No Road Maintenance Agreement

[Rooty1]

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

30+ year old subdivision plat addresses an assessment for Road Maintenance but a Road Maintenance Agreement was never established, filed with the county, or enforced.

Is maintenance now subjective? For example, if I plow the snow can I say I helped to maintain the road?

Can any sort of road maintenance now be forced upon land owners?

 

[FarmerJ]

unless there is something in the form of a contract or recorded in the wording of the easement that spelled out in detail as to payments and exactly what would be done to maintain it then there is not likely anyway to just impose rules / charges onto the other property (S) that might or do use it SAD to say sometimes easements are created with little to no thought of maintenance of the easement like snow removal and gravel being added if its a gravel road. If you have been doing snow plowing I don't know that you would get any formal credit for it but It may be worth it to at least track on a calendar every time you plow and what the mileage or cost of operating the tractor or the truck with a blade was just for your own records. BUT if there is no agreement and there is more than one driveway that connects to this easement don't feel bad if your plowing leaves a snow hump that the others just cant drive thru. Curious ? how many other properties have driveways that connect to this easement ?

 

[Rooty1]

No Road Mtc Agreement

unless there is something in the form of a contract or recorded in the wording of the easement that spelled out in detail as to payments and exactly what would be done to maintain it then there is not likely anyway to just impose rules / charges onto the other property (S) that might or do use it SAD to say sometimes easements are created with little to no thought of maintenance of the easement like snow removal and gravel being added if its a gravel road. If you have been doing snow plowing I don't know that you would get any formal credit for it but It may be worth it to at least track on a calendar every time you plow and what the mileage or cost of operating the tractor or the truck with a blade was just for your own records. BUT if there is no agreement and there is more than one driveway that connects to this easement don't feel bad if your plowing leaves a snow hump that the others just cant drive thru. Curious ? how many other properties have driveways that connect to this easement ?

There are about 20 property owners that must use subject road for ingress in egress.

In the absence of a legal binding Road Maintenance Agreement, can one or more owners ask an Idaho court to apportion the cost?

 

[FarmerJ]

Im curious enough to want to know how the developer got away with NOT having a well written maintenance agreement that addressed snow plowing and adding gravel as needed or say repairing it if there were to be a wash out?
You are free to try to sue them or take them to court to get them to pay even if its not you but I just don't see it going anywhere unless your city or county has written a ordinance that required such a agreement to cover at least the snow removal part in case of emergency so maybe you might want to check with them to see if they wrote such a ordinance . And I am curious as to what your local fire department or ambulance services would do if they couldn't get in or go thru a private road that is not plowed wide enough or not plowed at all?. SO if you have been plowing it for a long time Id suggest you consider first sending each home owner a letter asking them if they would like to contribute to this coming winters snow removal ( with your estimate of what it cost each time you have plowed it and set a deadline for them to reply like say July first and send each letter via confirmed mail delivery and make sure to tell them they should encourage the neighbors to help pay for road maintenance even if someone else does it instead of you ) then consider not doing it any more and use a 4 wheel drive truck to get in and out this coming winter and hope and pray its a deep one this coming winter. OR if your really going to plow it anyway then don't make it any wider than one vehicles width and Don't do a thing to open up any driveway entry ( leave them buried in ) {unless its a neighbor who is so disabled that you feel charitable due to that neighbors situation}

 

[Rooty1]

No Road Mtc Agreement

Im curious enough to want to know how the developer got away with NOT having a well written maintenance agreement that addressed snow plowing and adding gravel as needed or say repairing it if there were to be a wash out?
SO if you have been plowing it for a long time Id suggest you consider first sending each home owner a letter asking them if they would like to contribute to this coming winters snow removal ( with your estimate of what it cost each time you have plowed it and set a deadline for them to reply like say July first and send each letter via confirmed mail delivery and make sure to tell them they should encourage the neighbors to help pay for road maintenance even if someone else does it instead of you ) then consider not doing it any more and use a 4 wheel drive truck to get in and out this coming winter and hope and pray its a deep one this coming winter. OR if your really going to plow it anyway then don't make it any wider than one vehicles width and Don't do a thing to open up any driveway entry ( leave them buried in ) {unless its a neighbor who is so disabled that you feel charitable due to that neighbors situation} You are free to try to sue them or take them to court to get them to pay even if its not you but I just don't see it going anywhere unless your city or county has written a ordinance that required such a agreement to cover at least the snow removal part in case of emergency so maybe you might want to check with them to see if they wrote such a ordinance .

Thank you for your reply. Clearly, the county commissioners should not have approved the subdivision lacking a legally binding Road Mtc Agreement but they did. There are no county ordinances; my inquiry had more to do with Idaho state law. I cannot find a statute that speaks to a Court being authorized to impose anything on anyone and just want to be certain I am correct.

 

[FarmerJ]

I think you will have a very hard battle to get anywhere with this , If you had a history in the past that you could show that they paid you or someone to plow it out then maybe it would be different but with that many homes the only thing I can think of would be writing to all of them , setting a date and planning on just making sure have a vehicle that will get you in and out and let them live with the result of their choice , In the time being Id suggest you also begin to find out if your township can have the county can take over winter snow plowing and at what cost. Also consider running for office ( a seat on your town board or county board and push for ordinance that will require when there are more than two home owners, parcel owners that are use private roads as the only access have in place maintenance agreements covering snow removal and road repairs , grading. AS far as your county board goes I would think they might have some concern if Emergency personnel could not make it thru or were delayed because road conditions were so bad from lack of maintenance.

 

[Rooty1]

No road mtc. agreement

I think you will have a very hard battle to get anywhere with this , If you had a history in the past that you could show that they paid you or someone to plow it out then maybe it would be different but with that many homes the only thing I can think of would be writing to all of them , setting a date and planning on just making sure have a vehicle that will get you in and out and let them live with the result of their choice , In the time being Id suggest you also begin to find out if your township can have the county can take over winter snow plowing and at what cost. Also consider running for office ( a seat on your town board or county board and push for ordinance that will require when there are more than two home owners, parcel owners that are use private roads as the only access have in place maintenance agreements covering snow removal and road repairs , grading. AS far as your county board goes I would think they might have some concern if Emergency personnel could not make it thru or were delayed because road conditions were so bad from lack of maintenance.

Thank you for your reply. Sorry to say, the county commissioners could not care less. Setting the snow plowing issue aside, could one or more homeowner sue another homeowner/s to force any sort of road maintenance be accomplished if no Road Mtc. Agreement exists? Thank you!

 

[FarmerJ]

You are free to try to sue but with out any thing in writing even if it was as simple as some wording in each persons easement that said they were responsible for maintaining a specific stretch of the road I just don't see you wining easily and it would take a tremendous amount of research SO here is what I would suggest use search engines , I typed in Law search engines and this page came up https://duckduckgo.com/?q=law+search+engines maybe you can find past cases in your state where a judge did rule that property owners on a common easement for access had to maintain or contribute to the maintenance of a private road easement. BTW I gotta ask since the development goes back 30 yrs in the time you have lived there did any one else ever plow the road out ? (resident or hired out) ? and you didn't say if this is a gravel road, but if it is there is no way with 20 homes on that road that it could have gone all this time with out gravel being added so who has added gravel in the past ? ( here on my township road which is about a mile long there are now 17 homes and I think its been every year just here and there on the road gravel is added as needed. AND if its gravel who has been grading that private road you are on ?

 

[Rooty1]

No Mtc. Agreement

You are free to try to sue but with out any thing in writing even if it was as simple as some wording in each persons easement that said they were responsible for maintaining a specific stretch of the road I just don't see you wining easily and it would take a tremendous amount of research SO here is what I would suggest use search engines , I typed in Law search engines and this page came up https://duckduckgo.com/?q=law+search+engines maybe you can find past cases in your state where a judge did rule that property owners on a common easement for access had to maintain or contribute to the maintenance of a private road easement. BTW I gotta ask since the development goes back 30 yrs in the time you have lived there did any one else ever plow the road out ? (resident or hired out) ? and you didn't say if this is a gravel road, but if it is there is no way with 20 homes on that road that it could have gone all this time with out gravel being added so who has added gravel in the past ? ( here on my township road which is about a mile long there are now 17 homes and I think its been every year just here and there on the road gravel is added as needed. AND if its gravel who has been grading that private road you are on ?

The road is mostly bedrock now and has not had any gravel added since it was constructed. The biggest problem is the fact the phone company buried their line in the drainage ditch making which is now full of debris and impossible to clean. I've only lived on the road for 10 years and am the only person who plows the snow. I don't know who may have plowed it before me. Thanks for the law search engine link, I shall check it and others.