Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

My question involves my neighbor's claim to a right to use my driveway to access his property to build a house on it. We own side by side parcels that both are next to a third parcel. My property is my home and the neighbor's has a tear-down abandoned house on it. The third parcel has the remains of an old county road on it, that was the access to both our parcels. The old county road was by a "right of way" over the third neighbor's property. At some point in the past, the county abandoned the road and right of way. At that time the owners of my property and my neighbor's property wrote up deeds to cross-easements over the road. The third neighbor, whose land the road is on didn't sign anything and the county just did a resolution of abandonment.

Years later I bought my property, and sometime after that my neighbor bought his. The third neighbor had died and his kids had abandoned his property, which was nothing but a hill and the old road. Figuring I should have clear access rights, and worried that someone else would buy the road property and land-lock me, I acquired the road property from the heirs.

Now the neighbor wants to rebuild the old shack, or tear it down and build a house. I told him that if he wants access over the old road/driveway he has to work something out with me. He says the old easement deeds give him an easement over the road. I say the old easement deeds were of no effect because the people who signed them had no rights and never obtained any rights in the parcel that the road is on.

Who's right?

1 Answer from Attorneys

Related Questions & Answers

More Real Estate and Real Property questions and answers in California

Looking for something else?