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  1. #1

    Default Responsibility for Maintaining a Shared Garage That Straddles the Property Line

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

    My neighbor and I share a large old coach house/garage that straddles our property line. The garage sits about 2/3 on his property and 1/3 on ours. The garage has three bays and a large loft space. We use the bay that sits on our property and can access our loft space by way of a trap door. He uses to the two bays on his property and accesses the loft by a stairway. It's time to paint the building but our neighbor insists that we are responsible for half of the cost. We believe we should only pay for one third of it since we own and use only a third, but I can't find any documentation of our responsibilities in our title papers. There is mention of a "party wall agreement" drawn up in 1945 and I'm going to try to get a copy of it from our town recorder's office but I've no idea if that refers to maintenance or not. I don't particularly trust our neighbor's memory or knowledge regarding the situation since he approached us as soon as we bought the house and tried to get us to clean out years of junk that he had amassed in the loft space. He rents the house out so he isn't actually our "neighbor" so much as the landlord next door. He pretty much only rings our doorbell when he wants something from us. To complicate things, we have an easement to share the driveway to the garage. We pay 50% of the maintenance and repairs to the driveway which I understand since we use the full length of it (it sits almost completely on his property). The garage however, seems like a separate issue but I think he may not see it that way. Any experience with this particular situation?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
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    Default Re: Responsibility for Maintaining a Shared Garage That Straddles the Property Line

    Unless there is such an agreement as you are looking for I would make it this simple for him:


    you paint what is on your property and we'll paint what's on our property.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Responsibility for Maintaining a Shared Garage That Straddles the Property Line

    Thanks. That's essentially our stance. However we don't have a meeting of the minds., He wants us to foot half the bill and we don't believe we should have to. However! I just was looking at our plat map and realized for the first time that the easement actually runs right through the middle of the garage, which one could argue means we should have been given access to one of his parking bays these last eight years - which we were not. All the more reason to not want to pay for more than one third, but possibly legal ground for making us do so!

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Responsibility for Maintaining a Shared Garage That Straddles the Property Line

    actually the easement wouldn't change anything for you, at least from what I can see. It is listed as an ingress/egress easement. If that is true that is all you can use it for; ingress and egress. You cannot park on such an easement and that is what you would be doing in the garage if you were on the easement.

    For purposes of the garage the easement is more or less meaningless other than you can use the easement to access your portion of the garage and he has no right to block your use of the easement for those purposes.

    so in the end, you still have only your 1/3 of the garage you can use.

  5. #5
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    Nov 2013
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    672

    Default Re: Responsibility for Maintaining a Shared Garage That Straddles the Property Line

    If I'm reading this right, the total width of the garage is 30.3'. 12.4' of that is on your property. That's a bit over 40%. Maybe you should offer to pay that?

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Responsibility for Maintaining a Shared Garage That Straddles the Property Line

    Quote Quoting Margaret Nissen
    View Post
    There is mention of a "party wall agreement" drawn up in 1945 and I'm going to try to get a copy of it from our town recorder's office but I've no idea if that refers to maintenance or not.
    The party wall agreement will most likely only address your responsibilities for the maintenance and repair and replacement of the wall itself with stipulations that you keep your portion of the building in good repair and do not do anything to devalue the building as a whole. But there could also be other agreements and easements added if the wall location does not coincide with the property line .

  7. #7

    Default Re: Responsibility for Maintaining a Shared Garage That Straddles the Property Line

    Thanks for all of your replies. I was mostly joking about the easement allowing us use of the middle bay of the garage and understand that the easement is there for ingress and egress. It was amusing though to see that it extends beyond the driveway and through the actual building. I'm going to request the 1945 Party Wall Agreement today on the off chance that it lays out a more detailed agreement. It's interesting, Catmad, to see that the actual measurements would put us closer to 40% than 33% of ownership but seeing as we can only make practical use of one third of the garage it still seems as if we should only be responsible for the maintenance of that amount. It would be easier to reconciles ourselves to paying more if the guy wasn't such a consistent PITA. He can't even ring a doorbell normally but has to jab at it repeatedly, as if his business is so much more urgent than any peace we might have in our home. I guess we need to ask him why he's so convinced that we are liable for 50% of the property. I have a feeling he's confusing it with the driveway easement.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
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    988

    Default Re: Responsibility for Maintaining a Shared Garage That Straddles the Property Line

    Not entirely clear ..but seems to me that neighbor and his tenants need to keep the easement free of clutter and stuff for its entire width so that you have unrestricted access to same ..not to park but to access , load, unload , whatever from your vehicle to your side ??

  9. #9
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    Default Re: Responsibility for Maintaining a Shared Garage That Straddles the Property Line

    Why can't you use your nearly 40%. If that is the share on your property, barring an agreement otherwise, that is what you have a right to use. Should you choose not to use it and allow the neighbor to use it, barring an agreement otherwise, you would still be responsible for maintaining 40% of the building.

  10. #10
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    Jun 2015
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    Default Re: Responsibility for Maintaining a Shared Garage That Straddles the Property Line

    I can see a bit of an equitable point that if you own 33-40% plus have an easement as to 10.3 ' down the middle and one treats you as having a shared responsibility to maintain the easement that 50 /50 is a reasonable approach however it also makes sense that the entire length and width and height of the easement be kept clear for your use to go in or out ...and failure to exercise your rights to go in and out could lead to problems downstream .........

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