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Right of way for ingress and egress

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Rossmeister

Junior Member
What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? MI

We have A Right of way for ingress and egress over the east 50 feet of our property. We have lived here for 13 years the last 4 with the same person in our back yard. The first year we were here I planted a hedge along side of 100 foot of the driveway blocking between the house and the drive. So it has been there for 12 years. Last weekend he tore out some flowers I had on the other side of the driveway, there was a bag a bug in the center of these flowers. (he tore that apart and threw it in my hedge. when I asked what he did with them he went nuts and told me he chopped them up and dug the out and threw them in the weeds and that he was sueing me because I planted my hedge after he moved in and it was making his driveway a mudded mess. then he informed me that he has a 30ft easement and that my hedge was on his easement. Today he tore up another bag a bug and a hill covered with lillies. I believe his driveway is his right of way. I now feel that he is harrassing me and I fear my hedge is the next thing he is going to destroy.

My question is, what right does he have to my property? and do I have the right to put up no trespassing signs on both sides of the driveway?

Thank you for your help,
 


kfowler57

Member
I'm not sure how much I can help but I went through something similar. Let me just verify some things so maybe someone else can help you better. I'm from MO so things may be different here.

First, he has a 50 foot wide ingress/egess easement? Usually a driveway is only 10 feet wide (or 20), and naturally you can't plant or place anything there that would block their ingress/egress. Does the easement deed specify anything else, like maintenance, to be done by the neighbor? Is there an area specified for drainage? If your flowers were actually inside the easement, you may have a problem, even though it didn't block him. As for the hedge, do you have any old photos showing it around 10 years ago? Is it inside the easement area? Take lots of pictures. Hopefully he's only bluffing to sue, but a crazy neighbor can sure make you miserable (believe me I know!! My insane former neighbor was under the impression he actually owned my driveway instead of just an easement on my property so he caused me years of misery before he finally moved away. Maybe your neighbor is unclear on the concept also, in which a letter from a lawyer may help. If necessary, somebody may have to have the easement surveyed and permanently marked.

Good luck.
 

Rossmeister

Junior Member
That is what the description reads on the original deed we got from the title office. It doesn't say any thing else I wrote what the description says.
We have A Right of way for ingress and egress over the east 50 feet of subject property. Nothing saying who is supposed to maintain it or anything. I don't know if I have old pictures or not. He claims to have them though showing that they were not there. Although I don't know where he could have gotten them. I didn't think the hedge was in the easement and like I said it has never been a problem. The person before could get her Semi in and out just fine with no problems. He is indeed trying to sell and I guess his realtor told him that he has a 30 foot easement. We have been trying to find our survey stake in the front where the problem seems to be. The survey stakes are from when we bought the place and they put in the permanent stakes. We found it in the back by his property line but the land is on an angle so we can't measure the 30 or 50 feet from there. These are again flowers that have been there before he was and if he wanted me to move them all he had to do was ask. My husband is planning on getting a metal detector to find the stake in the front. ( If it hasn't been removed) We were looking last night and found pieces of the bag a bug stakes in the area where the survey stake should have been located. I think he has been looking for it also. Originally he asked if he could clean up the other side of the driveway and keep it mowed and we agreed he could. He has managed also to kill 3 trees by either hitting them with his lawn mower or weed eater all the way around the base of the tree and there are 3 more that are not doing well. There are others that he has marked up too but so far hasn't managed to gouge the bark bad enough to kill the yet. I just don't understand why he should be able to dictate our property or why he would need that big of an easement considering, like you said the driveway is only 10-15 feet wide. What we were told when we bought it is that the existing driveway was the easement but the deed reads differently then what we were told.

I'm starting to worry about what else he is going to pull. In my opinion even though they are just flowers it is still destruction of property. We have a pool and other items in our back yard and there is nothing preventing him from damaging any of them.
 

shades@midnite

Junior Member
You're probably not going to like what I'm going to say but you really are going to need a lawyer. Your easement document sounds vague and needs to be interpreted by an expert. However, he's not to tamper with anything out of the easement boundries. If you can't find those markers, you'll have to have it surveyed. If he's trying to sell, he won't sue you because then he'll have to settle the lawsuit before he can close and that is to your advantage (that's how I lucked out and got my easement returned).

Is the other side of the driveway where he mows in the easement? As I understand it, the person who owns the "easement" is obligated to maintain it, after all, you pay the taxes on it. But if he's mowing your property outside of the easement, you need to have him stop right away, or he could be working on an adverse possesion case. Good luck and get a lawyer to at least write him a letter.
 

Rossmeister

Junior Member
Yes it is in the easement and that is why we wanted to put up no trespassing signs to keep him from mowing it. Everything he has done so far has been before we get home. He has Friday's off and that is when he mows it. I have spoken to a lawyer and he doesn't think my neighbor has a case. It's hard to take the fact that we are paying for something we have no right to use. That just doesn't make sense to me. I am ready to move but my husband says he won't let him run us out. I can't understand how he could be here in our home one week and threatening us and doing these things when he has never even mentioned a problem with them. He even planted allot of the lillies on the dirt mound. I added to them and was planning on putting the Irises there too.
He isn't complaining about the hedge across the middle of our back yard making it look as though his property is allot bigger than it is. It gives him all the privacy from us but we have to deal with him going by our windows.
I found a picture from 2000 with this hedge on it. It was allot smaller but it was still there. It has grown in the last 5 years.
 

kfowler57

Member
It's good you've talked to a lawyer, now you've got someone if the neighbor does do something crazy but I agree with shades, he's probably trying to bluff you. You may have to do more than just post no tresspassing signs, they can be pulled down. Here in MO, you can spray paint trees purple and it means the same thing. See if you can do that in your state, but you should probably have the lawyer send him a letter stating your desire for him to leave your property alone. That doesn't cost too much and it will be a good preparation if you do have to go to court. At the very least, send him a registered letter yourself.
 

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