Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Massachusetts
Erection of Electronic Gates.
For the last 18 years the public has been using our private access road to cut through our community to reach another town. We are a senior Retiremant community and would like to stop this pratice. We own the acces road as well as the community. We have signs posted that this is private property and is for residents only and no trespassing signs also. We would like to erect electonic gates which would allow only the resident plus all and any emergency vehicles the use of the road. The access road is not located in the community we live in but was built initially as an acces road to the property. We know we only have 2 years left on our statue of limitation as adverse use. The attonry the park has been using is not a real estate lawyer and our committee recommended that we use a real estate lawyer, but we were refused by the board of directors this avenue to maybe get the proper answers. The traffic cutting though has no regard for our stop signs or speed limits and there have been many close calls in the past as our roads do not have sidewalks. If you can[please help guide us so that we can take back our roads and our saftey.
We wil appreciate it. Thank You
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Erection of Electronic Gates.
You are right, that you could lose your rights to exclude by not taking action now. With the signage as it is, especially, the use has clearly been adverse and you were VERY well-advised to start enforcing your rights before you lose them entirely. There are some totally counter-intuitive concepts in this area of the law and only the experts in this area seem to get it right. I've seen other lawyers lead their clients down the path to a loss because they themselves didn't thoroughly understand the concepts.
But I don't understand what you want. The Board of Directors has refused to use a real estate attorney? What exactly do you need? Do you want me to be that attorney for you and give you expert advice but without permission from the Directors? Do you want the Directors to be able to call someone?
There is a very good expert in just the area of prescriptive easements (a cousin to adverse possession) whom I refer my litigation to when it comes to these issues. I can have her call the Board if you like. What are their names and numbers?
Why did the Board block that avenue of access, as I think you called it?
Are they going to approve the installation of gates if that's the recommendation?
Are they generally intransigent? They have an obligation (fiduciary) to make sure they don't lose you your valuable property rights; they may not realize the exposure they are creating for themselves personally. More to the point, though, instead of waiting for the damage to be done and then trying to collect from them, there is the possibility of a so-called derivative action against them to force them to take care. But now I'm talking really agressive attacks, which really ought not to be needed.
Sooooooooo, ....... what town or city are you in?
If you contact me directly, first answer what few questions I have here in this reply, but also refresh my recollection as to who you are / what your issue is because I answer a lot of questions on LawGuru.
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