional easement to the 1 acre piece, however, they "probably" do have access to the existing easement.

Lacking a maintenance agreement, that issue is undecided. Any party can bring the others to court to decide what to do for maintenance. If you don't use it, it's unlikely that you could be held liable for maintenance, or even a portion of the maintenance.
 

drewguy

Member
Lacking a maintenance agreement, that issue is undecided. Any party can bring the others to court to decide what to do for maintenance. If you don't use it, it's unlikely that you could be held liable for maintenance, or even a portion of the maintenance.
That is an interesting question: Can an easement by necessity ever create a maintenance obligation in the part of the servient tenement? My intuition tells me no.
 

fishbo

Junior Member
You are under no obligation to grant any additional easement to the 1 acre piece, how

That has been the whole argument in this situation. We never will deny them acess under the original ingress/egress, but with the new 1 acre tract, they were trying to force us into granting a new dedicated acess to the created 1 acre tract. The property where the 1 acre tract previously came from, isn't allowing acess across their property. But what really makes this a very strange situation, under Tennessee law, a driveway cannot cross a septic field, should the 1 acre tract be granted a new ingress/egress across our property, the driveway would have to cross the septic field of the existing house on the neighboring property. Their are multiple issues here which we are merely victums of circumstance.
 

drewguy

Member
That has been the whole argument in this situation. We never will deny them acess under the original ingress/egress, but with the new 1 acre tract, they were trying to force us into granting a new dedicated acess to the created 1 acre tract. The property where the 1 acre tract previously came from, isn't allowing acess across their property. But what really makes this a very strange situation, under Tennessee law, a driveway cannot cross a septic field, should the 1 acre tract be granted a new ingress/egress across our property, the driveway would have to cross the septic field of the existing house on the neighboring property. Their are multiple issues here which we are merely victums of circumstance.
Well it seems like you have two good arguments here:

1) the 1-acre tract has to use the same easement. At most it has the same rights as the 3 acre-tract, and claims from its rights.
2) the alterntive proposed, even if they had rights (which they don't) would also violate Tennesse law on septic tanks.

Now you just have to figure out how to present those arguments effectively to the judge.
 

hermes77

Member
They can ask you to grant them anything they want. By the way would you mind deeding your entire property to me, and agreeing to maintain the property and all strustures present and future at your own cost? You are not obligated to comply with my request.

As a point it is not you that must give the one acre lot ingress and egress, but the 4 (now 3) acre plot... I THINK. I also don't think that you are required to make any special agrangements to maintain it, except that putting a fence across it is probably a bad idea. Likewise piling it with refuse, or otherwise being unreasonable. Here's an example. Lets say you have a 100 acre plot of land, and I buy a 20 acre plot of that land (leaving you 80 acres) surrounded on all sides by your land. As part of the deed to the 20 acre plot there is an easment for ingress and egress. Hopefully that easment specifies a path, but if it doesn't, I believe you can specify a reasonable path. Either way, a path is established. I then break up my 20 acre plot into 1/4 acre plots. (that's 80 seperate plots) You would be under no obligation to provide seperate and distinct ingress and egress to each plot.
 

fishbo

Junior Member
Fortunately, the law will speak for itself regarding the septic field line issue. The other issue, should it ever arise in court, has issues in regards to an illeagal splitting of a parcel of land without the Planning commission approval which was proven to be a Class C mistomeanor. One of the issues the Planning commission brought to the owners attention was the fact there wasn't an easement shown on the plat addressing an ingress/egress solution. There was never a plat approved for the division of the property, only a quikclaim deed.
 

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