I'm under contract on a cheap house, but the shared driveway/easement situation has turned into a mess. Would you still buy it?
I'm under contract on an older, relatively inexpensive house, and what initially seemed like a straightforward purchase has become increasingly complicated. I'm wondering whether other buyers would continue pursuing it or decide there are simply too many complications.
I knew when I made the offer that the house had a shared driveway with the property next door. I don't particularly like shared driveways, but the purchase price was attractive and I decided it was a compromise I could accept.
During the purchase process, however, we discovered that there apparently isn't a satisfactory recorded easement establishing the driveway rights.
This isn't a minor driveway either. It's the established driveway serving the properties, and it runs very close alongside the house I'm buying.
The purchase agreement was amended to address the driveway easement as well as another property-line/easement issue. The basic idea is that these property issues are supposed to be resolved and presented to me for approval before my inspection period proceeds.
The seller's attorney has now prepared proposed easement documents.
Here's where things have become difficult:
The neighboring property changed ownership relatively recently. The previous owner apparently had a good relationship with the seller, but the new owner is an LLC.
The seller doesn't have an established relationship with the new ownership group and, as of the latest update, hasn't yet been able to reach the appropriate authorized person at the LLC.
They're currently searching entity/property records and trying to locate the correct person who has authority to consider and sign the proposed driveway easement.
So at this point, the seller has an easement proposal, but they still need to locate the appropriate representative of the neighboring LLC, make contact, present the easement, get the LLC to agree to it, get it properly executed, and get the title/closing side satisfied with the result.
Obviously, the LLC could simply cooperate once contacted. Nobody has actually refused anything yet.
But there's also no guarantee that they'll agree, how quickly they'll respond, whether they'll want changes, or how long the process will take.
Meanwhile, the transaction has a closing deadline approaching and I have unusually favorable financing that is time-sensitive and will not be replaceable if the transaction gets delayed too far.
I also haven't completed my home inspection and sewer scope yet, because I don't want to spend money on inspections if the easement situation is not resolved.
Because of the way the addendum was structured, the property/easement issues were supposed to be dealt with before the inspection period. I'm considering doing the inspections early anyway to preserve enough time to close, provided the seller expressly agrees that doing so doesn't waive or alter my protections under the addendum.
But that creates another problem: the inspections will cost real money (about $1,000 with sewer scoper). If I spend that money now and the neighboring LLC later refuses the easement, I could end up spending considerably more money on a transaction that never closes.
So I'm caught between:
Wait for more certainty about the easement and risk running out of time, or spend more money on due diligence now and risk losing it if the easement can't be obtained.
Then there's the question of whether I even want this arrangement long-term.
The neighboring property is a small multi-unit rental owned by the LLC. The shared driveway passes immediately alongside the house I'm buying, including bedroom windows. So even with a perfectly drafted and recorded easement, I'd potentially have changing tenants, their vehicles and visitors using a driveway right beside the house.
I may be able to construct a completely separate private driveway on the other side of my property in the future. Preliminary conversations with city engineer and planning suggest it may be feasible, although I haven't obtained bids or treated that as guaranteed.
That would eliminate my own dependence on the shared driveway, but it wouldn't necessarily prevent the neighboring rental occupants from continuing to use the existing driveway alongside the house.
The frustrating part is that none of these issues individually necessarily kills the deal.
The easement might get signed.
The title issue might be completely resolved.
The house might inspect well.
The financing might make the deadline.
A private driveway might be practical later.
But when I put everything together, I'm wondering whether I'm trying too hard to make a complicated property work because the price and financing are attractive.
I'm not asking Reddit to interpret my contract or give me legal advice. I'm more interested in how experienced buyers/homeowners would evaluate the overall risk and decision-making here.
If you were in this situation:
Would you continue pursuing the purchase while the seller tries to locate the LLC owner and obtain the easement?
Would you spend money on inspections before the neighboring owner has even been contacted, simply to preserve the closing timeline?
At what point would you decide there are too many uncertainties and stop putting additional money into the transaction?
And assuming the easement eventually gets properly executed and the title issue is completely resolved, would the overall shared-driveway/rental-neighbor situation still make you reconsider buying the property?
I'm especially interested in hearing from people who have been through messy title/easement issues during a purchase and had to decide whether to keep pushing forward or walk away.