Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

What kind of response do you get to your requests? That might help decide how heavy to come down on the neighbors. You can try to explain your rights; you could have a lawyer send them a warning letter with a legal explanation; or you could file a lawsuit and ask for a temporary restraining order and an injunction.

Easements are rarely anything but "non-exclusive," so this part of the language is pretty meaningless. The owner of the land subject to the easement (the "servient tenement") cannot lawfully obstruct or interfere with the use and enjoyment of the easement by the owner of the benefitted property (the "dominant tenement").

Under the holding in Scruby v. Vintage Grapevine, Inc. (1995) 37 Cal.App.4th 697, which you may want to look up on Google or at a law library, you are not necessarily entitled to demand use of the full width of the easement at all times, suggesting that the servient tenement folks can park on the easement, but they can't do so in a way that significantly impedes you, or forces you to do a slalom through their parking lot.

A court should back you up with appropriate orders, within the limits of the Scruby case.

I had an easement case once on appeal. Justice Joan Dempsey Klein gruffly asked me if "this was just another neighbor dispute?" I remember being irritated by her question, because as I thought of it, all easement disputes involve neighbor disputes, unless someone was being silly and fighting over an easement with a utility company.

Her question is important, however, because these things tend to escalate, rather than resolve. So with that frame of mind, what Mr. Whipple tells you is important. How do they react when you ask them to move their cars?

If they are just adamant that they can park there, and totally obstruct your ingress and egress, then you may have no option but to file an action to quiet title to the easement and for interference with an easement. Judges in those types of cases rarely want to award damages, although there is case law stating you are entitled to it. The remedy judges give is often an injunction, which is a court order that orders them to refrain from obstruction your access. But that tends to escalate retaliation, and the next thing you know, your neighbors call Building and Safety because they don't like the way you installed your rain gutters, or they call the police because your Fourth of July barbecue is too noisy.