in texas

[barnett77859]

is there a law that gives land owners access or a right a way to there land and is it a 30 foot right away.

[Brazos Hunter]

google is your friend...

[Pushbutton2]

It's called landlocked property.

https://agrilife.org/texasaglaw/2014/09/02/texas-supreme-court-clarifies-law-regarding-implied-easements

https://www.texasrealestate.com/members/communications/texas-realtor-magazine/issues/november-2018/how-can-i-access-my-own-landlocked-property

[eaglegolfj]

No sir. You would have to get access from a neighboring property.

[Dusty Britches]

The tricky part is easement by estoppel. That is a verbal agreement that can be long standing and starts when one landowner says, sure you can access your place by this route through my place. That becomes a slipperly slope very fast because once that happens, Texas law generally comes down on the side of allowing access.

If you go to https://agrilife.org/texasaglaw/home/ you can search for easements and estoppel to do all kinds of reading on it. Tons of case law out there, too. In fact, reading her articles has led my neighbors to start to work on a written easement.

[BitBackShot]

I spent a ton of time researching this as I bought a landlocked place that had a road straight to it that had been used since the Mexican government owned it and all of the sudden one of the owners of a tract the road passed through decided he didn't want any of the other 9 owners passing through his place anymore.

As a general rule, you cannot be permanently landlocked in Texas. There are exceptions where a court will not grant to access, but that's probably a 1% occurrence. Here's the thing to remember: The owner of the landlocked parcel does not get to decide the route by which he gains access. Just because one particular route is the easiest/cheapest does not mean that's the route that will be granted. The courts will consider arguments from all landowners that could potentially be effected and make a decision that they deem the least intrusive with all else equal. That may involve you have to put in a 2-mile road through heavy forest, it may involve the easiest path that already exists. You just don't know.

Most of the time when people say, "The court refused my request to grant an easement", what happened was the court refused their request for the exact route they wanted.

Good luck.

[Dusty Britches]

This ^^. BitBackShot is spot on, from what I've read.

[RiverRat1]

is there a law that gives land owners access or a right a way to there land and is it a 30 foot right away.

If a property has access for years (7?) It can't be blocked.

Look at it this way. A person buys a land locked property. They then want an easement through YOUR property. Why or how would "the courts" decide who to screw by allowed access to a property that some person bought without researching it?

You simple can't screw someone who had nothing to do with you buying a landlocked property.

[DRT]

We bought the first of or land with an access agreement from the surrounding landowner but we had to pay cash as no bank will finance land without an easement. Now we have a contract on another connected piece and are buying it from that surrounding landowner. Thus we are getting the easement with the purchase with it. His intent is to sell off all of it. Once the guy at CFF explained that to him the rest fell into place.

Gary

[BitBackShot]

If a property has access for years (7?) It can't be blocked.

Look at it this way. A person buys a land locked property. They then want an easement through YOUR property. Why or how would "the courts" decide who to screw by allowed access to a property that some person bought without researching it?

You simple can't screw someone who had nothing to do with you buying a landlocked property.

They absolutely will look at all of the possibilities for access and determine the least intrusive to all parties, but yes, they will "screw" someone and grant access.

[jds247]

I had a battle over easement because the land I bought wasnt properly split in the previous owners will. The title company was going out of business and I didnt know it . Long story short they wrote the contract saying I had undivided interest instead of 100 % ownership. I had bought a title policy so they covered it.. the person that thought they still owned the land wanted to keep it. It was 20 acres on the back side if 200acres .. he didn't want to sell it to me but he didnt even know he owned it.. long story short the lawyer told me I had to grant him access but I could pick the route and price.. there's no limit or appraisal for easements.. in the end I got the land because I ask 3 times what the land was worth for the easement.

[BitBackShot]

I had a battle over easement because the land I bought wasnt properly split in the previous owners will. The title company was going out of business and I didnt know it . Long story short they wrote the contract saying I had undivided interest instead of 100 % ownership. I had bought a title policy so they covered it.. the person that thought they still owned the land wanted to keep it. It was 20 acres on the back side if 200acres .. he didn't want to sell it to me but he didnt even know he owned it.. long story short the lawyer told me I had to grant him access but I could pick the route and price.. there's no limit or appraisal for easements.. in the end I got the land because I ask 3 times what the land was worth for the easement.

He may not have wanted to bother with it, but the owner setting the price of an easement is only relevant if it's done on a voluntary bilateral transactional basis. The courts will typically recommend that the 2 sides try to come to an agreement where one side compensates the other and the process is handled out of court. If the sides can't agree or 1 side just outright refuses to give an easement, he'd have sued for access, and you wouldn't have had any say in what he paid ASSUMING they granted the easement through your place and not some other route.

That's obviously to prevent people from saying they want a billion dollars for the easement in an effort to just keep the land landlocked.

[TX_Hoghunter]

I get to my house through an easement. In my case this was settled in court when I was about 8 years old. We have a deeded easement so I am good. I am not a lawyer but there is a difference in a right-of-way and an easement. I do not think banks will loan money on a place that just has an easement but they will if there is a right-of-way. Something to remember when looking at this type of land.

-john

[sqiggy]

If a property has access for years (7?) It can't be blocked.

It can. I've seen it happen.
Told this same story on the land for sale thread.
There is this county road. Where the county maintance stops, the road keeps going but in a oil/gas lease road, probably for 2 or 3 miles. The LO at the end of the county road had 40 acres. He decided out of the blue to put up a gate and stopped every LO from getting to their property. Not sure how many, but quite a few. They all got together and took him to court. The jury said either take the gate down or give every LO a key to the gate. The judge however, over ruled that decision and said he could keep the gate up. Then, since the LO's couldn't get to their property, he started slowly buying them out. He went from 40 acres to now over 1100 and HF it and now runs a high priced game ranch.

[sideways]

It can. I've seen it happen.

Told this same story on the land for sale thread.

There is this county road. Where the county maintance stops, the road keeps going but in a oil/gas lease road, probably for 2 or 3 miles. The LO at the end of the county road had 40 acres. He decided out of the blue to put up a gate and stopped every LO from getting to their property. Not sure how many, but quite a few. They all got together and took him to court. The jury said either take the gate down or give every LO a key to the gate. The judge however, over ruled that decision and said he could keep the gate up. Then, since the LO's couldn't get to their property, he started slowly buying them out. He went from 40 acres to now over 1100 and HF it and now runs a high priced game ranch.

The judge hunts at this ranch every year for free....


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