I recently completed a boundary survey for a client (a local realtor) and he wants me to indicate on the map that the property has access to the adjacent road. Now for the rub:
1: The road R/W is, in fact, contiguous with the east side of the surveyed property.
2: I pulled a recorded map from the county that shows the road R/W listed as public road on the map, but with a note saying that as of 1/19/2023 the town had not accepted it for dedication for public use.
3: I called the town and they confirmed that it has not yet been accepted for public use.
4: I referenced and noted all the above on the map.
The client asked if I could make a determination as to if the property owner had legal access to the road. I told him that as a surveyor, I can firmly give a professional opinion that the property is contiguous to the road R/W. However, if he was looking for a written professional opinion as to if the property had legal access to the adjacent road R/W, he would need to seek that opinion from a lawyer.
He wasn't angry or pushy ... but boy did he want the "written permission" for access for his client.
Ever deal with a situation like this? If so, how did you handle it?
Thanks in advance.
I think your response was perfect and wouldn't do/say anything else
3: I called the town and they confirmed that it has not yet been accepted for public use.
The client asked if I could make a determination as to if the property owner had legal access to the road.
Should have said "What road?" 😏
Similar situation here. A client has a piece of land he wants to develop, but the only access would be over one or two private roads for which he does not have any deeded rights. The town actually does do snow plowing and there are utilities in these roads so he keeps thinking that they are public in fact and that he should be allowed to use them. We've told him number of times to consult a lawyer with that question. I don't know if he has.
Should have said "What road?" 😏
Oh, is a road. It's just not public. It's a private road owned by the HOA of the subdivision.
Yes I have had a similar experience. I was involved in a "re-plat" years ago for which the abutting "road" was dedicated by the prior (original) plat but the acceptance by the municipality was nowhere to be found. We visited the County Surveyor & County Development offices and they pulled the original development records and could not find the municipality's acceptance of same (* in our neck of the woods it would have been via an item on the City Council Agenda). Our client asked what should we do and we nudged them toward the County to get it resolved (the issue of the municipality not accepting it had to do with how the original developer built the improvements in the road- they apparently didn't pass inspection). The client then wanted a similar affirmative statement from us that the lots had legal access to a right of way, which we could not provide after review of the title commitment provided for the project. We let the client know that the matter was a Legal matter and not a Surveying matter. I believe our client went back to the original developer and worked through the issue and finally got the municipality to formally accept the right of way, but our feeling was that the client was pushing liability on us versus working to fix the problem correctly. Just my $0.02...
This is pretty much dependent on where the property in question is.
I used to have a lot of clients on the South Shore of Massachusetts, and there were a couple of smaller towns that had the idea that they could make the developer maintain the infrastructure permanently if Town Meeting never voted to accept the roads.
The project would be 100% built, the Planning Board voted to accept the roads as having been built satisfactory, and the bond escrow was spent...yet the towns wouldn't accept them.
The only solutions other than court order, were to wait until the Selectboard changed enough to be favorable to accepting roads in developments completed 20 or more years prior, or try to get the Building Commissioner to rule that the property has legal access.