Comments on: Road Maintenance Agreements

By: Tony H

Tony H — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:52:15 +0000

I purchased a property in 2001 with an easement to allow access along a gravel road. The seller asked for $200.00/yr for road maintenance(gravel)and it is recorded in the original deed. I agreed and have paid it every year. The seller has never put one single piece of gravel or done any maintenance on the back 2/3 of his road, only the 1/3 that he drives on. He says he doesn’t have to maintain the 2/3 that he doesn’t use, but he wants me to continue paying the $200.00, AND maintain the other 2/3 at my expense. It has become very muddy and erosion has gotten bad. What are my rights? thanks,Tony

By: Don Smith

Don Smith — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:34:10 +0000

I own property in a community in which the roads are owned and maintained by the Homeowners Association. They have on file with the county a Road Maintenance Agreement(RMA) spelling out their responsibility. The only qualitative standard in the RMA is that the roads shall be kept “passable.” There have been instances during the winter when a certain road remained unplowed for some time, or otherwise became unsafe to drive because of ice. Owners were thereby blocked from getting to their property. Is the HOA breaching the RMA by claiming it could not safely plow this one road. Or must they do whatever it takes to ensure that the road is, in fact, capable of being traveled on, i.e., passable? Further wouldn’t such a situation become a disclosure matter in a real estate transaction and thereby create a potential obstacle?

By: tom brandt

tom brandt — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:11:42 +0000

John Wahl, I read your comments and those of the others who have a private road situation with much interest. We also live on a private road(four homes)with no road agreement. Our situation is further complicated by having a local water company that has access through the road to its dead end conclusion at their water tank (even though they cannot provide any agreements that give them access). Also there are four lots that extent from the top of the hill to the bottom that have their access at the top of the hill and “claim” they have access through our private road to the bottom of their properties (even though none of them have ever paid for maintenance). I would like to offer all who want access to sign a road agreement and deny those of refuse to sign by not giving them access to the road by constructing a gate. Four homes on the road and the water company recently repaved the road and we are very sensitive to the other four homes using our new road without paying for its maintenance.

Please give me your input. thx

By: Eugene

Eugene — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:02:33 +0000

We live on a 1/4 mile paved 1 lane private road. There are apprx. 8 houses on it. No one wants to maintain it. So I have been cutting the briers and kutzo along the road on the opposite side of their houses. Now one of them said I was ruining their property value and for me to stop. I am to my opion making it better because if you don’t trim it back it will go over the road. We have no maintaince agreement and all I am trying to do is make the road passable without scratch my vehicals. Any advice?
Thanks

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:27:19 +0000

When we bought our home, there was a road maintenance agreement to keep the roads in the same condition (dirt). Now, some uppity folks have moved in & want to change everything. The new pres. wants to have them paved, so he wants to form a corporation and one of the by laws is that if an owner is not at a meeting where votes are needed, then they cannot vote. A lot of owners live out of state. Instead of a yearly fee for maintenance, he wants to just bill you in which you have 30 days to pay up and no less he is getting bids for chip sealing! We all have 1+ acre. I must add that even this new corporation or by laws have been voted on yet. However, it is obvious that owners that are not there to vote, will not have a say. if I would have thought taht someone could change the agreement to which I signed, I would have never bought out here (Mason County). Does anyone have an oppinion on this? Someone said it was not legal, but I don’t know where to look for answer to my questions.

Thanks for listening to my long post.

Sarah

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:41:39 +0000

My husband and I own a house on a private gravel road. There are 8 people that use the road. Two have land just to hunt on and don’t use it very often. We do not have a road maintenance agreement. Our road is now in horrible shape due to snow. We have gotten an estimate approximately $3500. My husband thinks we should get each one to pay according to how far they live on the road. We feel that at least two will not want to pay anything. What do I need to do? We don’t feel that just a couple of us should pay this. Which is probably going to be the case. Should it be an even amount for everyone and is it too late to do a maintenance agreement.

Thank you,
Melissa

By: Sarah

Sarah — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:58:58 +0000

I live in a subdivision in Mason County. When we bought our home, we had a road maintenance agreement. Recently a new board took over and now they are trying to make a lot of changes. The original contract says roads to be manitained as good as original (dirt and gravel) . The new board is trying to change the terms to paved. And they are wanting to put in a clause that says if the property owner is not present at a meeting where votes are needed, then the property owner gets no vote! They also want in the agreement that if the roads require more money because of shortfall, then the board has a right to raise the amount and bill the owners payable in 30 days. This is in addition to the regular fees. They set no limit in the agreement to how much. Can they get by with this action?

Thanks for listening!
Sarah

By: C Miller

C Miller — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 02:49:41 +0000

I recently purchased a home on acreage. After the purchase, I was informed that I would now need to begin making $600.00 per year payments to the road maintenance association.

I asked the previous owners if they had signed an agreement, they stated they had not. I then requested that the association provide documentation of the property membership.

They mailed an agreement that had the previous owner’s signatures on it, but was not notarized. The previous owners looked at the document and stated that the signatures were not theirs.

Now, the association has placed a lien on the property for non payment of the annual dues.

My question is, does such an agreement need to be notarized to be legal in Washington State?

I want to be as informed as possible before I approach them and insist they remove the lien.

Can I be forced into this association? There is only one way into our property – without access to the existing road, we are land locked.

Thank you,

Chris

By: Ken

Ken — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:16:14 +0000

I have a couple of question. Currently I live on a private road along with two other families. We do have a road mainteance agreement attached to our deeds that was put in place by previous owners. Up until the last several years no one had an issue paying their third of the maintenance. I myself out of my own pocket have made repairs to the road over the past 10 years, but it had never been an issue. The problem I have now is that the newer neighbors on the road do not want to pay for anything, the road is actually owned by the last house on our road. My questions are can I enforce the maintenance agreement myself by repairing the road and billing the other two or can the actual owner of the property be the only one that can enforce the maintenance?

Thank you,
Ken

By: Jalene

Jalene — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 18:11:36 +0000

The situation is as follows:
A mile long gravel road with service to 11 homes and the last 7 homes have been sold/erected within the last 4 years. We live at the very end of the road at the cul de sac which is entirely on our property and is the only part of our property that adjoins the road. Each of us signed a road maintenance agreement that states: “the responsibility for the maintenance and or repair of the private road serving the adjoining property shall solely be that of the property owner. Such duties include maintaining the roadway sufficient for vehicular travel… in the sole discretion of the owners of the parcels serviced by said road.”

I have one neighbor that has just moved out of her house (hasn’t sold yet) and another that is being difficult about maintaining their part of the road. They both have major issues on the road adjoining their property that I must cross to access mine. The difficult one is saying that an easement means that “I” am responsible for maintaining it too. (which i have no problem with since I do use the road) but she is using that argument to say that she doesn’t have to pay anything! The road adjoining neighbor that moved out has just about washed out becoming a slurry of mud that is nearly impossible to drive through with all the rain that we have been having.

My question is this: Can we ‘force’ the neighbor that just left to pay to maintain the road? Or the future owner? (who is going to say: it was a mess when I moved in and not my problem). And is the difficult neighbor mistaken and that the road maintenance agreement trumps “what everyone knows about easements?”

We just had to pay $200 to have a truckload of gravel put on a part of the road that isn’t even ours and are looking at probably $2000-$3000 to fix the road just so we can drive across it. Oh and its a private road, not a county maintained one.