Ingress/Egress

[bellealex]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Oklahoma

We and our neighbors have had access to our properties for many years via an easement owned by a third party. Three years ago the neighbors decided to have the access road paved and requested that we pay half which we did. We continue to split the costs of maintenance.

If we decided to sell a portion of our property that could only be accessed via this now paved easement road would the buyers be responsible for any costs associated with the original paving or only future upkeep?

Also, could access ever be denied to our properties by the owner of the easement?

 

[HuAi]

An easement agreement consists of a servient tenant (the land owner) and one or more dominant tenants (parties allowed to use the easement to their benefit)

When you say "easement owner" are you refering to the servient or dominant tenant?

I presume you're referring to the servient tenant. That means that you and your neighbor are the dominant tenants. If you parcell off a piece of your property and sell it, the buyer will not automatically be added to the easement, since adding a third dominant tenant to it would burden it beyond its original intention.

 

[HomeGuru]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Oklahoma

We and our neighbors have had access to our properties for many years via an easement owned by a third party. Three years ago the neighbors decided to have the access road paved and requested that we pay half which we did. We continue to split the costs of maintenance.

If we decided to sell a portion of our property that could only be accessed via this now paved easement road would the buyers be responsible for any costs associated with the original paving or only future upkeep?

Also, could access ever be denied to our properties by the owner of the easement?

**A: the answers should be contained in the recorded easement agreement.

 

[arnie582]

I hope you don't mind my piggybacking my related issue onto this one.

HuAi states in his reply "If you parcell off a piece of your property and sell it, the buyer will not automatically be added to the easement, since adding a third dominant tenant to it would burden it beyond its original intention." And HomeGuru replies "the answers should be contained in the recorded easement agreement."

This brings me to my own situation, which is somewhat similar, and which is part of a different thread I posted (I'm Arnie582).

I'm seeking to subdivide / do a minor land partition of my property. I'm the dominant tenant. The subdivided property would have one single family home on it, if approved for sub-division (so, then the easement road would service two single family homes). The only access for this home would be the existing easement. The title / deed documents legal description / summary indicate that the easement is "a perpetual easement to be used for road purposes for the benefit of others". Somewhere along the line of changes in ownership, the current servient tenant changed the language from "road purposes" to "for ingress and egress" (I'm not sure if that makes a difference - does it?). I searched further to get a hint about what was meant by "others" to determine the original intention of the easement. The original sale by the original grantor indicated that the easement was for "... road purposes ... for heirs, assigns, and grantees".

It seems, based upon other threads I've read, that I would stand a reasonable chance of getting an easement approved by the Court if that's the only access available for the second / new tenant. Also, the term "others" connotes more that one party, doesn't it? Also, I've taken note of responses to my original thread, that the servient tenant would likely prevail because the easement would be "overburdened". Just how specific does the language of the easement need to be to allow the servient tenant to assert the "overburdening" stand?

Thanks in advance for your input.