Easement or no easement

[user_68niou1]

I recently purchased a property in Idaho from my wife's grandmother. When we bought our property we went through a title company and they did a title search. The property has a driveway that was extended by my wife's grandfather before he died as access to the property east of ours. The driveway and continuation has no easement that was listed in the title insurance document, though the owner claims there is one in place (it is the only access to their property). I only just recently heard from him when I closed off the access. Do I have the right to close of the access road until the issue is resolved. Do I have a claim on my title insurance if there is an easement they missed? My wife's grandmother has no knowelege of any easements.

 

[FarmerJ]

Re open the access and go talk with a lawyer , If you leave access blocked you risk them going to a lawyer first and filing lawsuit . Im curious is there a house back there or just un developed land . If there is no written agreement for the easement it could be a big mess . Thats why I suggest re opening it and consulting with a lawyer .

 

[user_68niou1]

Re open the access and go talk with a lawyer , If you leave access blocked you risk them going to a lawyer first and filing lawsuit . Im curious is there a house back there or just un developed land . If there is no written agreement for the easement it could be a big mess . Thats why I suggest re opening it and consulting with a lawyer .

Do you think I have a claim on my title insurance?

 

[user_68niou1]

Re open the access and go talk with a lawyer , If you leave access blocked you risk them going to a lawyer first and filing lawsuit . Im curious is there a house back there or just un developed land . If there is no written agreement for the easement it could be a big mess . Thats why I suggest re opening it and consulting with a lawyer .

There is no house back there. The owner logged it when he bought it and is now trying to sell the property. I closed the road when people were driving up there to see it (since I was unaware of any easement I didn't want future buyers thinking there was one). Is there some kind of grandfathering in an access road?

 

[FarmerJ]

Since I dont know your states laws . what I will say is in some places long established use can be used to force a easement to be honored. So Again talk with a attorney . See I figure even if the grandfather gave verbal easement to the other land owner grandfather may not have taken into consideration that some day the land would be sold ( Guess here ) Is that grandfather figured or was told verbally the other land owner wasnt going to build and or only needed to go back there a few times a year . so your best bet Is to talk with a attorney because if you need to it would be far better negotiating a new written easement spelling out every thing from A to Z than having a vague unwritten easement that had gone on for so long that it gets forced down your throat and end up with more headache because of it not being written .

 

[user_68niou1]

Since I dont know your states laws . what I will say is in some places long established use can be used to force a easement to be honored. So Again talk with a attorney . See I figure even if the grandfather gave verbal easement to the other land owner grandfather may not have taken into consideration that some day the land would be sold ( Guess here ) Is that grandfather figured or was told verbally the other land owner wasnt going to build and or only needed to go back there a few times a year . so your best bet Is to talk with a attorney because if you need to it would be far better negotiating a new written easement spelling out every thing from A to Z than having a vague unwritten easement that had gone on for so long that it gets forced down your throat and end up with more headache because of it not being written .

We contacted the title company and they offered to do an additional search. The new search turned up an easement. Since this easment was not listed in the title insurance agreement what would our next course of action be? Is a claim on title insurance similar to auto insurance, or do we need to sue them? Would the title company be able to put our claim toward buying the property with the other half of the easement agreement (it is for sale currently)?