Appraisal 101 - Private Or Public Road ?

[Mr Rex]

Can you block public access to a public road?

 

[Dublin ohio]

I know that the governing entity of the public road can block access under certain legal circumstances. They do it all the time for parades, festivals etc. Could not envision a scenario where a private individual could unilaterally legally block public access to a public road.

 

[Mr Rex]

I don't know of any situation other than the events you mention. So to me its a no brainer, its about ownership and with ownership comes responsibility for maintenance.

True story that I run across fairly regularly, 2x in the last month. Subdivisions with private roads with no road maintenance agreements. Up until the mid 2000s it was a given that if a subdivision had roads that were built to NC DOT standards, then once 1/2 the lots had houses built on them, the NC DOT would take over maintenance. Well along came the RE debacle and state budget short falls and this is no longer the case. 2 calls this month telling me I didn't know WTF I was talking about, these were public roads, it says public ROW on the plat and there is a stamp saying the roads were to be built to NC DOT standards. I referred them to the NC DOT secondary road lookup site that lists all state maintained roads by county by name or number. 2 closings delayed until a lawyer sets up a Road Maintenance agreement and gets all the neighbors to sign...and they all thought the roads were public and their last loan closed without a hitch etc etc. You asked a question and I gave you the truthful answer not my problem that you don't like that answer.

 

[Tom Woolford]

Gated access=private. Platted, probably public, established by easements, probably private. There is no blanket answer. That's what they pay us for, to find out.

 

[Deleted member 134708]

When is it not trespassing when uninvited.

Walking down main st. Uninvited.

 

[Deleted member 134708]

We have site-condos that have no gate. It's private area. Not public owned. Just a sign to keep ppl out in fine print along with condo name, layout etc. you'd have to be on foot but says private, trespassing etc.

Physically ppl drive, walk, bike thru there all the time. But legally it's trespassing if uninvited.

 

[Tim The Enchanter]

Ask a simple question.
Get a complicated answer.
Well, answers.

 

[Deleted member 134708]

Reason #12

Why human appraisals will be obsolete soon?

Appraisers can't even tell the judge what is public and what is private.

50/50 so far...

If I loaned money, I wouldn't use a group that can't agree, If A was capatilized or lower case.

 

[techbiker]

Gated access=private. Platted, probably public, established by easements, probably private. There is no blanket answer. That's what they pay us for, to find out.

Yup. There are quite a few platted commercial properties in my area without public access drives. There are even commercial gated privately-owned and controlled fire lanes! The fire department has special access with a key they keep at the station.

I read one mutual access easement agreement in a shopping center that permitted access only to customers, employees, workmen, and the owners of the individual properties. Any shop owner had the right to refuse access to other members of the public from their portion of the access area. Later on, the cities here apparently started encouraging public access agreements for many shopping center roads.

When I see a commercial access road, I look at the plat and all easement agreement documents to see if road access has been dedicated to the public. Real estate ownership conveys private control over a given domain. Can the real property owner close the road in question without permission? If not, it's likely ether a mutual access area or a public road.

 

[Deleted member 128537]

A private road is an easment in the legal description that all parcels on that road have. It is the way they gain access to their property. The parties on that easement are required to maintain it. A public road is owned by a governmental entity. The gov entity maintains it. We have lots of private roads in my county. Most are quite short, and service a handful of parcels or condo complexes.