We live on a shared driveway with an ingress/egress easement for the part of the road that crosses the property of a neighbor (house 4 for reference.)

There are three houses in front of him and we are one of two behind him. Plowing was always split 6 ways. This year - and we agree with this - the plowing bill will be split pro rata for distance so the two houses in the back are being told we owe 2/3rds (1/3rd each) of the total plow bill. However, that plow bill includes the personal driveway of House 4 - a not insignificant loop in front of his house.

We are trying to get the personal driveway separated out of the plow bill before the split is calculated. House 4 says he won't do that because "that has always been included".

The problem is that the other 3 houses keep saying that the guy whose property is crossed "owns the road" and can charge whatever he wants. In fact, they argue he is doing us a favor by organizing the plowing - something we are perfectly willing to do.

The bottom line is do we have any right to insist legally on fair treatment in this regard or does house 4 have the power to do what he wants because the road is on his land? In fact, his driveway is at the front of his property so there is a considerable section after his driveway that only houses 5 and 6 use.

We have been told that house 4 is a nice guy because he could be charging us a lanscaping fee for mowing along the road - a part of his land that any reasonble person would consider his lawn. Is that a valid threat?

Lastly, the road is not maintained well. We and house 6 have patched it ourselves on several occasions at our own expense due to serious potholes. Do we have a right to demand a well-maintained road within reason? We are willing to split costs based on distance but houses 1-3 use the paved portion so they don't care about the dirt portion.