[piker]

No, that's generally incorrect. If your property is surrounded by others' private property in the US, an "easement by necessity" will generally be automatically granted which allows you access to your property through the surrounding private property.

[blaser-waffle]

Not that easements are easy to get or are free of contention -- a lot of pedantic property law comes out of asshole neighbors making other people's lives miserable.

Source: good buddy of mine is a real estate lawyer, and after a couple drinks he'll bitch and moan about it for hours

[cr0sh]

My brother-in-law went through that with a piece of property he bought in California; it was a house on top of a "hill" (or small mountain?).

Two "neighbors" colluded to shut off all easements to the property, hoping that in 7 years (or whatever) they'd get the right to the property and could fix it and resell it. It was originally owned by investors, who wanted to offload it because they were fighting the same fight, and one of them had a heart attack and was dying, and they just wanted out. Along comes my BIL and he gets it for a song.

And the issues to boot.

The neighbors - one was a known "a-hole" in the neighborhood who would sue anyone and everyone; indeed, if you looked up his name in California, he had a record of using the courts almost as if it were his job. The other guy, he owned a large avocado orchard which bordered the property; he had fenced over one of the plat map easements. The other easement was a road which led to the property, which the first guy lived next to, just down below from the house. He blocked it off with a metal gate. He also owned another house he used as a rental, which was just immediately below the house. So he'd leave the gate open sometimes, and would give a key to the renters, but otherwise it was closed off. He'd also let people in for maintenance and inspection of a water tank which served for water in the neighborhood.

The story is wild and long - they didn't count on the tenacity of the family I married into. They didn't count on my brother-in-law, who works construction - being willing to run his dump truck for 48 hours straight with little-to-no sleep to make money in any way possible so he could pay his lawyer bill every single month (which ran to insane levels). He didn't count on my sister-in-law being willing to live in the house, to establish residency, while her husband worked a state away.

We had to hike up to the house one, using machetes to cut thru the undergrowth. My brother-in-law later ran a bulldozer to cut a path up the side of it, to get past the gate (he came from the avocado side - which the sheriff allowed him to cut past the fence, because of the plat map, and thus had to fight that neighbor in court too) - they then used 4wd vehicles to get up the side to the house.

He never counted on any of this and more. My brother-in-law flew a pirate flag from the flagpole, just to give the other guy the finger during all this.

Eventually, after several years, my brother-in-law won the lawsuit, and got access to the road. The gate was removed. The entire neighborhood rejoiced, and my BIL became the "hero" of their area, because they had long suffered various indignities by that guy.

A few months after my BIL won the case, the guy ended up having a heart attack, and died. The other guy lived a few years longer, but also ended up dying of natural causes.

My brother-in-law's house, now that it has access, instantly shot up in value several times over. He and his wife are now thinking of selling it, and moving on to other things.