House with Shared Driveway - What do we need to know/ask?

[Anonymous]

We've found the perfect house that shares a driveway with 3 other houses. It is about 100 feet long and about 20 feet wide with two house in the front and two in the back (the house is in the back). The listing agent said that the 4 homeowners own the driveway together.

Should we be worried that the driveway was not on the house plot? What documents should we get/check?

What questions should we ask? Any pitfalls anyone can think of?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Anonymous]

We share a driveway and there are questions I think of that your agent probably won't know the answer to...such as how do they handle clearing it from snow? How do they share maintenance and the associated costs?

We share ours with three other houses and our problem has been neighbors aren't interested in maintenance, they're happy for it to disintegrate. Sigh.

[Anonymous]

I have this. Every year we put a predetermined amount of money in an escrow for pipestem maintenance. Every 5 years we re-asphalt and 15 (?) we tear it up and redo the pipestem. Otherwise you'll get one cheap person on the pipestem who will refuse to redo it and the other houses will have to split the cost.

We also are very friendly and we all shovel the snow together (except cheap neighbor). One neighbor has a snow blower and we buy him a 6 pack/gas money and take turns using the snow blower.

We have an unspoken rule that no one can park on the pipestem for more than a few hours (a party for instance). I'm not even sure that it's unspoken (it could be an HOA rule?) because if people park on the pipestem, others have trouble backing out of their driveways.

We really like our pipestem. It's more private and the kids like playing there. Looks just like a street in our case.

[Anonymous]

I had a shared pipestem with one other neighbor. It was THE WORST. Fortunately, the HOA plowed the center part of the pipestem (it was like a T shape to our two garages). The other neighbors, on top of doing zero to take care of their home and property, were always blocking us, parking on the grass, generally just being a hot mess.

Long story short, we lasted as long as we could and finally moved. Fortunately, the new owners didn't investigate to deeply or they would have realized what they were going to have to live next to.

[Anonymous]

I'm 13:30 and we aren't in an HOA, we're somewhat rural so anything goes. But I agree with PP, while it's not a total nightmare for us, personally I wouldn't do a shared driveway again. I dream of taking care of MY driveway and MY driveway only.

[Anonymous]

You want to have an easement recorded on the deed, if you're picky about those things. I had a house for almost 20 years that shared a driveway. Never had a problem, but when I sold it the buyer insisted on getting it recorded, which was easy.

[Anonymous]

Yes you need to get the easement recorded. You don't want a situation where another neighbor can decide to not allow you to travel through their property.

Yes on maintenance escrow.

Ask to see if there is any written agreement on snow plowing. Most do not have this and there is always a jerk on the closet lot to the Main Street that expects to benefit because the people further in have to plow anyway.

[Anonymous]

Realize that it is a negative to future buyers. I wish when we had bought our house we had spent time thinking about resale. If the house has been on the market for a while then there is a reason people passed in it. These may not be show stoppers to you but realize that it will be the same story when you go to sell. Make sure to factor this in when looking at comps.

[Anonymous]

I live on a pipestem and love it. If you have shitty neighbors, it can make life harder but that's true of most shitty neighbors

[Anonymous]

Would never buy one. You can ask as many questions as you want but it ultimately comes down to having to come to an agreement with several others for everything from maintenance, to snow clearing, to parties, even day to day usage.

[Anonymous]

My in-laws share a driveway in a rural are with, I think, 5-6 other households and it's a nightmare. The families can never agree on maintenance, snow clearing, etc. It is a big hassle and nearly every time I see him, my father-in-law finds a way to rant about it.

[Anonymous]

Dont purchase. Plenty of homes out there with no shared dw bs. Never done it and never will....regardless of price, etc.

[Anonymous]

For the past 14 years, we’ve been living in our house with a pipe stem. Two of us own the driveway and everyone shares the cost of maintenance. We’ve had a couple of different snow clearing arrangements. At first the other owner arranged for clearing and we all paid 25% of the cost. The. We had a neighbor that owned a plow. So they took care of it. Now my son who has a friend with a plow arranges for snow clearing and he collects the money from the other neighbors.

Maintenance is only every few years so it changes every time.

[Anonymous]

You also need to take into account that you’ll be pulling your trash and recycling containers up and down that pipestem and most pipestem houses have the mailboxes in a central location on the street near the driveway entrance, so mail is further too.

[Anonymous]

my biggest concern with this would be resale. There are a lot of buyers out there where this scenario would be a complete deal-breaker, including myself.