Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Almost certainly not. An easement by necessity cannot be claimed by someone whose other access became unuseable from lack of maintenance. My only hesitations about saying "absolutely not!" are (1) the neighbor may have an ancillary easement right to enter other parts of your property for the temporary purpose of accessing the easement in order to make repairs to it; and (2) in an extreme case, where expert testimony showed that there was no practical, reasonable way to repair the old road, a judge MIGHT award an easement by necessity, but the hardship of repair would have to be extreme, and even then the judge probably should award you compensation for your land.

Whipple should have stuck with "absoutely not." "Easment by Necessity" is a very special doctrine for creating an easement where none exists. Its only application is where a subdivision or partition of property leaves one parcel without LEGAL access to a public way. Normally for a subdivision to be approved, all the new lots must have some legal access to a public way. Sometimes, however, there is a slip and a parcel is left "landlocked." The older the subdivision, the more likely a slip, but there must be a total lack of legal access for Easement by Necessity to apply. Easement by Necessity exists ONLY to give the court the equitable power to craft an access easement to correct that mistake. It has NO application to issues of physical access. If your neighbor has a deeded easement to a public way from his/her property, then the doctrine of easement by necessity cannot apply.