Landlocked After Purchase

What is the name of your state? Maryland

We purchased a 9ac property in charles county in nov/05 with the tax map as the only idea of property location.
the tax map showed that we had access to the public road via a wooded 45' wide strip of land between our neighbors property.
closing was the day before thanksgiving and we were rushed through the settlement as everybody wanted to go home. we signed papers and were only given the survey after we were done. the location drawing showed that we did not have access to the main road but were landlocked. the title compnay did get us an easement from our neighbor -whose driveway was the current access. our neighbor was told by the sellers agent that we would biuld our own road - which was our intention becuase he wants to cut the driveway off. the sellers left us 11k to build our own access road in the piece of land that the tax map showed belonged to us.

1- we would have never bought the property had we known it was land locked.
2- we think the sellers knew, (they inherited the place from ther parents and had a survey done when they died) and did not disclose that fact
3- we can not use the property as intended -we drive a tow truck and can not keep it on the property as a result of the easement
4- we have trouble finding a lawyer who will help us

we bought title insurance and filed a claim- we don't even have the policy yet. none of the agents is helping us...the sellers don't want nothing to do with us. can i file a claim with the realtors association?

we need some recourse and help. please.

by the way the properties in front us ours are all staked out and there is a 45' wide piece that we can not figure out who owns it- it looked like the piece inthe tax map that belonged to us.

If you HAVE legal access via an easement, then you are not truly "landlocked". The easment presumably allows legal and perpetual egress?

Exactly how much effort did you put into reviewing any of the title documents or surveys PRIOR to closing? Did you contact the mulicipality to determine buildability of the lot? Is any of it wetlands? Did you visit and walk the site? You make it sound as though you glanced at a tax map, made some presumptions and never followed through on any due diligence.

our neighbor is pissed because we have to use his driveway- the sellers made us believe that it was our property upfront, there used to be a road there (all the neighbors agree).
there are survey markers marking a piece of land that is not mentioned in any deed. - we received a legal description,, that is useless to us because we are not surveyors. the parcel doesn't have a plat and the survey the title comp had done was given to us before we left their office AFTER we signed the pperwork. the sellers agent insisted that the survey was wrong but nobody could be reached -thanks giving.

the sellers agent had a company come out and give her an estimate to clear said 45' road access piece to put a road in because the neighbor told everybody that the driveway will be cut off. we got 11k in escrow that we can not use.

the title comp knew that we were landlocked. they never shared that. even though they knew that we got escrow to build our own road.

ulli23 said:

the title comp knew that we were landlocked. they never shared that. even though they knew that we got escrow to build our own road.

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If a parcel has no legal access, the title commitment contains a special exception in it's coverage language. Did you READ the commitment before you closed? Did they fail to disclose the access in their commitment? Did they not share the existance of the access easment in their commitment?

The title company is responsible to accurately report the status of title in their report, not to call and review it with you after you've read it. Review of the title report is what your attorney should have done.