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Reverse ingress/egress easement on Flag lot

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NorCalGray

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

We bought a flag lot that backs to a creek. Our neighbor who owns the parcel that borders the street bought the parcel as a subdivison of our previous owner in 1973. We own the driveway from the street to our property and our neighbor has Ingress/Egress easement of about 205' X 26'. Along the 205', they built their entry to the garages and they use it as they please. At the end of the 205' that is the corner to our rest of the property they have a openable ugly fence that they have never used in the past 5 yrs they have built the house and lived.

We want to put a gate past their garage and where their nice looking fence ends and want to give them full access to our gate in case they ever need to use the openable fence at the end of the driveway.

Initially when we met them for the first time, they said they had no problem. Later on, they came up with some lame excuses why they don't want us to build the gate right past their garage gate and that we should put our gate after their ugly openable fence.

The deed generally says ingress/egress easement (We are the grantor and they are the grantee). Can I build that entry gate right past the point where they use the driveway 99.999% of the time, or do I have to set my gate all the way past the 205' driveway?
 


FarmerJ

Senior Member
Did this easement also spell out the number of feet of your driveway they get to use ? did it include a formula for maint cost based on x number of feet divided by two ? was there any wording in the easement that limited them to just one access. Its possible that they could make a claim that you were blocking access if you installed a gate where you want near the first access. You should use the links above to have a Attorney re check this easements language to make sure nothing is missed then give you a opinion this way you have the best possible advice.
 

154NH773

Senior Member
You may not install a gate that restricts their access to any part of the deeded easement, regardless of their current usage.
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
Did the original grantor of the easement keep it super simple meaning they did not address maintenance or spell out a set number of feet in that home could use ?
If they did not then the only thing that you might be able to do is research your city /county ords and first learn if that home in the front could easily pull permits ( if needed) to make a new driveway that could connect them to the public road out front or not. ( if there is no regulatory reason that front property could not make their own driveway ) Then you want to know if your county has any conditions that trigger a new driveway to be built, you may want to find out if your county still allows access via easement and how wide it must be and if there was any time lines set where properties with narrower than allowed easements were given x amount of time to be in compliance with a newer ordinance or not. EG your county said that easement access must be 30 ft wide as of x date and had so called exemption for property that was totally landlocked then it would be reasonable to expect the front home to make its own driveway if there was nothing other than the cost baring them from having own access to the public road. ( yeah I know it was long)
 

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