Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

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.