Shared road maintenance
 

My question is about maintenance of a shared road. In my question I will throw out all of the usual deviations such as, one owner drives more vehicles on the road, or they drive faster and such. Let’s imagine the road is a half-mile long, flat dead end road. The road has 20 homes equally spaced along the length of the road. The road needs $2000 worth of gravel and grading work. Now, do you ask the person who lives 100 ft down the road to contribute the same amount as the person who lives at the end of the road? I will leave out my opinion and where I live on the road for now. I am hoping someone has some written guidelines or knows where I could find some more information on this matter.
Thank you!

I've got the same situation except there's
only three property owners involved ..
I'm the only one that doesn't live there permanently ..
Works great ..
I pay all the bills and they do all the damage :dance: :dance:
Well almost :p

Had the problem with the prior neighbor that lived at the end of the road ..
The place had gotten very rutted up and every time i was there I'd have
some gravel put in and graded out ..
Neighbor never had any money ..
So, I finally stopped fixing the road ..
They finally moved ..

New neighbor and I then split the fix up costs 50-50 ..
It's been great ever since .. :p :hobbyhors :p

Triff ..

Not single fair way to go here.
Who decided that it needs $2000 bucks worth of work? why not let him pay for it?
Who owns the road? In what way?
You could let the guy at the end pay for the whole thing......... that extreame doesnt seem quite right does it?
Or you could figgger that if each person built the part in front of thier place it would be fair to all.
But what if the guy at the end was there first and he wanted the road really bad so that he could get in and it would keep the neighbors out? Why should he pay to destroy what he likes?
What if the first guy on the road built there cause he knew he could handle the short distance on a bad road? why should he now pay to help corect what he sees as a bad choice on the other peoples part?
Maybe the First guy on the road wants it real bad so that it keeps the amounts and speed of traffic down.Why should he pay to make his life worse?
In the end the only fair way is for everyone to contribute what they want.

When they decided to pave one part of our road, everyone living on it was asked to contribute evenly.

I've wondered about this also. When we bought, there were 10 parcels on the road but only 3 houses...the other parcels have been bought but mostly by people from out of state. Each parcel owns up to the center of the road. I live at the dead end of the road. The trash truck, for the neighbor across the road, likes to turn around in my driveway and has really tore it up. The lady that owns the house closest to the main street, bought the property on the other side of me, where the road ends. She decided to build houses there. They extended the road and now the run off from the road has caused a HUGE rut at the end of my drive way and the heavy trucks from the construction has ruined the road....yet no one wants to claim responsability for ruining my drive or the road in front of my house....and I hate having to fork out the money to have it repaired..the road and driveway are only 1 yr old. We're trying to save up to fix our portion of the road, but the rest of the road looks real bad (from the heavy trucks) and I just can't see the absentee land owners wanting to shell out money for their portion of the road that they never use... if something doesn't happen soon, I may not be able to get up the road to my house. *sigh*

Sorry to go off.
I don't have any suggestions for you.
This is a sore spot for us also.

If she is causeing damage to YOUR property Charge her to fix it ,be reasonable ,have proof and be calm.
Also be ready to go to court if needed

We have that issue here on a road over 3/4 of a mile long. When there were a few people living along the road, we each paid an equal amount to one homeowner who has a blade (motor grader) & works for a cinder company to blade & cinder it. Now 2 more years have past with nothing done & many more people here with fast driving, heavy equipment on it, some not caring, etc. we're in a quandry and driving on an absolute primitive washboard. (the guy with the motor grader is ----ed as no one else cares, so he says & doesn't want to do it again)
The county says form a Road Board. Bring the road up to specs & then they'd take over the maintenance. I don't see that happening soon as there's land for sale with more people movin' in & road building to spec is a very expensive proposition.
Last year one person had 2 dump loads of gravel put down & one family paid $25.00, some $100.00 and others none. Not very fair & I think he won't do that again.
I guess my suggestion to you is go to the county to see what their suggestion is & ask around to find out what others have done. Then before the rainy season, throw a BBQ & ask for suggestions. Come up with a resolution & get it done! The longer you wait, the worse it will get & the more it will cost to fix. Also immediately you can put speed signs up along with "primitive road" and " "No Exit" or "Dead End" to keep those who are out for a Sunday stroll away.
It's very hard to get that many people on the same page. Keep us posted as I'm sure others are in the same quandry.

we have a half mile of road with three homes on it .
I see the potholes as speed bumps you simply can not drive down our road fast .
when part gets really bad we go get some rock other wise we grade it when we see fit . when it snows we try to clear the snow. It just depends on the neighbors if you try to tell someone they have to help pay for the road you can hang it up . If you nicely ask for donations for rock for the road you might get it.
ask me for help on the road I'll have a load of rock tailgated and be ready with the grader. tell me I have to pay and the road maintaince will stop where ever you have to drive.
For the most part we each get a load of rock when we can . its never done all at once . loads very from 5-10 tons and are in this area around $50-100 depending on the rock . at tax refund time we might get a few loads

Wow! Thanks for all the responses in such a short time. Great points by all. I realize there are so many variables. That’s why I said from the beginning, let’s throw them out. My idea is, that in a perfect world and all things being equal, the person at the end of the road must drive over everyone else’s gravel, where the person at the beginning of the road, never drives on anyone else’s gravel. The gravel at the end of the road, lasts much longer simply because it does not get the same usage (again, in a perfect world). For the record, I live midpoint of the road and of course I want to do my part. But like a previous poster mentioned, I do not like to be told what to do. I also prefer some of the potholes in the road to slow people down. The gravel on my driveway lasts about 7 years, but if I put a load on my portion of the road it lasts 1 year.
Thanks again and keep em comin!

A propely built road only needs to be built once,In the end its much cheeper to do it right the first time but up front money is hard to comeby when folks are just starting out.
thats why government bodys with taxing power and the ability to leagly go into secured debt were created.

Here owners care for the half of the road that borders their property. Every five years or so a collection is taken up for the really bad spots. There have always been a few folks who own equipment that can grade, and they grade. It's been working, more or less;). BUt folks REALLY balk at being "forced" to pay. It works much better to build a great relationship first with a neighbor, do things for them, grease the wheels, so to speak.

We have a different problem here but close to the same.Got about Mile and Half of road with about 26 parcels on it.

The person we bought the property off of is suppose to maintain the road but doesn't :shrug: You ask the property owners about it,they say it isn't up to them.

So the road just get worse all the time. :rolleyes: I did put 3 Truck Loads of gravel on it one time and my #@&%$ neighbor went and shoveled it off.

big rockpile

why did they do that?

Because he is stupid! :shrug: No I put what they call Dirty Limestone on it,it usally packs down good.

Well it being grey and him not knowing thought I had put ground Flint Rock on the road.

But this is the same Guy that cut Hickory Logs thinking they were Oak.The same one that thought Whip Poor Wills were Turkeys keeping him up all night. :rolleyes:

Like I say stupid!

big rockpile

Kabri ......

and anyone else on dirt/gravel with multiple parcels/neighbors ..

You should petition your town/county to pave your road ..
Most jurisdictions have a "procedure" to accomplish this ..
Check it out .. Might as well get something back for the
property taxes everyone is paying :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Triff ..

kabri,
Please explain "their % share of the cost". Any chance on getting a look at how the "covenents" are worded?
Thank you,

Getting involved in a shared anything is asking for problems. Whether it be sharing a road, a well, or a spouse.

The results are generally the same. Some person will come up with a very clever excuse for why they should be excused from participating in full monetary renumeration for maintenance/upkeep. Then one gets into the thorny issue of "define maintenance/upkeep". 10 different people = 10 different opinions.

Such is the nature of the human spirit.

What do you mean? Ive found that brush and leaves maintain them selves quite well.

I live on a shared driveway that is about 3/8 of a mile long. I live at the end of the road, the next neighbor (Ann) is about 1/8 of a mile down the road and the other 2 neighbors (Jack and Mike) are at the end of the driveway and only use the road to get to thier fields. So who pays to regravel the road? If we go by who has the most traffic on the road it would be me. Who does the most damage Ann, with her hugh tractor, Jack and Mike do the least damage to the road. So who pays? We our lucky to have good people that share this road. So about every five years we regravel the road, Mike and Jack pay 25% and Ann and I share the other 75%, and everyone fills the potholes with gravel in the road that they use during that 5 year period.

Typcally the properties that live furthest from the public street pay a higher percentage. Closer to the public street, lower percentage. Typically a measurement is done from the public street to the driveway of a particular property. After each driveway is measured a percentage is calculated based on the number of users. I would also check with the subdivision map and see if there was some type of driveway maintenance agreement recorded.

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!

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!

Sharing a road
 

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.

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. :shrug:
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.