Terminating a Easement

[pg1067]

i talked to a real estate attorney. He does not do litigation just deeds etc. He told me in America you can do whatever you want to do.

That's the point where you should have walked out of his office or hung up the phone.

what if I don't do anymore repairs on the road and it become impassable?

We have no way of predicting the future in this regard.

Can the others repair the road so they can use it if I say no?

We have no way of knowing what abilities are possessed by persons unknown to us.

Find yourself an attorney who isn't an idiot and try again.

[727]

I spoke with the owner of the property. He said he is not giving up the easement. He will take it to court if need be. He says it is easier for them traveling through mine than his and he doesn't want to spend the money fixing his road. I told him they are destroying the road through mine and I am not going to fix it and within the next couple of years a vehicle will not be able to drive it. He said he would pay for the materials if I would fix it. I told him no I will not fix it. He said that the lane is 20 ft. and it is too narrow for heavy equipment to operate in. I told him it would seem more logical for him to spend the money fixing the road on his place rather than mine and I left it at that. So we shall see.

[727]

They have started getting a road built from their new property which is accessed through a county maintained road though they are still traveling through mine. One of their relatives came through mine instead of the brothers because they said the new road was too dusty. They got some balls and are starting to piss me off. I went to the courthouse and looked at my property deeds back to the 1930's and found not written easements.

[budwad]

Ok, so there is no express grant of the easement in the deeds. Did you check the map room at the registrar's office to see if an easement was platted when the land was subdivided?

And there are other legal doctrines to establish an easement without there ever being an express grant (by necessity, by prescription, by adverse possession, and in some states by statute).

The first question is if an easement was established. That might have to be decided by a court. The next question (and depending on how the easement was established) will the easement be extinguished now that the property is no longer landlocked through a doctrine of merger of the two properties being owned by the same person.

You should be talking to a land use attorney about the above questions. Being pissed off doesn't help you at all.

[727]

I have talked to another land use attorney and also to the County Judge. The attorney told me that if there is no written or recorded easement and his property is no longer landlocked to start making it hard for him to drive through mine. Do not fix the road. Add more gates that they will have to open etc. Do not lock them out but make it where it will be easier to travel through their own road. Then a couple of days ago I talked to the County Judge to see if he had ever dealt with this type of situation. I explained the details to him and he said about the same thing as the last attorney said. Make it easier for him to travel his own road as opposed to mine. The after a certain length of time lock the gates where he can't go through mine and see what happens. He said if it would go to court there is no telling how it would go. He said that it might depend on how the judge is feeling that day on who he would side with. He said if I lock the gates and the person sues then unlock it. Make him spend the money and time and he may finally give up. He told me that he does not handle those type of cases. They go before the district judge. He told me the only difference between God and a district judge was that God did not claim to be a district judge.

[727]

I have installed 2 more gates so that makes 4 gates they would have to open to get to their property. So now it has been over 2 months since they have traveled through mine. Probably within a month I will change the lock codes on the gates and we shall see how that goes.