Neighbor Disputes | Right-Of-Ways
Written by Todd Fratzel. 
Property Right-Of-Ways
A friend of mine is going through a dispute with a neighbor about a right-of-way and I thought it was worth sharing. Many pieces of property have legal right-of-ways that grant access to pieces of property for many reasons. Furthermore, many property owners arean’t always aware of the right-of-ways and the significance of them. Most right-of-ways are commonly described as easements.
An easement is a legal term used to describe an “interest” to use a piece of land that you do not physically own. For example, your neighbor owns a piece of land directly behind your land and he does not have direct access (frontage) to the road. However, he has an easement deeded to him with his land that allows him to use a specific piece of your land for that access. The easement would contain very specific measurements and language indicating exactly where that access occurs on your property. This is very common with land locked pieces of property that have no frontage on a road.
Common Property Dispute
So my friend owns a piece of land that has no frontage to the nearest road. However, she does have a deeded right-of-way or easement across her neighbors land that grants her access from the public road to her property. Her neighbor that owns the land which the easement is located on wants to build a garage on his land within the easement. As you can imagine this creates a very big problem for my friend as far as her deeded access. This is a very common problem that arises when one property owner wants to build or alter in some way an easement that has been in existence for many years.
Luckily for my friend she was notified by the Town Zoning Board of Adjustment about a public hearing in which the neighbor was asking for a variance in order to build the garage within the towns legal property setback. Abutters are always notified about Zoning hearings in the State of New Hampshire. When she attended the meeting she was suprised to learn that no one from the town was aware of her easement and right-0f-way to her property.
She was able to show the Zoning Board her deed and ultimately prevent the neighbor from building his new garage within the easement. What I wanted to point out is how important it is to attend public hearings when you are identified as an abutter. I also want to point out how important it is to read your deed occasionally and understand what rights are attached to your neighbor or the general public with respect to your property. Had my friend not attended that meeting it’s very likely that the neighbor would have been granted a variance to build his new garage. This is not to say that she could have taken the neighbor to court and had the garage torn down, but you can imagine the cost and aggravation that would have caused.
What are your thoughts? Have you ever had a dispute with a neighbor regarding property rights?
Related posts:
Leave a comment if you think your Facebook Friends would find this article useful. Thanks in advance!
Subscribe Via RSS
Subscribe Via Email
Todd, this is an interesting subject for me. We have an easement to our neighbor’s well and well water! There is a pipe that goes under the road and terminates in our basement. We don’t use it and likely never will since we have our own well. Still, it is on our deed. I am not sure why they would do this, other than it was expensive to drill a well back in the day.
@ Paul – I’ve never heard of an easement that drastic. It’s amazing some of the things that you find in deeds. I wonder if the owner of your property sold the other property and retained his right to the well on the other property? Very interesting indeed. I’m also amazed at home little most folks know about their property and the deed. I just filed for a tax abatement because 1/3 of our property has drainage and slope easements that the town isn’t recognizing in their assesment.
Hi I have a neighbor who has a deeded right of way through my property to his landlocked property. We (and they) are great neighbors and good friends and we both have large 50+ acreages. We have recently built a new house for ourselves on our property and our contractor who has repeatedly proven himself completely irresponsible has placed our new septic tank just inches below grade and encroaching 7 feet into the 50 foot easement. My neighbor is concerned only due to repercussions that may come up if he ever has to sell the property. My contractor obviously doesn’t want to incur the expense of moving the tank and claims that the easement is criss crossed with buried power water and septic lines fom the old house anyway. Will this buried (just) tank become a legal issue if my neighbors try to sell their property?
@ Tara – I’m not a lawyer but I think this is a fairly big deal. Wires, pipes, misc utilities are not that big of a deal, however, an actual structure like a septic tank is another issue. Now is the time to force him to fix the situation. Now if he was not aware of the right-of-way then it may be difficult to force him to move it. In my state of NH septic systems are built according to plans and they are checked by a state inspector. The plans must be accurate and everything must be built according to the plan. It’s also possible that your septic tank is not rated for vehicle traffic which would pose a problem with the right-of-way. Call an attorney or just tell him to move it. Best of luck!
My mother bought a house for me six years ago. A 30 foot easement which is a path has been used all this time. Recently a neighbor who’s land adjoins ours said I could not use this road anymore because it goes over about 10 feet of her land when I make a turn off the easement. My house address uses the path’s name. Can she legally deny me access to my house using this egress?
@ Elaine – First let me say I’m not a Lawyer and questions like this are best presented to an attorney. However, if you have a true easement across your neighbors land then you absolutely have the right to use it. I would start by reading your deed and finding out what language is in it about the right of way. It’s very likely that you’ll need to get a surveyor involved and I would actually start there. If you don’t know exactly where your property pins are then you need to have them established to accurately figure this out. Best of luck!
Hello, my question is about my shared driveway. I own the drive way
and i get along with the nieghbor who has a right of way to his garage, however often he has my drive way blocked by his vehicles,
repair companys, fuel trucks, visitors, etc etc. and i have to wait
to get out of my drive way. If i park long enough to bring my groceries into the house and they want to get into thier garage and
cant imediately they get extremly mad. I would like to know if i
have any rights as i am the owner of the drive way. thank you in
advance. Dennis Kelley
Dennis – First off let me say I’m not an Attorney so I can only give you my experience from serving on a planning board. From the little I know there’s little that can be done other than to try and work it out, deal with the police or figure out a new arrangement that would make it easier for both of you to access your land. Having a right of way gives them pretty much the same rights as you.
Todd my mom is buying a house and the garage is shared by two separate owners, my mom and the neighbor, at one point this entire property was owned by one person. So now that it’s split the neighbor shares a piece of the garage. Now my moms neighbor wants to knock down his part, my mom doesn’t have the money at this time to knock her part down. My question is can the neighbor do that?
Veronica – Sounds like a classic struggle between neighbors that share property. The answer to this probably is written out in the Deed. The deed should spell out issues about maintenance, use, ownership, etc for that garage. It’s quite likely that both parties would have to agree on tearing it down unless the garage is in such dis-repair that it is considered a health and safety risk. Unfortunately I’m not a lawyer and issues like this are best handled with legal counsel. Good luck.