Right of way - restrictions?

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rickj
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Right of way - restrictions?

Postby rickj » Sun Aug 13, 2017 12:43 pm

There is a (dirt) road across my property for access to the public road for two neighbouring properties. There is an orchard there, and two smallish houses. For a long time one house was occupied by one person, who would drive her car across twice a day. Now there's a new family there who drive their car far more often. And the past 4 days there's a group of 20 youths in the other house who will zoom by with their cars, and make a lot of noise, and I'm getting irritated.

There's nothing in de deed of the property about a right of way, but you cannot lock in other people's land of course.

Does the right of way extend to 20 people whom I don't even know? What measures can I take to calm down traffic? Put up a 10km/h sign? Put in barriers? Caltrops? A "solo residentes" sign? Are these 20 residentes??

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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby jhonie99 » Sun Aug 13, 2017 4:16 pm

rickj wrote:
There's nothing in de deed of the property about a right of way, but you cannot lock in other people's land of course.
that's a silly statement; Another person's property being land locked is of no relevance to you.

You seem to have an undocumented servidumbre. If in existence less than 20 years, you can block it off, but get yourself a gun and some heavy machinery for implementation of same.

Servidumbres have a servant and a master; The finca using your drivethrough must "pay" for access. This can be anything from a bag of oranges to thousands of euros, paid for on a yearly basis. The deal doesn't exist in perpetuity and gets renegotiated on change of ownership , etc. If agreement cannot be arranged amicably, the courts decide.

It's of no relevance as to the numbers of people, resident or otherwise that use the right of way.

As the servant, you cannot make an obstacle course out of it, but you can demand "payment", usually in a "uso o disfruto" sort of way.

Good Luck.

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rickj
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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby rickj » Sun Aug 13, 2017 4:48 pm

jhonie99 wrote: You seem to have an undocumented servidumbre. If in existence less than 20 years, you can block it off, but get yourself a gun and some heavy machinery for implementation of same.
Mm, those fincas were built in 1992 and 1995 according to the catastro, so no "luck" there. I don't mean to block this road and get them (and me) in trouble, but I do want them to behave there.
jhonie99 wrote: Servidumbres have a servant and a master; The finca using your drivethrough must "pay" for access. This can be anything from a bag of oranges to thousands of euros, paid for on a yearly basis. The deal doesn't exist in perpetuity and gets renegotiated on change of ownership , etc. If agreement cannot be arranged amicably, the courts decide.
Thanks for that suggestion! We'll talk to our solicitor about this. I like the idea of a payment, if only to let them know we're there. We spoke with a woman today who passed by in a car, and asked her if she was the owner (yes), and if she could do something about the noise. She said yes, but so far nothing much changed.

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costakid
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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby costakid » Sun Aug 13, 2017 5:57 pm

As a measure to slow the boy racers down couldn’t you make a chicane from some old oil drums filled with concrete. At least they won’t be coming past your house like lunatics.

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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby TinaTapas » Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:48 am

A similar situation affected friends of ours and after a polite word with them, she was told to go forth and multiply

They ended up calling the police after they took a run at one of her dogs and it resulted in them being arrested and jailed - they were growing and manufacturing drugs on a grand scale

Something to think about regarding your situation. Why are there multiple people going back and forth all of a sudden?

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rickj
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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby rickj » Mon Jan 01, 2018 9:59 am

Spoke to our solicitor. She said a paid right of way is not a good thing to do. They need to pay 100 euros just once, not every year, and you cannot deny them access. These young people went there because there’s a festival nearby (Dreambeach) where they go at midnight, return drunk at 10 AM, wake up at 2 PM, and you cannot go without noise if you’re a group of 20. This is a Spanish party house, owned by a family I guess. Lucky they’re not there the rest of the year.

We’ll just call the police next time.

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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby wollie » Mon Jan 01, 2018 5:27 pm

"and you cannot go without noise if you’re a group of 20"

This is not what you want to hear but to me this is the only thing that make sense.
There are not there from midnight until 10 am therefore you can sleep. Where is the problem here?
They sleep all day and then they are normal young noisy Spanish kids.
The police if they have any sense will ignore you, then the info will filter through you made a report. what then?
They drive a bit fast, i drive too fast and i am close to retiring age.
Unless they are breaking the law my advise is to leave it, thankfully having fun is not against the law yet.

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rickj
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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby rickj » Mon Jan 01, 2018 7:17 pm

This is loud banging “music” all day from 11 AM till midnight, for a week. I can bear this a day, or two, but then irritation sets in. And if you try to talk to them they are obnoxious, and tell you to go away because “it is not your house”. They probably are kids or relatives of the owners. Why must their fun be in the way of my life? Sensible people care for their neighbours. These are not good neighbours. But apparently the law allows this, and does not support restricting access.

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rickj
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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby rickj » Mon Jan 01, 2018 9:09 pm

jhonie99 wrote:
rickj wrote:
There's nothing in de deed of the property about a right of way, but you cannot lock in other people's land of course.
that's a silly statement; Another person's property being land locked is of no relevance to you.
According to my lawyer it is. You can not deny your neighbours access, and the courts will be on their side, she says.

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Flexo
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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby Flexo » Tue Jan 02, 2018 10:11 am

Depends if it is a private road on your property or a community road. I have never heard a court rule that states I should have the right to use private roads that I have not paid access for. Maintenance of roads are expensive and dirt roads in particular. 100 EUR per year per person does not cover the expenses if you use it when the road is wet.

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rickj
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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby rickj » Tue Jan 02, 2018 3:26 pm

Luckily that dirt road holds pretty well. When it rains here it rains, and I need to do some work putting soil and washed away sand back, but then it dries out quickly, and all is well again. People stay inside here, when it rains :-) So far the road doesn’t cost me much, money wise.

This is not about maintenance or money, it’s about acknowledging people need to treat their neighbours with respect. Talking was to no avail, but a paid right of way is not feasible either, it seems. So far my lawyer has been very trustworthy and helpful, so I’m wary to shun her advise. We indeed may need to grin and bear it.

The road is over my private property, it’s not a community road as far as I know. It leads to two houses and fields, then stops at a “river” edge.

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Flexo
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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby Flexo » Wed Jan 03, 2018 7:12 am

rickj wrote: The road is over my private property, it’s not a community road as far as I know. It leads to two houses and fields, then stops at a “river” edge.
This is what seems so abnormal to me, the way I understand how things work here (which is limited of course) this is not supposed to happen. You are not supposed to be able to buy land that is locked away from a community road. It could be the result of a questionable land deal in the past.

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rickj
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Re: Right of way - restrictions?

Postby rickj » Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:25 am

This situation was created by dividing up a big property in the 60s. Three brothers all inherited a part. One the main house and land around it (now mine), others orchards down the “road”. Later two small houses were built there. The land here is “rural”/“rustico”, so you could not build those buildings there today, but apparently you could in the 70s-80s. That is probably also why servidumbres were never arranged, or thought of, as it was all family in the beginning. If you misbehaved like these do mama would come and spank you. Here mama comes and offers them a place to stay.


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