Non-exclusive Ingress/Egress Easement

[Ozark_Sophist]

What is the name of your state? Missouri

Our property access is a +-700' non-exclusive ingress/egress easement. The easement crosses the east 30' of two properties. There is no maintenance easement.

This past spring, there were times I had to call for a ride, roll up my pants, and carry my shoes, socks and laptop out because the road is in such poor, washed out condition. Felt like waiting for the school bus again

Is there a minimum amount of maintenance the owners should provide on the easement? They both utilize as a driveway but have high clearance vehicles.

I added five loads of rock/chat/clay fill on an 80' section on the second property, but unless changes are made, it will wash out. Area adjacant to drive is a couple feet deep of clay that just absorbs water. Previous neighbor parked car in front of his house when we had a hard freeze. Thawed out one day and car sank. His wife ended up breaking tie rods trying to drive car out. Teenage relative of neighbor with a 4wd truck with 35" tires drove around biggest hole ("Agh, you're just making it bigger!") and promptly got stuck. I laughed .

 

[lwpat]

My only suggestion is that all the users get together and agree on how to pay for maintenance. If the others won't pay, you either have to do it yourself or live with it.

 

[Dave Stevens]

In California (my state), the owner of the property that others have an easement are required to maintain easements and easement owners (you) are required to pay a proportion of the cost of maintenance. Of course like many legal things this could have wide variation of interpretation. But it seems to me that you have a case that the easement road needs some repair, but don't expect to get off scott free. In my own experience (I own property that others have easements on), I have made repairs to an asphalted road that others have an easement on and I sent them all a bill that was divided equally among each resident. The road is relatively short so I reasoned in my mind that everybody uses and benefits from the road pretty equally and nobody had ever paid for any maintenance up to that point and the amount was pretty small. Everybody (except one jerk) paid without any objection. The jerk is still liable and I will sue him in small claims if he doesnt pay soon. However, it sounds in your case that you have a dirt/non-paved road and that you live at the end of a long easement but that the other users of the driveway dont drive as far as you? If that is the case, you will probably be responsible for 1/3 of the portion you share with the others plus 100% of the portion that you use exclusively. Sounds reasonable. It also sounds reasonable that the road shoule be in a condition to accommodate your type of car (it would be unreasonable for the prop owner to suggest you get another high-clearance vehicle, for example) and a judge would probably agree with that. If you live in a rural area it would seem unlikely that you would be able to require the prop owner to fix a natural phenomenon, like occassional drainage, clay mud sinkage stuff, unless it causes a frequent problem.

 

[bcountry_99]

Missouri Non-exclusive Ingress/Egress Easement

I bought our home 7 years ago and we have a non exclusive ingress/egress easement to get to and from our property. It is a 50ft. wide by 900ft long. Nine months ago an individual bought the property that has the easement on it. They bought it to develope it into 84 home lots. They have been blocking our easement with debris and construction materials ever since(our road has been completely blocked for 48 days now). Now they are building a guard shack on the easement with 24hr cameras. Is this legal without first getting permission from the original 8 homes who have the easement. This person when asked what they were building said that it was private property and they could put a white elephant in the road for me to drive around. Then he proceeded to tell me to mind my own business. I have tried to get a local attorney, but I live in a small community and they are all buddies. If I have a case I do want to persue litigation, but on he other hand if I'm barking up the wrong tree I would like to know before I spend alot of money on and attorney.