If you don't have a road, is there an easement through an adjacent property to access it for a driveway? Or is it totally inaccessible without trespassing on your neighbor's property?

If you look up the neighborhood on Google Maps, it seems as though there are defined 'roads' throughout, including to our property. It is a perfectly rectangular grid of residential lots ... our lot just happens to be in the back corner, which I guess no one has had any need to gravel up to this point. Otherwise, we were able to drive around the gravel roads of the neighborhood in a normal vehicle .. and we liked it!

It almost seems to me like, if this is city property, they should pave it? Obviously I am probably wrong about that. This little area of lots is right at the border of two towns, landing on the smaller (more rural) town's side.

I am not sure if it is any more accessible via someone else's property or not ... seems like you just run out of non-4x4 road either way.

Thanks!

Is this lot in a development? Many times a development has private roads to service the individual lots and the road is not owned (or maintained) by the locality. It may not be in the localities budget to provide you with a road. You should look to see if you can find the paper work on the rezoning of the property and see if there were any proffers or commitments.

What does your deed show? Is there a physical road address? Plot plan? What did your survey show for easements? Without something in writing showing an official road owned by someone, you have a completely landlocked piece of property with zero way to legally access.

The property address on the tax information is listed as a lot number on a street in the city, so that is good. However, a map I just found shows that this area of property lots is sectioned off as 'Extraterritorial Jurisdiction' in the city limits, along with some other areas here and there. Also, it seems they might want to run a freeway through the neighborhood at some point, as there is such a proposal marked on their Thoroughfare Plans map. Well that makes things interesting, ha!

There were quite a few nice houses and farms in this neighborhood, in the areas where the gravel roads allowed us to travel. It would be such a shame if our property were unusable, as the distance to it from the gravel roads can't be more than half a mile. This area is also right off of a highway taking you directly to a major urban area (~25-30 minute drive), and only a few miles from a nearby lake.

What snake oil salesman sold you a landlocked property with a soon to be freeway through the back yard? And what type of due diligence convinced you that this was worth anything?

On your property, it's your respnsibility to put in a road to the nearest public road.

For the sake of brevity I said 'we own' referring to my fiance and I, who love the location and would like to live there if possible. Actually a close relative of mine purchased the land cheaply a few decades ago, and it has sat there ever since. It is landlocked, but on further review it is not even 1/2 a mile ... more like 1/8 - 1/4 of a mile from the nearest stable gravel road, at most. Our hope was to purchase an adjacent lot and build on the two.

My due diligence is the information I am gathering here & now, so I appreciate the constructive feedback, everyone -- thanks.

The usual route to improvements on land that has been subdivided is through a Special Improvement District. First you need to get a certain percentage of the lot owners that it will effect to agree to the improvements. Then the SIDs are added to the property taxes in many cases (amortized with a loan), or you can pay them outright, generally split between lot owners based on street frontage in the case of just a gravel road.

You may also be required to create SIDs for gas, phone, cable, and almost certainly, Electricity.

Before you do all that, you will want to go to the city or county health department to find out if the lots are even large enough, or approved for a septic tank and drain field. If not, another SID for the sewer line.

You may also be required to bring in city water service, since wells need to be far away from septic systems, and one neighbor's systems can make it impossible for the next neighbor's well and septic systems to exist.

In general, subdividing land into parcels of less than 20 acres usually requires additional studies and reports. Therefore, someone should already know the answers to most of these questions. It should be on record from the filing of the subdivision, originally. Health and environmental restrictions have, however, gotten more strict, so even if a septic system and well were approved originally, it may not be workable now.

Sounds like there is definitely an easement involved since you will have to traverse the part of the gravel road that is on someone else's property to get to the piece of land. We had a similar issue when we built, but our property was the first on the easement. None the less, there were still issues with the easement.

Needing to accessing the road just because you own land that you want to get to doesn't mean you have the legal rights to you use. You need to verify your rights to use this access. I know it sounds crazy, but some land locked lots have no access unless it is given by the owners of the entire easement. It can be achieved if everyone is in agreement with the terms and once it's legally given it carries forward with the land forever.

There are also can be differences between what is classified as a gravel 'driveway', even if it looks like a small road and what is actually a private road. In our area an 'C' grade gravel 'driveway' is approved for one home, two homes a 'B' grade gravel road which is wider and more substantial, anything over three houses requires a grade 'A' paved road. In some areas, unfortunately, the cost of doing this improvements if not a city or county road usually falls on the home owner of the new home, unless you can get the others to pitch in.

These things can all be learned at the government office that regulates the area; it may be in the jurisdiction if it's not in the city limits.

You should also verify utilities with the government office as well. Make sure to determine if the land was perked, if you will get your water from a well. If it wasn't perked, get it perked before you agree to take the land over. If the land perks you will know how many bedrooms you can build which is the measure for how much water the land can reasonable produce. I would also advise having a builder look at the land before you make final arrangements. They can give you an idea of how buildable the land is and what kinds of extra costs you may run into to change the grade, remove trees, boulders, etc.