"Owning" a private road

[tis]

Originally Posted by Descant

1. Reading the recent thread on trespassing, it would appear that you have no liability exposure.
2. Generally, personal liability insurance policies are not geographically restricted (e.g. homeowners, umbrella). A forgotten benefit of these policies is that if a claim is made against you, regardless of location, you insurance carrier will provide defense services.
3. When you bought your house, was there a survey? Title search? Open mechanics liens? Title insurance? Things used to be more casual.
4. If you or a neighbor wants to sell, will a new mortgagee want these issues resolved? It may be better to resolve such issues now, where there is no current neighborhood dispute or timeline/deadline for a mortgage or pending sale.

When we realized we were still the owners of one of these roads, that is what we were worried about and we were told as you said that we had no liability exposure. This is so old it goes back to my parents'. Most of the camps were built probably in the 1920s, but some of course, have been upgraded or rebuilt.

(the other road) We built our house but yes, when we bought the land there was a survey, title search. No liens. You know I can't remember if we bought title insurance. However, when we bought the land, the two houses were already there, we own on both sides of the road and pay taxes on it. We were told it is a ROW for those two houses. However, this doesn't concern me at all now, since my daughter owns one of the houses on the road and we own the other. The house we live in does not use the ROW.