Easements and Responsibility

[RyanD]

My question involves real estate located in the State of: California

Sorry this is a bit long, it's kind of a tricky situation. My question involves, easements, prescriptive rights, and responsibility of maintenance and repair. The parcel I am in process of buying (in escrow), comes with the first 150' (of several hundred feet total, after my portion) of a dead end private street that branches of public municipal street. The private street contains 9 total homes that must use this private street as ingress and egress. 4 large newer homes at the end and 5 older original home, circa 1960's and 50's. There have never been any written agreements and never any problems so far because the paving of the street occurred about 10 years ago, when newer home were built. There are only a few easements on record with 3 neighbors and the water district utility. I am guessing the other have prescriptive rights to the easement. So, who is ultimately responsible for maint/repair? Me? All? Or some? We all would contribute to the degradation of the road and should all be responsible, I feel personally. I did find a Cal Civil Code 845 sec C that explains in the absence of an agreement, all who use easement are responsible for maint/repair. Is this correct? What should I say or ask the neighbors? I don't want to be the new guy and be a pain in the butt right off the bat. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. I am new to all of this and have done some research and talked to some knowledgeable people. Thank you in advance!

[Mr. Knowitall]

If you don't want to act unilaterally at the risk of both offending your neighbors and bearing the cost yourself, you are going to need to speak with your neighbors about the issue. As you can see from the statute you found, you can litigate against your neighbors before, during or after repairs, but that's not likely to make you any friends and in the absence of an agreement they may succeed in arguing that the repairs were premature, unnecessary, or unduly costly.