…continuation of this page.
As was to be expected, the story did not end on New Year’s Eve 2025. On that date, I sent an email to the neighbors ordering them to remove the chain and grant us access to the road. I set a deadline for the 15th of January, but did not hear anything before today, the 27th of February. Past this deadline, I threatened with legal action. Incidentally, I did give our lawyers a call yesterday to let them know we were in for a new round of legal battle in the continued saga of the easement road. One day later, here we are – again.
The argument made by the neighbors is simple:
“…you have access to your property, but you don’t own the small strip of land between your property and the main road, so you don’t get access to that…” To them, our demands seem to be unrealistic. Furthermore, they announced to take legal action if we use the small strip of land that they claim to have exclusive usage of.
Let’s have a look at that: Apparently, we do have access to our part of the land that is covered by one of two easements. Great, good to know. At the same time, they claim that we (or anyone else, I presume) have no right to use the small strip of land covered by the second easement. So the battle is now over that small strip of land that they do not own. In fact, it is part of the owner of the golf club property next door.
But that’s not all!
In the email, they also allege that we have told neighbors that we constructed the road on the easement property. This is not true; we’ve never told such a thing to any of our neighbors, as we did not pay for the road, nor did we construct it. We’ve never discussed anything about the easement with any of our neighbors, as it is none of their business. Nor have any of the neighbors ever knocked on our door and asked to be informed about the road. So I’m kind of curious where that came from. The result of their statement is that they now charge us with lying and spreading lies in the neighborhood. For this last bit, they intend to file charges for slander if we continue ‘spreading these lies’. We have not even started spreading lies, never did, and I see no reason to start now. The truth lasts longest in our book. Can’t wait for a judge to call a witness for the alleged slander on this, though!
In short, the chain stays; we gotta stay away.
What next then?
As we had already informed our lawyer about the continued problems with our neighbors, we’ll wait for them to read up on the case and contact us. The lawyer we had last year doesn’t work there anymore, so a new lawyer will be assigned and will very likely have to read up on the case details. When they call, I’ll send them the link to these pages to read about the case in detail. Then we’ll probably have another few rounds of letters between our lawyer and the neighbors until one of three things happens:
- They lawyer up, concede, remove the chain, and life goes on
- They don’t lawyer up, fight, and time flies by
- They do not cave, and we’ll see them in court again
With last year’s exercise fresh in mind, I do hope we can run this to court this time. As you may recall, we filed charges against them last year, then they lawyered up and were told promptly to settle – asap! This time, I’d like our case to go to court, as then a judge will tell them to stop playing around, remove the chain, and stop wasting everybody’s time and money.
A few days later…
The lawyer called in response to my email. I briefly explained the situation and mentioned I had some questions for him. The most important being if the neighbor had any business blocking the easement road by parking outside our property on the small stretch that is owned by the golf course? In short: nope, he has no right to do that either; the type of easement stipulates the land can be used for transport to and from his property, not for parking or anything else. Nor can the neighbor claim ownership or exclusive right in any manner. I’ll see our lawyer next week when we go through the new details and lay out a new strategy.
The lawyer…
Meeting with our lawyers face to face, we had a small agenda:
- How are our changes in this case with the new development on the other easement?
- What strategy do we deploy this time?
To the first question:
- No doubt! As should have become clear with last year’s hedge-case, the easement only allows for transport to and from a property over someone else’s property. That we do not own that small stretch of land does not play any role – the easement is valid for them and for us.
Note the word ‘transport’, which does not imply that it can be used for parking or any other purposes, such as closing off the road for other traffic. Again, it’s a clear-cut case where the neighbors only try to annoy us. I assume if the neighbors were able to purchase that small stretch of land, the easement would still apply and grant us access.
The second question:
- As last time, a letter will be sent ordering them to remove any obstacles blocking our access to the road. They’ll get a week or so to comply before we escalate to court once again.
During the meeting, we went over the details of the easement on the land office map and had a look at some of the photos I sent showing the chain in the blocked position.
If it becomes a court case, which we hope, we assume we’ll get a judgment confirming our rights to access the road. If we have a judgment, and the road is blocked again, we can call upon the bailiff services to forcefully remove the blocking object, car, or otherwise.
Anyway, I’ll keep y’all posted…
You can read the complete line of events here:
https://www.allegedfacts.eu/?s=easement
Links: