My question involves real estate located in the State of: NEW JERSEY
I am in contracts to buy raw land at the end of a private, dirt road up in a rural town in north NJ and plan to begin building my first home on the land upon closing in a few weeks. The road to access the land is private, and according to the town must be maintained by the residents living on the road, however, a neighbor whose back edge of their property borders our (future) private road (their legal residence is on a different road) is currently the only person using this road and she placed a gate with a lock on it blocking access to the road; and on several occasions we've actually had to call the town to have the lock clipped off so we could perform tests on this land that we are in contracts to purchase. She says its because "junkies" trespass onto her property through the access point of the private road and that she locks it to keep her land safe, but she also uses the road to park her horse trailers on it.
This road was supposed to be developed with a community of houses in the 1970's, but plans fell through and now there are a bunch of vacant raw lots, maybe 20 or so, along this private road with no residences currently built on the road. When our house is built, it will most likely be the only one on the entire road for many years to come so my husband and I are thinking that the sole financial responsibility of this road with be on our shoulders when it needs to be maintained, not our neighbor's. When we close, we'd like to politely tell the neighbor to quit it with the locks, and we're wondering whether we have the legal right to tell her to stay off it altogether, since if her heavy horse trailers cause potholes or some other kind of destruction to form on the road, we're thinking it'd be our responsibility to maintain.
What will our legal rights as land owners on the road be in this case? Surely we can ask her to take off the lock, but do we have the legal right to ask her to keep off the road? Since its a shared private road with other land owners (though not this neighbor in particular, her property legally sits on a different road), is it possible that she has an arrangement with one of the other vacant landowners to use the road? And even if so, would the fact that our house is the only legal residence on it, trump any such arrangement, since the town ordinance specifically says its the road's "residences" that are responsible for maintaining the road? We'd be the only residence on the road.
Any legal advice on this situation would be much appreciated!
I am in contracts to buy raw land at the end of a private, dirt road up in a rural town in north NJ and plan to begin building my first home on the land upon closing in a few weeks. The road to access the land is private, and according to the town must be maintained by the residents living on the road, however, a neighbor whose back edge of their property borders our (future) private road (their legal residence is on a different road) is currently the only person using this road and she placed a gate with a lock on it blocking access to the road; and on several occasions we've actually had to call the town to have the lock clipped off so we could perform tests on this land that we are in contracts to purchase. She says its because "junkies" trespass onto her property through the access point of the private road and that she locks it to keep her land safe, but she also uses the road to park her horse trailers on it.
This road was supposed to be developed with a community of houses in the 1970's, but plans fell through and now there are a bunch of vacant raw lots, maybe 20 or so, along this private road with no residences currently built on the road. When our house is built, it will most likely be the only one on the entire road for many years to come so my husband and I are thinking that the sole financial responsibility of this road with be on our shoulders when it needs to be maintained, not our neighbor's. When we close, we'd like to politely tell the neighbor to quit it with the locks, and we're wondering whether we have the legal right to tell her to stay off it altogether, since if her heavy horse trailers cause potholes or some other kind of destruction to form on the road, we're thinking it'd be our responsibility to maintain.
What will our legal rights as land owners on the road be in this case? Surely we can ask her to take off the lock, but do we have the legal right to ask her to keep off the road? Since its a shared private road with other land owners (though not this neighbor in particular, her property legally sits on a different road), is it possible that she has an arrangement with one of the other vacant landowners to use the road? And even if so, would the fact that our house is the only legal residence on it, trump any such arrangement, since the town ordinance specifically says its the road's "residences" that are responsible for maintaining the road? We'd be the only residence on the road.
Any legal advice on this situation would be much appreciated!
Trespass: Private Road Access: Does My Neighbor Have Legal Right to Use My Private Road
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