Shared road maintenance

My mother lived on a dirt road that the county woulf grade two or three times a year. She was the last house of 4, then someone bought the land at the end of the road and built a fancy house. They decided their house was to nice to get to on a dirt road, people might think less of them.. So they hauled gravel and spread it, packed it and did a good job. I was visiting my mother(almost 80), when the new people came over and brought her a bill for about $1,000. Saying it was a fifth of the cost. I politly walked outside with him told him that all the people there were happy with the old road and had been for 40 years and not to come back again asking an 80 year old woman who lives on SS to pay for something she didn't ask for.

I have been going over this same thing for 3 years now. We also live on a dead end privately owned road. Our road is 1/2 mile long crush and run (kinda like cement). I am the second house in 1/2 way down, but I own way past my driveway. The third driveway is on the other side of the road, about 40 foot past mine. He owns half of the road till it gets to his driveway on his side (it is at the end of his driveway). I own half the road around the curve that one SOB (end of the road) drives real fast around and causes holes. Him and three others live past me. I have gone out there and drug the road on the tractor and made it like brand new again only to have the speed demon's wife glare bad looks back my way! Now I only fix the road up to my driveway and only sometimes fix the holes on MY and the other neihbors (nice guy) part of the curve that we never set tire too, but this is still letting Evil Knevill off the hook for the damage. We are the 'new kids on the block' but I am a good neighbor, at least I try to be.
I would like to think that a percentage to what you drive on should be the correct price as to the wear on what you actually drive on should cost! First of the road small % middle of the road medium ? % end of the road largest % the rest, or how ever someone smarter than me could work it out. There is no easy answear and if you figure it out let us all know. Everyone is polite and nice, some work harder than others but we are all in about the same boat money wise. Also the other guy at the dead end (other side of Evil's driveway) has not finished his house yet because he is doing it as he can pay for the materials jardly ever uses the road. That is yet another twist in the final equaision~ I just repair it on the part we use!
Good luck and let us all know what to do from from what you have learned in 'private drive 101'. This is a case study!
OK, after re-reading my own post this is too confusing even for me and I live here! There is no easy answear!

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Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.
Ronald Reagan
We are never defeated unless we give up on God.
Ronald Reagan

One more thing to add to this is,
We(me and my wife Kelly) thought about the state mantaining our road, But everyone would have to pay for a survey and give a easment to the state. That would be the price of survey plus the loss of about 16' M/L wide + length of everyones land, no problems here but not to sure about the others!

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Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.
Ronald Reagan
We are never defeated unless we give up on God.
Ronald Reagan

Guess mama just failed in her efforts to teach me to share anything especially a road that the local goverment does not maintain.. Over my life I have looked at several parcels of land, with and with out houses, if they did not connect to a public road, maintained by the local goverment, either city county, or state walked away and never looked back..
Just more trouble than anyone in their right mind would want to deal with. Just my opinion.

I have a weird road / driveway thing

When I put my bid down for the land I got the siduation was.

The main road (only road pos.) lead to a "trail (22 to 24 inches underwater for 3 months of the year) then that lead to a legal road from the end of the land I was buying. think of it as road , river , road.
The river part started at one end of the land and contuinued to the end of my land.

Right as I was buying my land the bourgh guy tried to call his boss to let him know that he finally sold the swamp but the line was busy and I signed the check the phone rang and the happy bourgh worked inform his boss of the signed deal.
The reason why the legal road was a double ended dead end was solved. The first 50 feet of the land did not belong to the bourgh and thus they had no right to put the road in but the trail was legal. As I was in the office the bourgh was gaining title to the first 50 feet and they never thought anyone would bid on the land offered as it had been on the aution block for over 2years with no one doing much more than driving by the river and shaking their head. One family lived at the end of the trail road and they just made due with a boat and two trucks (one at each end of the river)

Once the head guys of the borough learned that the land was bought (me) They offered to maintain and improve the trail/river/road/. I agreed and the road was done right and it has never flooded. here is the weird thing the paper work show and states that it is not a road but my driveway. In order for the bourgh to maintain a double ended dead end road they are forced to maintain my land. The orginal family living on the road that can only serve them are so happy.

We (us and the neighbor) are putting up a gate to prevent people from using my driveway) Reason the road improvement has increase tresspassers and also I am lible for jerks driving on the 3/4 mile "driveway". At first the borough was against the gate as they thought that I was interfering with the one neighbor once they learned that it was a group effort we were told to create it in such a way so that they could continue to maintaining it and doing the improvements as needed. My buying the land might be a sore subject in the borough as the dream was to sub divide the 80 once the borough got the few front feet. (God must love Me) so as to increase the tax base. Instead it cost them more than our taxes for the two families to deal with the road.

Shared roads are no longer allowed in my county do to these very issues. Direct access to a public road for the property, or no house. Sudivisions of houses need public roads put in to access each lot.

Period.

--->Paul

Seems to me whoever owns the road (township, county or individual property owner) would be liable for repairs and maintenance, unless legal documents exist spelling out covenant restrictions and shared costs for each property owner along the easement (road). That said, I live in a small town right now. There’s an alley dividing the homes on my street from the homes on the street behind us. One year, the city decided homeowners should pay for the repairs. They billed each based on actual footage of road frontage each property owner possessed. The city added up the total feet of road frontage (both sides) and divided the cost by that number to determine what each property owner would be billed. Fair? Those who used the alley to get to their garages thought so. Those who didn’t use the alleys didn’t think it was fair at all. But at least we were all mad at the city and not each other. For this very reason, we will make darn sure we don’t have to share a road with anyone when we purchase our new home.

I would just petition the township to take the road over.

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This is the government the Founding Fathers warned us about.....

Columbia , Do you know why she got mad about you working on the road?

I used to live on a road that was pretty rough stone but it was passable after a while you sorta "learned" it and did ok on it.
But ever once in a while some(donky) would grade it , this had 3 consaquinces 1 it stired the rocks around (didnt make them smoother just moved em) 2 you had to learn a new driving pattern and that was pretty rough on equipment for a while . # WORST OF ALL it left sharp broken bits of grader blade strewn at random over the road. So you would go thru several sets of tires pretty quick.

We live in an unincorporated part of the county on a private paved road. You think repairing a gravel road is expensive...

Theoretically, a paved road should take less maintenance, which is probably true if it is installed correctly in the first place on a proper bedding. What a mess, huge potholes, pavement edges breaking off in big chunks etc...

Reading all these posts, it looks like there's no real resolution.
Setting up a Road Board with assessing everyone is one solution when there is no meeting of the minds, but then, how do you get everyone to pay? When I lived in a townhome complex, your property would be liened if you didn't pay your dues. I'd hate it to come to that.
The other is having the county take it over. In my area that's getting the road bed up to county standards which means a lot of money for everyone to do this. Plus, a Road Board would still have to be set up first according to the county.
I live in an area where most roads are deeded access over someone's property.
Maybe if someone waved a magic wand?? :baby04:

My situation: I live at the end of a private dead end road, 1 mile long. When I moved here 22 years ago, there were 7 homes, but 29 "lots" (four of which I own but do not plan to build on, just a buffer between homestead and the next home). The other homes are situated as a subdivision. There are now 17 homes spaced out, some owners own more than one lot. We have an informal agreement that each person pays a certain amount per lot a year, in our case, it's $50. That covers gravel/grading, and one person takes care of the paperwork for it. It's worked out fine. Sure, I have the most lots, the most cars, and I drive the most on the road, but I don't pay more than the person who lives at the head of the road (per lot). It's fair and everyone gets along this way.

Ya hit the key there ...you think its fair

I have this situation at my house in Virginia. I live on a gravel road with about 20 houses on it. My house is closest to the start of the road. At the end of the road are several people who drive gravel trucks and heavy equipment.

The road is incredibly DUSTY. I have onstreet parking and my car is always filthy with dirt. Plus if I leave my windows open, dust settles on all my furniture.

I asked about putting something on it to get the dust down. Problem is one family owns about 9 of the houses. But that's about all their wealth. So they are not interested in maintaining the road. The rest of us would like a paved road but we can't get the city to do it without the support of this family.

The good part is one of them works at a quarry so we do get gravel thrown down for free when we start complaining enough.

I would like the road paved as I am treating that house as an investment and would like the property value to get as high as it can.

We live on a small road with a total of five houses on it. When you first drive in you past the first house on the right, and they own that part of the road. There is a driveway across the road to our neighbor who's house is technically on the main road. Then you drive further down and our house sits to the left and a neighbor is to the right. That neighbor supposedly owns the road in front of their property and we have right of way. Then the last two neighbors at the end,(sort of a cuddlesac) one on the left and one on the right also have the right of way across neighbor #1 and neighbor #2. Primarily #1 and #2 own the road and they pay to have it graveled and that. No one has ever asked us to contribute because they claim its "thier" land and not county owned road.
My dad also has the same situation, in that the road in front of his house, is also part of his land. At first he was a bit disappointed before he bought it, but he liked the place alot and he considers it part of his driveway. He only has one neighbor beyond him that would drive over it anyway, and he's a good neighbor. But he is only required to maintain the part of the road that is his property.

Thanks again everyone,
Yep, it's always interesting about the person at the end of the road thinks it's fair for everyone to contribute evenly. I guess another way to look at it would be, if there were only 2 people on a 1 mile long road. You at the end and one person, 100 ft in at the beginning. Would you ask him to pay for half the maintenance? There are many things in life that are not fair, I guess this is one of them.

we have 3 properties that access off our road mine the 1st, my sisters weekend place 2nd, and a property with no driveway built from the road as he use to access his through what is now my sisters place. My BIL just had the road graded and new gravel put down. He called the absentee owner and told him what he spent and that if he wanted to use it he would have to pay or cut in his own road. The guy never called us back so we locked the gate we're just waiting until he calls...

Fair? How do you assess road fees for ANY road? Your gas taxes pay for road maint - but do you whine when you aren't using the roads? No. Everyone benefits from having the road there, fair use doesn't account for fees because there are many day in a row when I don't drive out. Do I use the road "more" than anyone else? Possibly, but that hasn't been proven - there is a guy at the beginning of the road with 4 or 5 teens, they all have cars/friends, so they probably use the first 1/4 of a mile more than I use the entire road in a day. You can't assess the fees based on "who uses the road the most" - without the road being there, nobody would be able to go in and out, therefore, the benefit is the same for each person, and the fee is too. If you want distress and anarchy on your road, just try assessing the person at the end more. I have to laugh at people who move to a gravel road and then whine about dust. Like you didn't expect that when you moved there?

Doc,
So let me understand, these teens, everyday drive down to your end of the road? Probably not. You touched on it when you said "without the road being there, nobody would be able to go in and out, therefore, the benefit is the same for each person", No, the road on past me, does not benefit me at all! Interesting thought pattern here. See the thing is, one way or another my "share" would be the same because I live halfway down the road. I not only dislike paying as much as the people at the end of the road, but I equally dislike asking the people at the beginning of the road for the same amount. You have made your point. If only you and the person at the beginning of the road were the only two that used the road, you would want from him, half of the road maintenance. I would not,
Nuff said........

I'm telling you, from two decades of experience on a shared road, if you want good neighbors, you'll assess each person an equal amount. There will come a time when you need those neighbors. Trust me. Their willingness to help you will be a direct result of how you play this "fairness" card now. Each person benefits equally from having the road there in the first place, in usage rights, in property value, and in having friendly neighbors who work together. No homes would exist without the right of way. You benefit equally.