easement agreement (unjacked version)

Hello,
I am in Illinois and have a question about a driveway easement dispute. We purchased our home in 2000. It was originally a 2.5 acre tract of land. The owner split it into 2 separate lots, her's being 1 and 3/4 which is taken up by her home and a water retention pond that she put in. Our's being 1 3/4 acre which consists of a home and open land surrounding it. Because of the way the property needed to be split for zoning purposes the neighbor needed easment at one end of our property for a driveway. During closing our lawyer did not like the way the agreement was drawn up and requested it be redone. Her lawyer agreed that we needed to finish the closing and could complete the easement agreement at a later date. the driveway was already put in and we really have no problem with that and do not want to have any dispute with her over it being there. The problem comes in after closing. It turns out she is elderly and not fully in charge of her mental capacities. She sent us a certified letter a week after moving into our new home informing us we needed to remove our gutters or she was coming over to do it for us because the gutters were allowing water to run down the hill into "our" grove of pine trees and that is why one of the pine trees died. When we refused to live in a brand new home with no gutters she took it upon herself to hire a tree cutting company to come out and remove the grove of pine trees. I was luckily at home and caught them right before they started chopping ! We then had a problem with cutting our lawn along the edge of the driveway she called the police on us stating we were destroying the day lillies she planted there and that 10 ft on each side of the driveway along with the land she used for the actual driveway belongs to her (mind you this piece of property runs right through our yard) so we are not to be mowing it. After showing the officer our paperwork and land platt and visiting the county board just to make sure we are correct we now know she does not own any of our property she just has the right of egress.. My question is after this long drawn out story is can we legally get into any trouble because now 4 years later our real estate lawyer who handled the closing is sending us a copy of the drawn up easement agreement because she is screaming at her lawyer because it is not complete. Do we legally have to sign this document ? We really do not want to give this woman an inch and are more that happy to let her leave her driveway but do not want to sign any legal documents because she tends to believe that it gives he ownership of the land the driveway runs on and 10 feet to each side of it. We would appreciate any advice you could give us.
The original agreement was not signed at closing because the original land plat only showed the actual driveway with no easement on either side and for some reason they want a 10 ft easement on each side of the driveway which does show on a revised version done 3 months after we moved into the house.

And where is YOUR attorney in this matter?

No matter how large the easement is, whether it be 10 feet or 10,000 feet, an easement is for ingress/egress ONLY. An easement does NOT convery ownership.

Send the agreement to your attorney or, if you don't have one, back to the original attorney specifying that you will signe the agreement WHEN it is thoroughly explained to his/her client that ownership is not conveyed and the easement correctly reflects the intentions at closing, the driveway ONLY, NOT any additional 10 feet.

Unfortunately we do not care for the lawyer we used for the closing at all(strictly a personal opinion.. i'm sure he's a very good lawyer for someone else) and are in the process of making an appt with a new lawyer recommended by friends. After going over the paperwork from the closing we did find a piece of paper stating we would cooperate in preparing and signing an easement agreement for her driveway so even though it is not notarized I don't believe we can get away with not signing an agreement but we do want the agreement to state just the piece of property that the existing driveway is on and nothing over that amount because the way the agreement reads now is ten feet from the center line and the driveway is only 10 ft wide so that gives the 10 feet that the driveway is on and five feet easement on each side if that makes any sense to you without looking at a picture of it. We understand that it is not us GIVING her the land but she is 80 and as mean as a snake and she is the kind of person that thinks f-you f-you instead of hearing what you are trying to say to her...you can tell by the blank look she gives you when you try to talk to her, and she believes once we sign that paper the land is hers...so let her have the 10 feet her driveway is paved on and dance naked on it ,if she wants to believe it's hers but i do not want her to think 1 inch over that blacktop is hers because then she trys to interfere with us doing upkeep of the property. We have the right to allow her the driveway without and land on each side right since it is already an existing driveway?

tammycon said:

Unfortunately we do not care for the lawyer we used for the closing at all(strictly a personal opinion.. i'm sure he's a very good lawyer for someone else) and are in the process of making an appt with a new lawyer recommended by friends. After going over the paperwork from the closing we did find a piece of paper stating we would cooperate in preparing and signing an easement agreement for her driveway so even though it is not notarized I don't believe we can get away with not signing an agreement but we do want the agreement to state just the piece of property that the existing driveway is on and nothing over that amount because the way the agreement reads now is ten feet from the center line and the driveway is only 10 ft wide so that gives the 10 feet that the driveway is on and five feet easement on each side if that makes any sense to you without looking at a picture of it. We understand that it is not us GIVING her the land but she is 80 and as mean as a snake and she is the kind of person that thinks f-you f-you instead of hearing what you are trying to say to her...you can tell by the blank look she gives you when you try to talk to her, and she believes once we sign that paper the land is hers...so let her have the 10 feet her driveway is paved on and dance naked on it ,if she wants to believe it's hers but i do not want her to think 1 inch over that blacktop is hers because then she trys to interfere with us doing upkeep of the property. We have the right to allow her the driveway without and land on each side right since it is already an existing driveway?

Click to expand...

**A: Hello, hire another lawyer.

Hello.....I already said we were.....

Here's what you do. Have a surveyor come and mark off your property. Then erect a large fense around it and affix a "keep out" sign on it. Then put a gate in front of the driveway with a "no tresspassing" sign on it. Don't let her use it at all, since you haven't actually signed any easement agreement. Then refuse to sign the agreement, and fight that out in court. If she steps on your property have her arrested.

tammycon said:

Hello.....I already said we were.....

Click to expand...

**A: OK, goodbye.