Neighbor Won't Give Easement For a Shared Drive

[choover73]

I am in Arkansas. We are selling our home, but the neighbor who shares the same driveway as us will not sign an easement for the prospective buyer. I found out the property line splits the drive in half . Do we both have legal rights to the drive , no one more than the other? Which is fine with me. Just dont want the new owner to be hassled.

[Mr. Knowitall]

There's nothing in the title history in regard to this shared drive? How long has the shared drive existed?

[kandi6]

If the property line is down the middle, there's no question about who trods on who's land, but there is that element of reasonableness where contiguous property lines are likely to be encroached by necessity, like opening your car door inside their boundary to you can get into your car, or simply walking on their side to go around an obstacle (car, trash can, boat, pile of leaves), which nobody could say would be an unexpected expectation of the use of the space between the two houses (even though a property line goes down the middle). I don't think providing an actual easment for this use is necessary, and if one were to provide an easement, the other should as well for the same purpose. Providing an easment I think would open the door to unreasonable expectations and uses, so perhaps the best solution would be to explain the situation in objective terms and let the owners of the property come to their own understandings. It is not your duty or obligation to provide more or less property rights than what meets the eye at the time of the sale. If the new owner wants to pursue something that does not exist at this time, then that's his right.