California Surveyors Forums

Are there any documents available to discuss land locked parcels that have been created in error and adjoining owners will not grant access?

Are there any driveways or access ways currently being used, or have been used, for the landlocked parcel? (You don't provide much background information.)

landlocked parcels can process private condemnation it no other option

There are a number of possibilities.

1. Implied Easement. The typical example is the seller shows the buyer the rear half of his property. They get there by driving over a driveway across the front half. Seller grants rear half to buyer with no mention of an easement. The easement is implied. I'm not sure if this works the other way around (against the grantee).

2. Way of Necessity. The parent parcel may owe the child parcel access.

3. Prescriptive Easement. Access road is used openly and notoriously for at least five years and meets the other requirements. The easement exists when the requirements are met but if the burdened owner later objects the user of the road may be able to convince a court that they have a prescriptive easement.

4. Other possibilities are equitable easements, easement by estoppel and possibly even an irrevocable license discussed in a recent case although that had to do with landscaping improvements in a Deeded right-of-way easement. Sometimes a public road has been abandoned but the parcels served by it still maintain private easement rights.

Each case and the possible solution is highly dependent on the facts and circumstances of the case. The Courts generally do not favor landlocked parcels but this does not mean they will burden an innocent property owner with an easement.

A typical case involves a parcel which has access but it is steep, inconvenient or expensive to use and improve. Say there is a neighboring parcel with an existing road which is flat and accesses the public road but the neighboring parcel has no legal obligation to provide an easement over the road. The Courts have not been sympathetic to the property owner needing access in those types of cases. It seems to me there is a Nevada County case along these lines but I would have to look for it.

In summary, the answers highly depend on all of the facts and circumstances, history of the parcels, etc. A good source of information on easements is Miller&Starr California Real Estate available at the Law Library.