duckngooser
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Missouri
We have a farm in Missouri. One of the neighboring farms (just timber, no houses, etc) was purchased a few years back by another person (neighbor A). This piece of land is land-locked. On one side is a big creek that is impassible most of the time. On another side is a 3rd neighbors property (neighbor B). Then the last 1/3 borders my property. During the purchase of the land, neighbor A requested and was granted a legally recorded easement from Neighbor B. The title company has record of this. When neighbor A and neighbor B got together to accomplish this task, they made a handshake agreement to just drive across a dirt farm road from the county gravel road to the property (all on Neighbor B's property).
Fast forward several years to this year. Neighbor B's field (with the dirt road) is coming out of the CRP program and he's planting crops in the field. As such, he locked the gate leading to the dirt road to protect his crops from trespassers, etc from driving on the road. Neighbor A is upset that he can't drive to his property along the dirt road now. The dirt road is completely separate and in a different part of Neighbor B's farm from the easement that was granted.
Neighbor A refuses to use the easement as he's afraid it'll get rutted up after a few trips and he won't be able to drive his truck in. As such, he found in an old abstract for his property that references minutes from a commissioners meeting back in 1868 in which it appears someone paid for a private road to this property. This supposed private road goes through part of Neighbor B's property and part of my property. Given that it's been near 150 years, there is no sign of a road that we can find. Timber, crop fields, ponds, etc are in the path. The copy of the document is very hard to read and I'm having trouble telling exactly where this private road is located. Per the title company, there is nothing recorded for this private road. Only a note of it during the meeting minutes.
My questions:
1. Neighbor A is wanting to bring in heavy machinery to build a road to his property along this private road. Is this private road still valid?
2. Per the local title company, my property survey has NO easements defined or "private roads". So if he were to travel across my property, I'm assuming that would be trespassing correct?
3. Wouldn't the easement negotiated and recorded at the time of his property purchase (last 10 years) trump a private road from 1868 if he needed access to his land?
4. Is the private road allocated to the property or just to the owner of that property at that point in time?
5. Does the mention of this road in a Commissioners meeting minutes even make this a valid road? Or is that considered it being "recorded"?
I need to obtain a better copy (the only one I have is a copy of a fax)... It's tough to read and I can only make out every 4-5 words in a sentence.
Thanks for any input! I'm not a lawyer and if this goes further, I will definitely contact a lawyer to preserve my interests. But in the meantime, I'm using google to try and obtain as much information and learn as much about this type of situation as I can.
We have a farm in Missouri. One of the neighboring farms (just timber, no houses, etc) was purchased a few years back by another person (neighbor A). This piece of land is land-locked. On one side is a big creek that is impassible most of the time. On another side is a 3rd neighbors property (neighbor B). Then the last 1/3 borders my property. During the purchase of the land, neighbor A requested and was granted a legally recorded easement from Neighbor B. The title company has record of this. When neighbor A and neighbor B got together to accomplish this task, they made a handshake agreement to just drive across a dirt farm road from the county gravel road to the property (all on Neighbor B's property).
Fast forward several years to this year. Neighbor B's field (with the dirt road) is coming out of the CRP program and he's planting crops in the field. As such, he locked the gate leading to the dirt road to protect his crops from trespassers, etc from driving on the road. Neighbor A is upset that he can't drive to his property along the dirt road now. The dirt road is completely separate and in a different part of Neighbor B's farm from the easement that was granted.
Neighbor A refuses to use the easement as he's afraid it'll get rutted up after a few trips and he won't be able to drive his truck in. As such, he found in an old abstract for his property that references minutes from a commissioners meeting back in 1868 in which it appears someone paid for a private road to this property. This supposed private road goes through part of Neighbor B's property and part of my property. Given that it's been near 150 years, there is no sign of a road that we can find. Timber, crop fields, ponds, etc are in the path. The copy of the document is very hard to read and I'm having trouble telling exactly where this private road is located. Per the title company, there is nothing recorded for this private road. Only a note of it during the meeting minutes.
My questions:
1. Neighbor A is wanting to bring in heavy machinery to build a road to his property along this private road. Is this private road still valid?
2. Per the local title company, my property survey has NO easements defined or "private roads". So if he were to travel across my property, I'm assuming that would be trespassing correct?
3. Wouldn't the easement negotiated and recorded at the time of his property purchase (last 10 years) trump a private road from 1868 if he needed access to his land?
4. Is the private road allocated to the property or just to the owner of that property at that point in time?
5. Does the mention of this road in a Commissioners meeting minutes even make this a valid road? Or is that considered it being "recorded"?
I need to obtain a better copy (the only one I have is a copy of a fax)... It's tough to read and I can only make out every 4-5 words in a sentence.
Thanks for any input! I'm not a lawyer and if this goes further, I will definitely contact a lawyer to preserve my interests. But in the meantime, I'm using google to try and obtain as much information and learn as much about this type of situation as I can.
