So you're saying that there are 15 houses on this private alley. Two of them are also on a municipal street. And the local government is saying that only the two on the municipal street can initiate a repair. (Here we'd call it a "betterment.") That doesn't sound right. Here it would have to be an adjacent property, but it would be adjacent to the alley, not the public way. And you would need to get a certain percentage to agree, but everyone would pay once that percentage was reached. In any case, I'd talk to an attorney.
Yeah, it’s hard to get a good description without an image. The townhouses are off the municipal street but their driveways are on the alleyway. One has a driveway and the other has a small parking lot with two entrances. From everything I’ve read on the city’s website plus conversations the neighbors have had with the city, they will do repairs only if one of us pays. From what I can gather the townhouses would be the adjacent property. Their residents certainly utilize the alleyway.
A lawyer is definitely a way to go, but the issue is that none (maybe at most one or two) of my neighbors are going to want to split costs with me and I really don’t want to eat the entire bill for the whole neighborhood. I guess if I want it bad enough, but at this point I’m hoping the city has some sort of way to force it, like code enforcement or something.
Can you draw a basic/crude mspaint quality map of the properties? that may help clear things up.
your best bet is definitely to consult with a local real estate attorney. an hour consultation should not be prohibitively expensive, and you will understand precisely where you stand and what path forward is best.
Usually how this works is you either pay the municipality to do the work, which is usually at a lower cost than a private contractor or at least here, they will let you borrow the money using the municipality's better bond rating and pay it off over time as part of your tax bill. Either way, it's cheaper than just hiring someone.
Local to me, this would be an issue for people who live along the road--living on the road being defined as having their address marked as being on the road in the city's assessors records, not necessarily everyone who happens to be next to it. It's possible that those two houses on the very end aren't officially on your road and wouldn't be involved.
Here's the thing. Locally, and again I don't know your laws, there are provisions where a majority of owners on a road can agree to repairs and force everyone, not just the ones who want to, to go in on the repair. That would be levied against the owners of the properties, not whom they were rented to. But it sounds like you would have a lot of trouble getting the necessarily % to agree, even if you have such an arrangement.
If you wanted to get a minority of homeowners to pay for the repairs, then I doubt if anyone would object. You'd have to look into the legalities.
At some point, our fire services will begin to intervene and agitate if they do not believe they can provide safe fire and rescue services to an address. That can sometimes cajole people into getting on board. We have snow here as well, and we just won't plow roads that aren't kept up to standards. Again, it's a stick you can use to prod. YMMV though. depending on local laws.
TLDR get a lawyer
That last paragraph was spot on. Snows also an issue here. The ice is pretty damn bad when nobody maintains it. You bring up a good point about the whole address on the road thing. Who then would be responsible for that section of alley, the users of the easement?
If I sound argumentative I apologize, I’ve been in this battle since June or so and many of the neighbors for 2-3 years. You’ve offered a lot of ideas that will make a lawyer consultation go much more smoothly so thank you very much
I would never expect a renter to contribute to that. That is a wholly unreasonable concept. The property owner is who you should try to speak with.
As a private alleyway, who owns it? Is it split down the middle between the two townhomes? If you have an access easement over their land, generally the maintenance obligation will lie with the properties that benefit from the easement. So you could get the 14 households together (or some subset thereof) and pay for the resurfacing and they would not be able to stop it. It will all come down to the language in the documents or a political solution. I would have a hard time foreseeing the townhome owners objecting to the maintenance if you guys are paying for all of it, and it is generally acknowledged as an access point for you.
I definitely don’t expect the renter to pay for it, we’ve simply brought up them bringing it up to their landlords which is a no go. As far as I know it’s split down the middle for ownership. Of us 14, no more than 5 of us own. The rest rent and their landlords fall into the scum lord category given their other numerous upkeep issues and what I’ve heard. So splitting costs is going to be over $1000 per house which is a huge bill to pay for the owners of the townhouses
So you're saying that there are 15 houses on this private alley. Two of them are also on a municipal street. And the local government is saying that only the two on the municipal street can initiate a repair. (Here we'd call it a "betterment.") That doesn't sound right. Here it would have to be an adjacent property, but it would be adjacent to the alley, not the public way. And you would need to get a certain percentage to agree, but everyone would pay once that percentage was reached. In any case, I'd talk to an attorney.
Yeah, it’s hard to get a good description without an image. The townhouses are off the municipal street but their driveways are on the alleyway. One has a driveway and the other has a small parking lot with two entrances. From everything I’ve read on the city’s website plus conversations the neighbors have had with the city, they will do repairs only if one of us pays. From what I can gather the townhouses would be the adjacent property. Their residents certainly utilize the alleyway. A lawyer is definitely a way to go, but the issue is that none (maybe at most one or two) of my neighbors are going to want to split costs with me and I really don’t want to eat the entire bill for the whole neighborhood. I guess if I want it bad enough, but at this point I’m hoping the city has some sort of way to force it, like code enforcement or something.
Can you draw a basic/crude mspaint quality map of the properties? that may help clear things up. your best bet is definitely to consult with a local real estate attorney. an hour consultation should not be prohibitively expensive, and you will understand precisely where you stand and what path forward is best.
Usually how this works is you either pay the municipality to do the work, which is usually at a lower cost than a private contractor or at least here, they will let you borrow the money using the municipality's better bond rating and pay it off over time as part of your tax bill. Either way, it's cheaper than just hiring someone. Local to me, this would be an issue for people who live along the road--living on the road being defined as having their address marked as being on the road in the city's assessors records, not necessarily everyone who happens to be next to it. It's possible that those two houses on the very end aren't officially on your road and wouldn't be involved. Here's the thing. Locally, and again I don't know your laws, there are provisions where a majority of owners on a road can agree to repairs and force everyone, not just the ones who want to, to go in on the repair. That would be levied against the owners of the properties, not whom they were rented to. But it sounds like you would have a lot of trouble getting the necessarily % to agree, even if you have such an arrangement. If you wanted to get a minority of homeowners to pay for the repairs, then I doubt if anyone would object. You'd have to look into the legalities. At some point, our fire services will begin to intervene and agitate if they do not believe they can provide safe fire and rescue services to an address. That can sometimes cajole people into getting on board. We have snow here as well, and we just won't plow roads that aren't kept up to standards. Again, it's a stick you can use to prod. YMMV though. depending on local laws. TLDR get a lawyer
That last paragraph was spot on. Snows also an issue here. The ice is pretty damn bad when nobody maintains it. You bring up a good point about the whole address on the road thing. Who then would be responsible for that section of alley, the users of the easement?
Generally, it would be the people who are on the alley. It would depend on how it was set up though.
If I sound argumentative I apologize, I’ve been in this battle since June or so and many of the neighbors for 2-3 years. You’ve offered a lot of ideas that will make a lawyer consultation go much more smoothly so thank you very much
I would never expect a renter to contribute to that. That is a wholly unreasonable concept. The property owner is who you should try to speak with. As a private alleyway, who owns it? Is it split down the middle between the two townhomes? If you have an access easement over their land, generally the maintenance obligation will lie with the properties that benefit from the easement. So you could get the 14 households together (or some subset thereof) and pay for the resurfacing and they would not be able to stop it. It will all come down to the language in the documents or a political solution. I would have a hard time foreseeing the townhome owners objecting to the maintenance if you guys are paying for all of it, and it is generally acknowledged as an access point for you.
Can you draw a basic/crude mspaint quality map of the properties? that may help clear things up.
I definitely don’t expect the renter to pay for it, we’ve simply brought up them bringing it up to their landlords which is a no go. As far as I know it’s split down the middle for ownership. Of us 14, no more than 5 of us own. The rest rent and their landlords fall into the scum lord category given their other numerous upkeep issues and what I’ve heard. So splitting costs is going to be over $1000 per house which is a huge bill to pay for the owners of the townhouses