Dividing up land, status of shared road

[thedivezone]

I'm in the process of dividing up a 7 rai plot into 7 one-rai pieces and there will a shared road that provides access to all individual plots.

I'm wondering what the legal status will be of the private road that will be shared by all 7 owners but not open to public use.

Does anyone have any experience with this ?

[digbeth]

either the road has a separate chanote, then all 7 owns a share in company owning the road, this could make thing like utilities easier too if the electric company makes you pay for extending the power pole into the back plot 

or you could hold on to the chanote to the road, but potential buyer of the plots would be weary of the status, I've been in situation where they 'developer' has mortgaged the road and technically could build anything on it later on 

 

or the road is in the same plot as one of the plot, then record and easement for the other six into the chanote

[thedivezone]

Interesting, thanks for that.

If there is a company owning the road, is that company expected to submit yearly declarations and such ?

In your last sentence, what does "record an easement" mean ?

Thanks for your help.

[Tropicalevo]

An easement is a legal document that allows the person/land owner named on it to have access.

digbeth is correct in his warning about the developer.

The developer that sold me the land said that I would have access to it via an easement. Then he put the road up as security to the bank for a loan. I had to wait 5 years for him to pay off the loan before I was given the easement.

The other thing to watch for is access for utilities.

The developer here put in the smallest road possible (to make more money on the land sales) and then he had to put the utilities on people's properties. Many are unhappy with that.

My neighbour has an issue with water supply but they have to dig up my garden to fix it. 😟

 

Edited February 15 by Tropicalevo

[thedivezone]

Good points there, thanks.

Since i will be the 'developer' i guess it will be any prospective buyer who will have to trust me, so i'll try and make it as easy for them as i can.

What's a good size for an access road for a residential development ? 5m enough ? Or 6 ?

[digbeth]

an easement is and agreement between two landowners giving access through their property, it will be recorded on the chanote and at the land office

simple one would be giving access to the 'landlocked' plot in the back of your plot say, a road certain meters wide through the plot owned by you

[brianthainess]

On 2/15/2024 at 11:04 AM, thedivezone said:

I'm in the process of dividing up a 7 rai plot into 7 one-rai pieces and there will a shared road that provides access to all individual plots.

I'm wondering what the legal status will be of the private road that will be shared by all 7 owners but not open to public use.

Does anyone have any experience with this ?

Make sure free access is written into all contracts. My (swiss) friend just up the road from me only yesterday came to me, to tell me the Thai owner of the house past his was demanding 30k to be paid NOW for access to the dirt road, he can speak thai quite well, but her reginal dialect he couldn't understand, so he got my wife to go up there to translate, she was saying if he don't pay today then it goes up to 40k, He went to the Poo Yai Ban, who looked at his contract, and said its a government road 555, this woman is a gambler, and also just goes onto his 1 ria land and steals fruit, he takes his electric from her supply, he paid half of the instillation to her place (its a very difficult access as it means crossing a river and the 'Main' road is 1k+ away) he has his own meter and she is charging him 20b a unit! what a Bitch. 

His next plan now is to put a fence up.  Why not open for public use? maybe one day the government can declare it a government road and lay concrete as they did to my road.

[khunPer]

On 2/15/2024 at 5:04 AM, thedivezone said:

I'm in the process of dividing up a 7 rai plot into 7 one-rai pieces and there will a shared road that provides access to all individual plots.

I'm wondering what the legal status will be of the private road that will be shared by all 7 owners but not open to public use.

Does anyone have any experience with this ?

Yes, private road can be a huge problem for both "right of way" and maintenance costs.

 

The road will run over one or several title deeds. Make sure that there will be declared a servitude both about "right of way" and shared maintenance costs for all 7 title deeds, so nobody can block the road – for whatever reason – or deny to pay their share of maintenance.

 

Yes, the road could be a separate title deed, but it might be administrative problematic if it's owned er by all other 7 land owners, especially if some plots change owner, as the shared title deed also needs to change owner with tax and fees involved.

 

I'm living in a house behind a longer private road and we have had problems a couple of times. Last time – recently – from one land owner getting angry on another land owner behind his land, blocking the the road with a gate where passing the edge of his title deed. Unfortunately there are four additional land owners behind his installed and locked gate...

 

 

About land-locked Property in Thai Law
“Land-locked property” refers to a property that has no direct access to a public street, so the only way on or off the property is to cross land owned by someone else.

The land-locked owner has the legal right to a “way of necessity” across an adjacent property. This legal permission is called an “easement” and does not need to be registered with any government body to be valid.

However, its establishment is bound by the following: Easement can run across only one of the adjacent properties. If necessary, the dominant (land-locked) owner may construct a road across the servient (burdened) property. Care must be taken to cause as little damage as possible to the servient property.
[ … ]
The concept of servitude also applies to cases other than land-locked properties. A landowner is entitled to servitude right of way if:
He or she has openly used a passage for 10 years or more with the intention to establish a right of way and without objections from anyone.
Source-link HERE.

[Kalorymetr]

On 2/15/2024 at 11:29 AM, digbeth said:

either the road has a separate chanote, then all 7 owns a share in company owning the road, this could make thing like utilities easier too if the electric company makes you pay for extending the power pole into the back plot 

or you could hold on to the chanote to the road, but potential buyer of the plots would be weary of the status, I've been in situation where they 'developer' has mortgaged the road and technically could build anything on it later on 

 

or the road is in the same plot as one of the plot, then record and easement for the other six into the chanote

What do u mean technically could build anything? Is there no legal requirement here to have a road to the plot? 

[lom]

The Mrs and I gave the road to Tessaban when we divided land into plots, that made the road public and made it much easier for us to sell the plots. It was a simple thing to register in the Land Office.

Edited February 17 by lom

[digbeth]

58 minutes ago, Kalorymetr said:

What do u mean technically could build anything? Is there no legal requirement here to have a road to the plot? 

 

If the developer hold the deed to the road and hasn't registered the easement, if he has a plot next to the road, he could well within his right start building on the road,

 

or registered easement is for only 1 meter wide pedestrian access road only, 

 

there might be 16 meters wide road when you were sold the plot, but years down the line subsequent owner could acquire the road and start building on it

[thedivezone]

Thanks for all the replies so far. Just to clarify, the road will not be running over anybodies plot, each plot will be bordering the road as in the attached plan :

I'm a little hesitant to make it a public road cause i was trying to make it more private.

I guess it comes down to the question of making it public road (thanon sasaranah) or private road ( thanon suan bukhon).

So can a private road be shared by several (7) parties?