Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Obligations for Road Maintenance

The right-of-way or easement that you describe is apparently used by both you and the neighbor. Absent some written agreement regarding allocation of repair/maintenance costs, California law provides that the cost of maintenance is to be shared based upon the proportionate amount of use. If you and your neighbor cannot come to an agreement on what amounts to sufficient maintenance and an allocation of responsibility, I recommend that you contact an attorney to assist you. California statutes provide a process for applying for court determination of these issues.

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Re: Obligations for Road Maintenance

Absent an express agreement to the contrary, maintenance of easements is allocated according to use. In deciding the allocation on a road-type easement, a court would consider the length traversed by each user, the relative number of trips, and perhaps the type of vehicle (e.g., heavy trucks would be deemed to make more "use" of the easement than, say, passenger cars or bicycles or foot traffic.

The standard of maintenance toward which a reluctant user must contribute is an even fuzzier issue. My hunch is that a court considering the issue would try to determine what standard of maintenance was reasonably required for safety when the easement is used for the purposes for which it was created. It might also consider allowing apportionment of maintenance costs incurred short-term for the purpose of preventing longer-term future needs, i.e. economically-justifiable preventive measures.

However, if some user wants to gold-plate the easement without a safety or preventive justification, or due to that user's particular needs, the court would generally require that user to bear the excess costs alone, even if the other users obtained some incremental benefit from the gold-plate.