Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
I live in California and intend on buying a property that has an easement. Per the current deed, the easement is 12' wide by 136' long and allows the owner on the back property to leave his house and gain access to the main road. The owner at this time owns both parcels but will be selling the front one to me (the one that has the easement) and intends to make a 22' wide x 136' road in order to serve his future development of medium density housing (6-8 units). My question is: am I responsible financially to create that road ie pay for the asphalt, landscaping... or are we supposed to split cost? If we are splitting cost are splitting 50-50 as right now he has not build additional units or do we based the split based on the future development he is going to have? Finally, can I simply request that the easement be under the medium density housing responsibility since they will also be sharing some other guest parking... that I will have no access to and a HOA will be created to which I won't be a part of? Lastly, can I seek monetary compensation since the easement has become wider by 10" (going from 12' to 22').
1 Answer from Attorneys
The obligation to construct and maintain improvements in order to use an access easement is entirely on the owner of the property benefited by the easement. The owner of the property burdened by the easement, i.e., the property the easement crosses, has no obligation at all to pay to construct or maintain the road or related improvements. The only exception is if there is an agreement as part of the grant of the easement, or by contract, that the burdened parcel owner will share the cost due to some mutual benefit. A shared driveway being the most common example of that kind of deal. As for the width, the owner of the benefited parcel simply cannot legally build anything outside the metes and bounds of the easement as it is without your consent. Whether you are paid for that consent is between the other owner and you, but I don't know many owners who would allow expansion of an easement by nearly double without being compensated. If you do reach agreement on that, I would HIGHLY recommend you do it by having him quitclaim the existing easement back to you and then you grant the new wider easement, so everything is clear in the property title records. I also recommend you require the other guy get a survey of the new easement and record that as an exhibit to the new easement grant deed. Doting your "i"s and crossing your "t"s now may save lots of legal headaches later.