@@badpop987 If he kept it he wouldn't have any access because he bought it without a road to it. The whole thing was stupid. People came to him for his welding skills not for his location. He could have moved and been fine.
You overlooked, or didn't catch, the most important piece of the story. The town supervisor owns the piece of property the road crosses. This is misuse of governmental authority for personal gain, to block access to proper owners AND to reacquire the land which is under authority of imminent domain. The good ol' boys club of town leadership needs to be brought up on state and federal charges, if possible.
@@tonyhelms5904 never said it was , my reference was to a movie where an little old lady and adopted cop sun scammed people to buy property cheap some time after selling it to unsuspecting families. Watch the movie “ Duplex “.
for anyone wondering how this ended here is the TLDR In the new decision, the judge says a law that allows towns to abandon roads does not explicitly allow leaders to abandon only a section of a road: "It is unreasonable and absurd to allow Defendant to deny maintenance of the latter portion of Hornet Street while maintaining the first portion, leaving the Crismans stranded while what exists of Hornet Street erodes away. The Town’s formal decision to abandon the latter half of Hornet Street came after the Crismans decided to reside at their home at end of Hornet Street. "Not maintaining the latter portion of Hornet Street would leave the Crismans at the will of a neighbor who has gone out of his way to make it hard for the Crismans to access their home like any other town resident. Not maintaining the road could also block school buses and any emergency vehicles that needed to get to the Crismans’ home. "Hornet Street is the only means of access to the home and not maintaining just the last quarter mile knowing that a family is living on the property is unreasonable and cannot be what the legislative scheme anticipated." As part of the granted order, the town must resume maintenance of the road and remove posts that had been put up by a neighbor.
People don't give a shit in a small town. If this doesn't come to a head this will end bad. I don't know who is right or wrong. I don't know either party. Something needs to give before something really fucking bad happens.
@@harlockJC How would this decision be reversed and why wouldn't the supreme court do their job (assuming the state supreme court btw not the national one)?
If the sheriff can warn you about plowing a road, it’s a government acknowledgment that the road exists. If the sheriff drove on the road to get there, he maintained the law getting there.
When you add in the fact that the family also paid to repair the road it's clearly not something that the 40-year rule should apply for. The family should appeal to a higher Court. My guess is that the local judge, being an elected position, is siding with the local politicians for dirty reasons.
@@Elliandr the legal test should be multiple parts: does the road exist today? You can see it. People, Sheriffs, postal service have used it. So yes. Next question is, does removing it via an administrative action violate the equal protection clause? Since it goes half way to the neighbor, but not the second house on the road now via an administrative action that is by public statement clearly support an equal protections claim and harassment. The county commissioners made a road come from the other direction, now placing a burden on the home owner, when an existing road exists, couple with existing public statements, doesn’t that amount to harassment under civil rights violation?
The road existed. That's not the issue. What happened is that the Town exercised its right to decommission the road after not maintaining it for 25+ years.
"When you're fighting a corrupt town and a corrupt family who are all in bed together .. you can move and cut your losses or you can buy a bulldozer." ~ Marvin Heemeyer
I noticed in this piece, that when the family fixed the road and then asked the county to maintain it, the cops were called and told them they could not repair a public road. If it is a public road then the cops have the authority to stop them from repairing said road. However, if it is NOT a public road and the county doesn't want to maintain it, then the police nor the Sheriff have no jurisdiction! Then this is private property. It is either private property or a public road, you cannot have it both ways!
Yeah. In hindsight, the best thing the family could have done was to call the sheriff's Bluff and continued to plow right in front of the officers. If the sheriff's office would have arrest them for plowing a public road at that time the family could have used that in court to show that the road was considered public by the city. And to further say that if it wasn't public then the city was engaged in malicious prosecution. It seems ridiculous to think that the best thing that a person could have done was to get in trouble with the law on purpose, but weirdly that's the case. Still, I think the family should appeal this ruling and use this threat as an assertion of the city's prior recognition that it was public property.
@@erikawhelan4673 The 40 year rule includes provisions that stipulate that the road hasn't been maintained for a long time and is in disrepair. It's not something that can be abandoned so suddenly especially after the family spent tens of thousands of dollars to repair it. Even if the rule did allow it to kick in suddenly, by both preventing the residents from maintaining the road and not maintaining it themselves it could be argued that the city made a conscious attempt even then to make it abandoned - and by "the city" I mean the guy who stood to financially gain from the move.
@@Elliandr The 40-year rule doesn't apply here. There's a Minnesota law that says that a township road that hasn't been opened or maintained for over 25 years requires the approval of the electorate to maintain.
Even then, the other neighbor would still be forced to give an easement either way. You can't have a road be public property forever, be the literal only access point to a property, and then just act like you can landlock them out. Even if the township doesn't have responsibility of that portion of the road any longer, the landowner would still have to grant an easement since it was already in place for decades.
"You're not allowed to plow it - it's our road" "We're not going to maintain it - it's not our road" One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong...
That's what I was thinking. If the town doesn't own the road then the family should be able to plow it. Also, the town should not plow it for the other family either.
The red light is green. If you go through the red light, you are running a red light. If you stop at the red light, it's actually green, so you're blocking traffic.
Okay, so I wasn't the only one who picked up on this! How can the sheriff tell them they are not allowed to plow a public road if the town says it isn't a public road. It doesn't make sense.
As a former RE Broker in Mn I can tell you that under Mn law if that road has been used for yrs to access that landlocked property they have a legal easement established whether the council member owning front property likes it or not. And as such have legal right to continue use and can sue if it is blocked. Especially since the council member allowed them to repair the road. He essentially gave them and easement whether he intended to or not
@@j.dragon651 unfortunately no. But there are some very good RE lawyers who could straighten this out for them. I'm actually surprised that now this story is out that someone hasn't already reached out to them
They most likely would not be eligible for an easement by necessity because another road was constructed adjacent to the property. They are not technically landlocked. Easement by prescription due to continued use could make sense but it’s very unlikely given the circumstances where they are in opposition to the town. No filed request that an easement be placed on the neighbors property would be properly considered
A permit is a legally binding document. - If the township approved the permit to build a house on that road, and that road is specifically named on the permit, in doing so, it acknowledged that: A) the road exists; and B) they have the authority over that road. And authority equals responsibility. I think the homeowners have a good case for appeal. Please keep us posted!
yeah sadly, id say back, when the council goes as far to push and tell themt hey cant plow a public road,t hey confirm it is a public road and a government matter @@abrahamlincoln9758
That could be a good case, but the township is claiming (possibly wrongly) an understanding of a local law that "forces" then to relinquish the road back to the original property due to not maintaining it for 40 years or some crap like that. It wouldn't have anything to do with their building permit, now. The homeowners would have to argue in court that the law "forcing" the town to relinquish the road (or that last half mile) is illegal, or in some way unconstitutional. If the law is relatively abolished, then the town would be required to start maintaining it again. Too bad that after the first judge changed his order and required the town to return access to the property, the Court of Appeals reversed the lower court's decision. And while the state's Supreme Court would be the very place to raise the issue of it being unconstitutional, they aren't willing to hear the case. There's a possibility that it goes against your 5th amendment rights, or something. I'm no lawyer, so it's just a wild guess. Maybe they should have saved the money from maintaining the road themselves that first year and hired a better lawyer.
@@M167A1 In 99% of cases, the person who moves in next to you is a complete stranger. Is an outsider somebody who moves in from another street, city, state? Seems to me people just label those they don't agree with as "outsiders".
I read this in the StarTrib the other day (Minnesotan here), and what struck me was the fact the neighbor, Schmoll, is a former township supervisor. It reeks of "good old boy" back room dealings.
Had something similar happen to a friend here in WV. My friend sued the city and the landowner and won he got $150k from the city and the landowner and the landowner got arrest by state police and the chief of police was fired and city manager fired. He now owns the previous owners land.
"Why was a building permit granted to build a home in a spot with no roads?" Same reason the township is still collecting property taxes from this family: government greed
"All property, real and personal, shall be taxed, subject to such exceptions as the Legislature shall by law establish" or similar language to the same effect.
@@Glmorrs1 LoL! The *GOVERNMENT* , is manipulating rules to take money and enjoyment from normal people. Ya...that characterizes basically everything but capitalism, but maybe one day you'll pick up a book on economics and government and understand... Commie thinks greed was invented by capitalism, news at 11...
@@Glmorrs1 it's not capitalism, it's government issues. Capitalism is an economy archetype, taxes are still taken in socialism, communism, dictatorships, and monarchies.
I would argue that by sending the Sherriff out 4 times telling them to stop plowing the public road the township has admitted it's still their road and must resume maintenance on it and allow the family to use it.
@@robertthomas5906 Your mistake is assuming anyone doing this is acting in good faith. It's clear everyone involved in this is corrupt and just trying to harass the poor homeowner.
that's why eventually this will get pushed up to a higher court away from the jurisdiction of the local magistrate where the town will have less influence
I only play lawyer for fun, but as far as I can tell the 40 year rule isn't about requirements for municipalities to abandon their property, but rather about enforcing ownership against claims of ownership by others. That could benefit either the town or the former supervisor in an argument about who owns the ROW for the road, but wouldn't be a way for the town to abandon their ownership.
@@jonirelan2904 I live down the road from a county commissioner. County commissioners are the most entitled, power hungry people you will ever meet. There's really no checks and balances on the county level, and the state government has no oversight of county issues. So when my neighbor (the county commissioner) decided to chop down trees thirty feet into my property (off a county easement) claiming it was a county project to help maintain the road, I had to lawyer up and fight like hell to get it rectified. He contracted the logging out to one of his buddies companies. They had to replant trees and I now have a restraining order against him. Every employee I spoke to at the county public works basically said they hate him, but he's a commissioner with a lot of power so no one wants to oppose or anger him.
I had a situation kind of like this where I’m from. The last house we had was down a country road along with 4 other homes. The guy that owned the road was ordered to gravel it because cars where getting stuck in bad weather. He did this reluctantly. There came a point where he and the neighbour in the last house got into an altercation over something unrelated. That was when he had a large bush and trees put across the road. He was ordered to remove them. He did but he waited until the last date on the notice. About a week later I drive up the road and there is a 10ft high pile of gravel in the road. He was ordered again to remove it and he didn’t. He then added a gate. Both are still there today and we sold the house 5 years ago. That was a huge pain because we ended up having to leave our car out on the main road and walk to our property. All kinds of weather and bringing shopping and groceries home was a nightmare. Even putting out rubbish was a 20 minute walk to the bin because we couldn’t bring it in. Anytime anyone left the 5 houses we all had to climb over the gravel because there was a bush wall around the land. The last straw was when our son needed an ambulance and it couldn’t get into us. Took a huge loss on the house but couldn’t be happier where we are now.
@Cipheiz they assumed it was their road. It wasn't forgotten about. The BUS came to pick up their kids. And they sent a government official based on that ownership. And they allowed a building permit on property with that road as an address, and probably collecting property taxes on that address as well. All this shows is how corrupt the entire diseased temple has become.
@Cipheiz It was maintained, up to the first property owner's land. The road existed. Now the part they maintained up to the one property owner is to stay a road, but the other property owner on the road they maintained was denied the same service. It's not so cut and dry. This isn't eminent domain or anything else. It's a bunch of vindictive dictatorial types who scratch each other's back. Edit: At a minimum, the new "road" they installed requiring the homeowner to add a driveway that crosses through an area the floods should be brought up to where the other driveway existed. If they can build a new road, they could have maintained the existing one.
@Cipheiz yes, it's very cut and dry . . . corrupt city officials colluding with one property owner at the expense of another, and corrupt judges going along with it.
A few years ago, in my hometown, a warrant ('law' proposed by the Selectmen) was published in the town report to abandon all the class 4 roads. Class 4s are not maintained. This would have meant that millions of dollars of unimproved property could never be built on, dropping the values by 80%. Fortunately people noticed and voted it down at the town meeting, with only the Selectmen voting for the warrant. One of the Selectmen told the local newspaper "I don't know what everyone is so upset about, they didn't already have houses on the roads". The real trouble was that the town has become more and more a bedroom community and the Doctors and Lawyers who moved in and ran for Selectmen are clueless as to how the town operates or its history. After that fiasco, and the School Board wanting to build 3 indoor Olympic class swimming pools for the 8 kids who compete in State swimming, the locals started attending Town Meetings and School Board meetings. Voted out all the Doctors and lawyers, and elected mostly local business owners.
If you live in a Democracy you have to do the work. That includes going to meetings and standing for office. Or you get this sort of Council. Be warned!
Started trying to get involved in my town, it’s a historic city in California. The issue is that tons of people are moving in from San Francisco. They don’t understand the traditions, the culture, or the buildings. It’s terrible to see tasteless shopping malls put up in place of the old baseball fields, and bland cookie cutter houses replacing the old Victorian style downtown. There has even been a move by the city council to tear down the historic buildings in the area and to get rid of the yearly fair. It’s a shame to see things like this happen, and the only people fighting back are the older people of the working class families that have lived here for decades. God knows what our tax dollars are spent on, it certainly isn’t basic preservation and maybe a little work on the rural roads.
That is awesome that the locals went to meetings and told the arrogant politicuans to do not let the door hit you in the backside. Stop trying to steal peoples money, property and rights of the citizens. Jack asses not welcome, GTFO. If you dont stand up to these POS they just get worse. Good job locals.
Hum how did the it looks like the township has messed up. You cannot threaten to fine them for plowing a public road, then turn around and claim it is not a public road. It sounds like the neighbor who is also a politician is a major part of the problem. The Minnesota Attorney General might need to do some investiagating.
It's a rural township. Probably half of them are like that. You mention laws to them, and they just say "Oh we've never done it that way." The majority of the township board where I grew up have been on the board for 20 years, and they don't bother to have their names on the ballot, because it's a hassle, so they just remind people to write their name in.
Exactly - escalate the issue from the township to the Attny General. It will never be resolved at the local level; there are too many personal issues there.
Sue the planning board for the cost of the house, the road upgrades, and everything else they spent on the property since they received a building permit. Also include costs for their time improving the place. As a settlement, offer to sell the property to the township for the costs above plus the original cost of the property. Either way, then take your money and go someplace nicer
"costs above plus the original cost of the property." That is too little. Original cost does not recognize that "but for negligence" on the towns part, the value of that property would have increased in the interim.
@@shaunclarkson7131 You're assuming that the property value has risen. I bought a house in a small town 26 years ago; the value has only risen 20%. My sister bought a house in a tiny town in South Dakota and remodeled it. She and her husband decided they couldn't take the weather; they couldn't sell the house for any more than they paid for it originally, so they lost every cent they put into the improvements.
It reminds me of many years ago, when I was transferred to a city in northern British Columbia, Canada. We found a beautiful log home on 10 acres that we fell in love with. There was, however, the possibility of a potential problem. The property was in a rural area, but still within city limits. The driveway started at the end of what appeared to be little more than a wider driveway, about the width of a city road. There were no street signs, or any other indication that it might indeed be a city street, even though there was another driveway at the end close to ours, to another property. The real estate agent assured us that it was a city road, but I decided before signing anything, to make sure, by going to city hall. It turned out that it was indeed a city road, built by, and maintained by the city, and that the real estate agent was correct in his assertion, so we bought the house, and enjoyed living there for a number of years. The neighbours turned out to be very nice people, and we became good friends. The point I'm trying to make here is that, regardless of assumptions, appearances and assurances, to be absolutely sure, go right to the top, and get it in writing. Takes almost no effort, and can save a lot of headaches in the future. Just wondering about the case in Minnesota, though. Because the "road" had served as access to the property for a number of years, could that not have established a "right of way"? We had this on another property, where the neighbours used our driveway on our property to gain access to theirs. I was advised that, for legal reasons, I should lock the gate and deny access one day every year. I did that, in consultation with the neighbours, and picked a day when it would not inconvenience them, so it wasn't a big deal, until they sold their place to someone nobody should have for a neighbour. It didn't take very long until I gave them one month to build their own driveway. Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of problems with them, but that's another story.
The issue here is that the land owner didn't like these people at made problems for them. He was the Previous Town Supervisor so he knew how to handle the situation to make life hard on his neighbors. If they check, it would have been deemed okay at the time and it was deemed a road when they got their permit for building their house. It became an issue when the neighbor made it an issue.
@@nielsen145 He already broke laws when he pushed to have the road removed as a road just to be a spiteful neighbor. Abuse of Power and using connections to harass someone, he should be fined and the money going to the family in the house he tried to strand there.
So the local elected official who had the town plowing the road only up to his house gets the township to disown the road so that he can claim it as his own in an attempt to force his neighbors out? Also, how does the 40 year rule apply if the family was threatened with legal action for plowing a government owned road? At that point, doesn't the clock reset?
its a elected official trying to make land grab but the property was sold to someone else and he board chairman is doing anything he can to punish homeowner
@@wrench0060 what a douche canoe, lovely legacy to leave behind. Consider instead he could have been the beneficent and dignified elderly leader of the township who's memory was kept alive by those girls for his kindness and wisdom. Now he'll be remembered very briefly after death for his consumate greed and territorial panic.
@@maebandy the quote that stuck out at me was "big city folks think they can come in here and do whatever they want..." Yeah, ummm that sounds more like confession through projection.
My uncle was in a similar situation and found out the county was collecting federal/state dollars to maintain it but used it for income without the cost of actually doing the work.
As a surveyor, I find these stories very interesting. In Virginia roads could either be discontinued or abandoned. Roads are not abandoned if it would land-lock any properties. When a road is abandoned, the road right of way and any public access easements are abandoned. Roads that are discontinued still maintain a public easement, but are not publicly maintained. If you have a house on a discontinued road, you have to maintain it, but the public is still allowed access. Mail and school buses stop where the road begins to be a discontinued road. As you might expect, discontinued roads are dead end dirt roads with just one or a few houses on it. Counties do this to save money.
Their neighbor is a former county supervisor, and it makes me wonder if he's calling in favors with the current county board members. A corruption investigation may be in order.
odd that they claim the road to keep them from plowing it and then deny it is theirs for maintenance. Also many states have laws preventing the landlocking of property so that it has no access. The family being hurt by this should sue on that grounds.
The world easement comes to mind. It’s almost impossible to cut someone off that has been used by someone for years. If the mail runs and they have school kids I can’t see anyone gets totally cut off. After being with a sheriff department for 14 years, I’ve seen several of these. They are not fun and sometimes you can’t make everyone happy.
Here in Oklahoma, it is against the law to 'land-lock' a property. How well ya'll get along is irrelevant. If the county abandons the road, it basically has no authority.
My driveway is half a mile long and is a shared private drive. It predates my house, which I built at the end of it about a decade ago. It's on four different properties (thankfully near the edges) before getting to my personal section. If any one of them tried to block access they would be in violation of PA state laws. Now that said, I can't just buy a piece of land-locked property to which there is no current access and force a neighbor to allow me to build a road (unless that person is the one who sold me the property because then there is an implied easement which prevents people from selling plots of their land and then denying access to it).
@@ttww1590 If I understand correctly, at the moment, there is only one access. The landowner of the road cannot block access to the other land owner. That would land-lock the other landowner. IMO, just because the county agreed to grant access, by way of a different route, the land owner is under no obligation to choose that option. But I don't know all the laws and circumstances, so I could be completely wrong on that point. Interesting topic.
One can "land lock" themselves out by selling the "front" that has access and keeping the back. Can't sell the back without some type of access. I know of a case that went through the Texas courts where a lake was built and cut off road access to a large chunk of property. The courts ruled that there is access. By way of the lake.
@Cipheiz Well, there are a lot unknown details to dive into it too deep. If I were the landowner at the end of the road, I wouldn't do anything. IMO, once the county abandons the road, access should be 'grandfathered' in. By using this tact, the owner of the road is completely helpless, in trying to stop access. This of course depends on the 'grandfather clause' laws in the local area. Now, if the granted county access were indeed opened up, that changes everything.
There is so much wrong with this situation. Its also why zoning and permanent easements exist. If its a public road with a public address on it, the township is required to maintain it.
@@kamX-rz4uy usually there is an easement or right of way formthe road, which with a valid address onnthat road, should have never been abandoned even after the 40 year rule. It wasn't abandoned, as there was still a functioning address on it. The property owner being part ofmthe board should have raised all kinds of red flags and should lose the land. It would be interesting to see if they updated the property books and the deeds, because if they didn't, the town still owns the land. Its illogical the courts would side with,the town here, as they likely violated their own charter or laws.
I think the reason another road was extended to the edge of their property was so Smoles could contest the easement saying there was other access to the property. The whole things stinks of township corruption with the land owner the road runs across.
@@porcelainthunder2213 Oh I agree the township is in the wrong here but at the very least declaring an easement is in place would prevent loss of access in case this escalates before getting fully resolved.
@@tfodthogtmfof7644 It might be better for the family to connect to the other road but only if the judge declares the township pay for it. Due to the cost they'll probably back down and reinstate the original road.
I came across this same problem in Oklahoma. My drive crossed another property. The other land owners resented my perches of the land because they had been using it as there own for years. I found out the property taxes hadn't been paid i paid them then put a lean on the property of the other land owners. Now i have access to my property with no problems.
Am I missing something, or is it the township's position that a)it's not a public road, so the township can't plow it, and b) it's a public road, so the family can't plow it?
I was thinking the same thing. If the township give them a citation for plowing a public road. Then it would be hard to say after that that it was not a public road.
@@AD-xt9og They were never issued a citation; Just "told" to stop plowing it...Should have kept plowing it; Then, payed the citation, and used it as acknowledgement that the township considered the road public...
That sounds like it's a legal easement to access property that has been established since the early 1900s... and for the township to just say it is not a road any longer is incredibly ridiculous. I'm surprised the judge ruled in the favor of the township. Perhaps there is some collusion between the judge and township. Everyone has a right to access their property and the established easement should be the method of access.
I wonder if they have mail delivered to them. Maybe they can get the federal government to step in since it would be used for federal access. I would have gone to the county and/or state level since it connects to a count road.
I understand the township no longer wishing to maintain a road that is more like an individual family's driveway but their right to use the easement shouldn't be in question. If the neighbor is a township board member, there are ethical questions about his role in this dispute.
If I remember correctly, about 50-60 years ago a similar Type case went before the Supreme court, and they ruled You cannot prevent a person access to their Home..
the problem is the township has already built or is offering to build another road to the edge of their property in an area the town knows it will be very expensive for the homeowners to build their driveway so the land lock part wouldn't apply in court
@@krazzygranny7032 Probably connects to the other side of the property from the house. Well, that's perfect for a meth lab! Let the neighbor barracade the road in, then the police will have to cross your 120 acre property on foot to get ya. Who needs a driveway when you have meth?
So let me get this straight. The “Township Supervisor” owns the land adjacent to these folks, he is the one the township is transferring ownership of the road to, and if he drives this family out there’s a piece of property, with no access, and a nice new house on it, at fire-sale prices. No one is going to buy a house that will cost ten of thousands of dollars to access. Must be sweet.
Good chance that as soon as the supervisor picks the land up cheap, suddenly the town will have interest in maintaining the road again.... This is one of the things you fear in libertarian utopias, the owner of the road just deciding to cut you off from your home.
No one? I'm betting the jerk township supervisor would buy that land for pennies on the dollar since there's "no access." And then the access problems would mysteriously disappear, guaranteed.
I remember a man who tore up a town with a bulldozer because he couldn't use a road to get to his business, now it might be time for Killdozer 2: Family Boogaloo.
Oh, it was WAY worse then that. They did every dirty little trick to that poor guy. They even fined him for damages to the sewer line caused by the town itself... they kept pushing and pushing and pushing..
That's not true. They didn't charge him for damages to the sewer line. They were insisting that he had to pay for the sewer hookup...after he started dumping raw sewage into a drainage ditch.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that if a road exists for longer than 10 years with regular consistent travel, it becomes an easement. I remember my business law professor talking about this when I was in college. I own a house with an access road next to it controlled by the water conservancy district. It is a more convenient way to access my property and I use that road. In fact the original owners designed the house around access via that road. When I decided to go from renter to owner, the title company said I could no longer use that access road. I approached the conservancy district about getting a letter granting me legal access. They said no. When I went back in person to ask why, I was told "we know the property was developed around using that road and has existed for over 25 years, and we're okay with you using it but we're not going to sign a legal document granting legal access." Because I can access from the far side of the property, the title company eventually still approved the sale. But if for some reason the county sells the land, do I have an easement to keep the road open. My title company says no.
@@sanangelo7926 federal RICO or fraud laws. The neighbor is using his power with the council to drive off the new neighbors. I'm guessing so he can scoop up the land, with a nice new house and a nice newly graded road along with other improvements. probably so the fucker can turn around and sell it to some other poor sucker. Small town bullying and congaming at it's worst. seen it before. the people who engage in it should be fed into a woodchipper and made into mulch
@@howlers8 this would still need to go through the Minnesota state court system as the state would ( or at least should) have applicable anti corruption statutes, unless the neighbor is scamming people across state lines federal statutes wouldn’t apply
Let this be a warning to anyone thinking of moving into that township. If this family is getting so much hostility from trying to access the property they bought, I can only imagine what will be done to the new access road.
I'm sure all the access problems will sort themselves out after the neighbour who happens to be on the township board forces them out and buys the land and house with no access at pennies to the dollar....
So the homeowner paid for the the road to their property to be graded and make room for school buses to turn around and then the township declares that road to be private property. Now the township wants to offer a new path to get to the property but the homeowner has to pay to improve that road as well??? I think a suggestion might be made to the electors in attendance at the next meeting that they might want to find a solution before the entire township budget gets consumed by legal expenses.
Yeah and the family has been granted access then by the other family over the years and now so neighbors can’t really cut off access …. But they also allowed them to improve there property so is it the other families now because of swatted provisions? This is a crazy ass story we need more in-depth analysis!!
And I’d plow the road and get the ticket or they should have demanded the ticket for plowing that proves state consoders it their property and should be maintained by them as such
Of course, it is quite clear what this is, the other property owner has government authority and is using his government authority personally so as to make this family's life a living hell. Classic case of abuse of power by small town petty functionaries.
There's more to it than that - the description in the video notes that a new road would traverse a swamp - which could, and I suspect would, lead to charges of Federal Wetlands Protection violations. - I smell a setup.
-@@CountryConcertsVIP- Plus they can't have it both ways its abandoned because of the 40 yr rule, and its the townships right to maintain it so you cant plow it. The township is being petty and making excuses, first the roads in disrepair they are not going to fix. New homeowner fixes that on his own dime. Now they still don't want to maintain it. We will grant you another access point but you the homeowner need to build it spend more money to appease us. Dictatorial bastards.
"This land here? That's not a road. Used to be a road, but now it's not a road any more." "So I can plow it when it snows?" "No ma'am, plowing a public road is illegal."
um when they were talking about plowing the road that was not talking about snow plowing the road but plowing as in clearing an area for the road in this case it would be to remove the old surface gravel and plants over growing it AKA plowing up the old road getting it ready to be properly leveled for the new road surface to be put on no one was saying you could not clear snow off a public road so your statement should read "This land here? That's not a road. Used to be a road, but now it's not a road any more." "So I can plow it up and replace it my self?" "No ma'am, plowing up a public road is illegal."
I live on a dirt road in Wells, Minnesota. Until recently this road was nothing but a 33' wide easement through a farm field. The owners of the farm wanted to subdivide two acres, at the end of the road, from the 200+ acre farm. The county required the owners of the farm to dedicate a strip of land 66' wide all the way to new two-acre parcel for a public road. The township requires the property owners along the road to maintain it, even though the property owners were required to dedicate the land for a public road. Private roads are not allowed in the county (Rice County) and the easement that was in existence, and used for the past 60+ years was not suitable to the goverment. We now have the property owners along a public road being forced to maintain a public road. The best part is that a portion of the land given to the county the farm owners did not own. Back in the 1950's the owner of the farm gave a piece of the land to the property owners along the road for a shared well. I have no intention of ever giving up my ownership interest in that piece of shared property. I anticipate that the road will be getting a little narrow at that point. This is life in a Minnesota township.
Regardless of who owns the property under the road, when the township granted a lawful resident the right to build a home on property within its jurisdiction, it also re-obligated itself to circumstancially maintain and improve all travel corridors and collateral utility rights-of-way historically established within its jurisdiction. Levying and then collecting even just a single tax revenue from a citizen minimally obligates an incorporated community to provide unbiased services to that as well as all other community members.
As someone who has argued many cases in Courts, I know presentation is everthing! I am at aww with your presentation! I can tell that you know what your speaking about and you nailed it!
Sounds logical to me. A road cannot disappear when there is a property at the end of it. DUH. The lines have to be on a survey map. Sounds like prejudice to me and unconstitutional. These people call themselves humans. Time to stop paying their property taxes!
Saw this happen in Fort Worth, Teas when they built an extension to the Eastside of 820. They actually built a bridge right over the top of a neighborhood with no access or exit ramps. The only way residents could go home was to cut across a cow pasture. Many were arrested for trespass and violating, some strange ordinance the city and the landowner had to enact. Soon the entire community vanished off the map. I went back to Fort worth a few years ago and noticed that Lake Arlington was enlarged westward and the neighborhood that was once there, is somewhere 30 feet under the lake. At least a volcano wiped out Pompeii. Urban renewal is what I was told, just freaking steal the property from the residents and those that are too stubborn to leave and try to hang on, just send in 500 million gallons of water to do the job. We have seen the best of days and they are far behind us.
Can you find any articles about this? I’d love to read up on it. I’m a Fort Worth native and I also noticed the lake expanded but never knew the cause.
@@peyton1296 Back 40+ years ago I lived on the Eastside off Berry (Eastwood addition) near Stop 6. The community I mentioned was named Mosier Valley and was comprised of mostly pig farms near John T. White, south of Meadowbrook. Mosier Valley is now an exclusive part of North Richland. I last visited the original Mosier Valley in the 1980s to view a gravesite at a small Baptist Church in the area that is now completely submerged. It was the first Black community in Fort Worth and prior to that it was a huge plantation. Not sure of any articles but there are some youtube videos discussing the area and their battle to hang on to their legacy. But Lake Arlington and business expansions are at the few remaining residents doorsteps. I did hear a few years ago that the governor, at the time, forced the land owner and the City of Fort Worth to reopen the pasture so they could at least get to what's left of their homes. I enjoyed my time in Fort Worth and miss the community but I will never return. Retired from General Dynamic and Lockheed and moved to Ohio to a city the size of the date on a dime. Take care.
@@furturisticfrontierfilms then the expanding of the lake I’m talking about was definitely due to flooding. Your instance was way before my time. Thanks for all the info and your reply!
@@ObservationofLimits Sure, the city would claimed the area was a high crime area and sent in the police and eradicated everyone under the guise of "Civil Disobedience" or some other made up reason that most "people" would agree with. See Philadelphia, where the Mayor Wilson Goode, blew up the entire neighborhood. These people had no rights that have to be recognized in any court, none.
Somehow small town corruption was 1st thing that came to my mind reading the title. Clear prior usage right of usage/easement case. They have even rebuilt the road (that is actually landowner's responsibility). Which could be seen as prepayment for the easement.
I would ask if the landlocked property has been self-sufficient or if the utilities were cut off when the township denied the existence of the access road. Maybe the utilities might protest having to realign to the 'second option' instead of having the right of way on the established road. Imagine the township being served with a detailed bill of projected costs that will be passed on to the state utility commission, with threat of legal action. Part of the reason for maintaining the access road is to provide repair crews... access.
Most states require that a property has 'access' before it can be fully transfered. It could a road all the way to the property or a legal easement negotiated by the property owners, or in some cases, the easement is actually forced on a surrounding land owner. From what I've seen, a lot of landlocked properties are listed over and over again, year after year. Why? There isn't a public right of way to the property and there's no preexisting easement, which means that before the new owner can buy it, they either have to negotiate an easement (something nearly every property owner wants to avoid) OR they have to go through the city/county to force the easement (typically on a piece of property that was the last to have provided access). Forcing easements takes *forever* because property owners usually fight them, so the landlocked property never sells.
If I was in that situation, I would make a go fund me to buy an helicopter and be able to get off my property and have the road owner regret his decision by having to endure the sound of a chopper all year long. Lol
I went to look at a empty lot a few years back with the intention of building a house on top of it. The neighbor came out and said he already bought it from the owner. It turned out he was lying. He either wanted the lot to remain empty, or wanted to turn away all the buyers so he could buy it cheaply. I am so glad he voluntarily came out and told us essentially “hey I am a jerk and don’t live next to me.” I feel bad for the seller but I would never live next to such a jerk.
I've instigated encounters with potential neighbors just to see how they handle themselves. You were indeed lucky to have him out himself . The resentment of someone buying the property out from under him, despite him being unable to afford it would have only festered with time and construction.
@@michaelsommers2356 instigate does not imply conflict. I let my dog run into a neighbors yard once during a viewing and showed up early to another and milled about in front of the sale property until someone spoke to me. I am nothing but kind and friendly. For some people that's exactly what pisses them off. I have no energy for neighbor revenge, it steals your time or money if not your pets. Id rather find a warm community than a solitary oasis.
This was tried in Florida and courts shut it down really quick. In many states by law access has to be given to land locked plots. I would presume Minnesota has a similar law.
This family would be the perfect candidate to build a fortified bulldozer and level the whole township and a few key people in it...and I would celebrate them as heroes.
If I was them, and if I had the money for it, I'd be flying a helicopter in, low and slow, over the nasty neighbor. Random times, late nights, early mornings.
We had a somewhat similar situation about 30 years ago with some property we owned in New Hampshire. A town road (dirt road) ran down the property line between us and a neighbor (#1). Another neighbor (#2) owned property and a cabin at the end of that road. The town "abandoned" the road, returning the property, split down the middle, to us and our neighbor (#1). That left neighbor #2 with no access to his property. We and neighbor #1 just gave neighbor #2 a permanent easement to use of the road. We didn't have to, but neighbor #2 would have been screwed if we hadn't given the easement.
@@TheBooban NO the new property owner could sue for an implied easement. In most states you can not land lock a piece of property and deny the owner access to it.
We don't own the property any more. We did give neighbor #2 a permanent easement (deed recorded). We did the same thing for a local snowmobile club that needed access to a trail on former railroad tracks. We gave them a permanent easement (deed recorded) along one edge of our former property down to the RR tracks. Both easements are binding on present and future owners.
@@robertbailey947 and the easement to the snowmobile club removes liability from the property owner and moves it to the state insurance. That's how it works here in iowa anyways. I know one guy that put every piece of ground he could into a trail easement to remove his liability if a snowmobiler was to ride there and injure themselves. Even if it wasn't a designated trail.
I have a neighbor that I don't get along with too well that needed to build an access road to his property. I agreed. I couldn't imagine denying someone - even if he doesn't like me - access to his property. The county doesn't maintain the road north of my gate, but my neighbors have the equipment to maintain it, I just have to pay for the gravel and fill-dirt. This town needs to collectively have a "Come to Jesus" moment, since it seems none of them have ever met him.
Years ago I had a family that had a different situation happen. They owned a property that had two township roads on different sides. They built a 2 car gravel road through their property between the two roads. The family though it would be funny to get a "Novelty" road sign with their last name and put at the end of the road they built. Well the township in its redrawing of roads in the county made it a road on a Ohio road map with the family's name they put at the end of it. Much back and forth and the township basically said "you put a road sign now its on the map nothing they could do". They got fined for trying to block the road after putting up a gate to stop people from using it. So because of that they forced the county to pave the road as it was listed as a street and it required to be paved and maintained by the county.
Been in my house for 12 years. The guy who moved in 8 months ago called the cops on me 2 weeks ago for parking in front of my own mailbox. ON A SUNDAY. Now I park there every Saturday afternoon until about 3am on Monday. He just put his house up for sale.
The small town spoken of in this video is now officially shut down and its residents are now paying for whatever they refused to take care of because they do NOT want outsiders in their town so now the town residents are being held against their will for their hatred against outsiders.
“I was always willing to be reasonable until I had to be unreasonable. Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things." - Marvin Heemeyer Wasn’t this case similar?
Yup, they claimed some of his property wasn’t his and there was some clearly back room shenanigans where they sold off part of his land to a big business that tore up the road then built a large building and landlocked him in. Heemeyer did the right thing.
This sounds like you need to just keep appealing up to a higher court that does not have ties in the community then file a grievance against the judge for abuse of power.
@@canileaveitblank1476 sure, unless your someone who loves to spite people. Then you open up a dirt bike corse on your property and make the other family regret ever messing with you.
@@DefectivePotato95 They never said they had to sell the property :P Plenty of money from the suit where they can just move and keep the previous property. I like your idea of a dirt bike course.
I'm from the UK. Years ago I worked on a house which had no vehicle right of way. It could only be accessed by foot. Planning permission is for the building, they wouldn't look at access to the site. I know of several other houses which rely on footpaths or bridleways for access.
It was a bulldozer, layered in step and concrete armor that he sealed himself into using a remote crane. Marvin Heemeyer, may his heaven be properly leveled.
If I’m not mistaken isn’t there a law that says something to the effect of “if a private road crosses your property and you’ve let people use it as a public road for a length of time (10 years I think), then you legally can’t deny people access to that road.” If so, it doesn’t fix all their problems but it does mean they can’t be denied access to their property.
@@wilfdarr naw even the sentence structure was nearly identical....the only difference was a space between the sentences,and I put quotes around the term 'Kill-dozer' because the dude never actually killed anyone
What gets me about this is that the City refused to replow & grade the section going to their house citing costs, but was was perfectly happy to cut a brand new access road on the other side of the property. hmm... I'm pretty sure it cost WAY more to cut a new road than to regrade an existing one. But what do I know, I'm not in public office, thank God.
@@TheRoadhammer379 Steve states in the description that the neighbors don't like them. That doesn't mean that the newcomers are bad people; in small towns, if you're new, that's all it takes.
Steve, this happens more than you'd like to know in Minnesota. Happened to my parents and neighbors. Township sold land and gave permission for homeowner to build in middle of plotted road. The neighbors pooled their money for an attorney and fought to keep the road opened. After years of legal jargon the county decided to drop the roads from county responsibility. Basically there is no accountability for public servants and that need to stop. If you fuck up you fuck up. But you have to take responsibility for your fuck up.
So for those wondering... there is an update! District Court ruled against the township, saying, "It is unreasonable and absurd to allow Defendant to deny maintenance of the latter portion of Hornet Street while maintaining the first portion, leaving the Crismans stranded while what exists of Hornet Street erodes away." Township asked judge to reconsider which they refused. Township is now trying to find a way to settle but gave a deadline of Jan 2022 before they file for an appeal.
nah, sounds like a nice big property for a Bonnaroo type music festival, corn maze, pumpkin patches, weddings, and very noisy and traffic filled activities.
Can we use this road that goes to our house? Can you pave or plow it? NO!THAT'S NOT OUR ROAD! Okay, so can WE plow it ourselves then? NO! THAT'S OUR ROAD! I get that you can dislike a family, but the actions YOU take on them still reflect on you.
So the township recognized the road when they did the building permits, yet somehow, it magically became not a real road when they needed access or service. I wonder if the township screwed themselves by acknowledging the road with the building permits. That was far more recent than 40 years.
@@Skinfaxi The same "rule" is true in New Mexico. The "land-locked" parcels have no direct access to roads or utilities which has led to the development of "colonias" which are sometimes very large in size but have no public roads. In many cases, the land owners are very poor so they don't really have the money to build or maintain any kind of road. Some places use arroyas to access their property. This is not a good thing since an arroya is a channel for water to flow towards a river. Floods are very common.
Steve did I misunderstand, I thought I heard you say that the land owner that controls the road and the township supervisor are in fact the same person. If that is the case wouldn't that be at least a conflict of interest if not an outright abuse of power.
not sure if there was ever a follow up video, but a higher court overturned the decision and chastised the board, calling their actions, "unreasonable, absurd." from an article from the star tribune, "Not maintaining just the last quarter mile knowing that a family is living on the property is unreasonable and cannot be what the legislative scheme anticipated," Hiljus wrote. "Nowhere in [state law] does it state that an electorate may vote to discontinue maintenance of only a portion of a road."
And an appeals court reversed that decision, the Supreme Court declined to hear it, leaving the Crismans without the road, as the neighbor put up gates blocking that portion of it.
@@wanderjahrengoodness, i wish that were an april fool's joke, but knowing how much the GOP has destroyed the sanctity of the legal system, it's entirely unsurprising.
If he was a total A hole as you insinuate he would not keep his road open for for their innocent Children, put 2 and 2 together, yes the township is in the wrong, especially the plowing issue BUT don't you find it odd everyone seems to hate them in the community? There has to be a reason for that, based upon her comments he read it sounds like she has a huge chip on her shoulder and went into the community with small town vs urban immigrants attitude from the start. I grew up in a rural area that became a hot spot for urban Californians to move to and many came there with massive attitude issues which included complaining about pretty much everything in how the County was run, pretty soon everyone in the community hated them.
@@deanfirnatine7814 These are the types of people who are also known as "Californicators". They leave California but want to turn their new location into the place they lived in California. I truly despise people like this. I've lived in many states including CA and in two other countries. I now live in New Mexico where my wife loves it. It's okay for me but it is away from heavy snow and cold so I enjoy that part of it. My rule of thumb: learn to live and adapt to the local communities so you fit in. I did this in Germany and it worked out well.
@@Harry-zz2oh How, though, when a lot of these communities view you from the beginning as the enemy, due to your simply not being born and raised there? If you don't have family locally, you're an "outsider" in a lot of them, and no matter how you act, how you treat people, and so on... sadly, it doesn't always matter. There's also the danger that you might LOOK different than the generalized community, and when it's already an "us vs them" mentality looking for conflict... it's sure some will be found.
@@deanfirnatine7814 Us. Them. They are not like us. They are something different. Not the same thing. They are not... just... people? Humans, same as we are? Why not welcome a new person and hope they will BECOME part of the social community you love because you invited them from the beginning and showed them how nice it could be? This tribal mentality is the cause of a large amount of unnecessary hatred and bloodshed. Humans are all humans. Full stop. Don't assume they're better or worse because of where they're from... if California were another country, would you guys still say all those same things? Would they not be incredibly racist comments, if you instead of "Californians" were saying "Cubans" or "Germans" or "Chinese" or any other national race, the same way you're talking about people from your own country? Judging an entire culture for how you feel about one, or just a few, whom you have met or heard about? I mean... maybe it's just my view from the outside, but it appears a bit... I dunno. Something seems unbalanced here.
They need to have an attorney with strong property rights knowledge. Someone who really understands adverse possession and prescriptive rights and related state laws and case law. Pretty sure the adjacent owner cannot legally block access to their property.
The problem is the judge has proven to either be ignorant or complicit in the illegal act. Lawyers can only do so much when the judge won't do whats right. Even if the lawyer goes after the judge, the ruling still stands until another judge can overturn the ruling. Thats one of the problems with small towns. When someone's in charge and is breaking to law, there's not much to stop them. Other then heavy handed coups or getting some higher level authority to step in, then these people have everyone under their thumb or run out of town.
The Star Tribune published a story last month reporting that a Kanabec County judge has ruled against the township, and they will have to maintain the (portion) of Hornet Street. The township board members refused to comment. 'Nuff said.
@@alexmunoz569 Why? He made an offer to sell the property to the company. The company accepted it. He then offered them his property for something like 2x the cost again after they agreed. The company accepted that offer. Then he was greedy and wanted alot more on top of that, the company said no and canceled the offer. He could have been bought out for not only his asking price but the next price he upped it to afterwards. he was being greedy.
That's what I was thinking as soon as I heard this story. I wonder if the victims have some welding skills. Visit that problem neighbor, and as many of the township leaders as possible, and see if there's a way through the impasse. With enough of the neighborhood made into level lots, maybe a developer could come in afterwards and put in new homes!
Supervisor owns the land the Road crosses says it all. Time to take this case to a higher Court and toss in the cost of fixing the road. Especially since the Sheriff has acknowledged it's a County Road🤦.
*There's no road there -Ok, so we'll just plow this flat bit of land *No, you can't do that -Why not? *There's a road there -So you'll plow it *No -Why not? *Because there's no road there
Steve wouldn't the Family have a claim under MN law for Implied Easement, or Easement of Necessity? I know in MO you can not sell/transfer property without an easement if it would be land locked.
It appears that the township thought of that. They built another road to the family's property, but did it so that the house (that they permitted) is over a quarter mile of swampy ground away from the new road.
So how can the city say its not a road because of this 40 year rule thing in order to not have to maintain it. But then turn around and say it is a road when the family tries to plow it so they can access their property? Sounds like bs to me.
I ran into a similar situation years ago when was a LEO. A piece of land was surrounded by other property and had one access drive in that ran thru one property. The driveway was not state or county maintained and had been built by the property owners of the surrounded property. The land that the drive was on was purchased by a new owner . He decided that he did not want the access road running thru his property. The surrounded landowners would have been fine building a new access road ,except for the fact that the way the other properties were laid out (hills, streams etc.) was not possible without a huge amount of money. The new landowner started blocking the access road by dropping trees across the road, throwing nails on it etc. The landowner was not originally from this state and had no clue how things worked down here. State Law does not allow blocking access to property that is surrounded by other property. The landowner whose land the access road was on kept his insanity up . The landowners of the surrounded property under the law were allowed to sign a warrant on him for the damages to their vehicles and equipment. They also sued him in The Court of Common Pleas (Civil Court) and won. In the end they ended buying the land that the access road was on tp end the issue. But at least this State is smart enough to say you CANNOT block access to someone's property.
Yeah, my state is the same. I find it hard to believe MN allows sale of land with no right-of-way OR accessible road frontage and when that new guy bought the land with the easement to it, that would have been in his deed...not like he didn't know about it.
There is common law regarding right of ways. If there is a road, path, trail that has traditionally been used for access to private or public property, it becomes an public easement and can not be blocked or encroached upon by the land owner who owns the land that right of way is on.
and why the everliving hell is that not a federal law? how can it be even remotely possible for anyone in any way or form to completely block of property? just what kind of missfire would ever allow something like that? absolutely disgusting.
I think the big problem here is , the new people want the Town to grade their driveway right up to the front door. I live four miles down a dirt road and that is not right. We drive 4 mi. to the mailbox and school bus that is on the pavement. Should the city snow plow clear your driveway up to your garage door? Of coarse not.
the township supervisor is claiming the land the road is on due to the townships neglect of road maintenance. The township board is afraid of boss hog (town supervisor) or voted to not maintain the road out of spite. it seems they shouldn't be allowed to close the road to an existing residence. The dates of the towns decisions are pertinent. Was there ever a document to discontinue the full lenght of this road prior to this family moving in?
I looked at the application for building a structure. The application says specifically how far from a road. Since they approved application they did so knowing there was a road. It appears this is a case of good ole boy network, and the neighbor wanting the land/road. Hopefully the appeal process will work.
So let me get this straight, the family didn't just buy some land and willy nilly build a house. They went through the proper procedures and filled out a damn cuck application to beg mr. almighty guv'munt to approve it for the house, and the guv'munt approved it with the details as you stated. Then, when mr. almight guv'munt is required to follow their procedures and provide a road based on what was on said cuck application, they want to simultaneously claim no responsibility AND sick the sheriff on the family because they just maintained the road themselves. Every single one of them involved in this corruption is going to fry for it when they stand in God's court, no cuck app required!
As someone who used to live in a small town -- these are real "small town values." Petty, corrupt, exclusionary. People who wax nostalgic about small towns usually haven't lived in one.
It varies wildly. The vast majority of small towns are peaceful and friendly. It’s just the odd family that gets too many government seats and the power goes to their head.
I lived in a small town for almost 50 years. I would wouldn't want to live in a big city. The larger cities have more regulations, more rules, more cops, more criminals, more taxes ect.
@@alexanderlapp5048 The thing is, small towns appear easy going on the surface, but a lot of rules are unwritten. Everyone has their nose in everyone else's business; as long as you conform there's no problem, but if you're different in any way, watch out, they will gang up on you. It's best if you're born there, if not you're inherently suspect.
@@MrBirdnose, It's best if your parents and grandparents were born there as well. Sometimes it's the newcomers who stir up trouble. Some times people come from the cities and bring drugs and other criminal activities with them.
You reported crucial bit of the story explaining why the strange township abandonment happened but failed to connect the dots: the property that have "consumed" the section of the road in question belongs to,.... taa-daa,... local official... That is the key. That is why this is happening. Not a story of misfits, story of corruption.
@@frankyflowers It only became his property because of the 40 year rule. It was assumed to be town property until then. The 40 year rule sounds like a bad rule. If a town has unused roads they want to sell they should have some process to review what becomes of it. In some cases it may make sense to give it to an adjacent property owner, or to just hold onto it for the future. At no point should it be given to someone in a way that makes someone else's property inaccessible.
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the use of the road over time by the owners, current and former, of the dead end property established an easement. The attempt by a public official (aided by his friends) to gift it to himself shouldn’t erase that easement.
@@Xpnential999999 Well, that's the general principal. It seems though that in Minnesota it takes 15 years of uninterrupted use and the Crismans have only been living there since 2013. I'm not sure how the prior owners use might play into it, but it ain't a slam-dunk at any rate.
I have reason to suspect that since the "road" which "belongs" to a township supervisor is being closed to cost the family major bucks. And presumably force them out of the area. But perhaps worse, how could they sell a property, new house or not, with no address or Access. They seem to want to ruin this family. Perhaps a suit for eminent domain type issues should be pursued. If they cannot sell, and or need to spend tens of thousands to legally get to it, they have serious damages owed to them! Don't know if it can legally remedied but it is obviously true unless undisclosed information exists.
The township doesn't want the road because it costs them and it's unlikely that more revenue will come out of it. Why they granted the building permit? They get the fees.
The last time I heard a township acting like this, the guy ended up building a killdozer.
That guy turned down 6 times the worth of his property which was just a crappy metal building.
"you're going to have to get a bulldozer and make your own 600 foot driveway"
this is the intro to killdozer 2
@@iamchillydogg so? It was his and he wanted to keep it. He has that right, regardless of your approval.
@@iamchillydogg and?
@@badpop987
If he kept it he wouldn't have any access because he bought it without a road to it. The whole thing was stupid. People came to him for his welding skills not for his location. He could have moved and been fine.
You overlooked, or didn't catch, the most important piece of the story. The town supervisor owns the piece of property the road crosses. This is misuse of governmental authority for personal gain, to block access to proper owners AND to reacquire the land which is under authority of imminent domain. The good ol' boys club of town leadership needs to be brought up on state and federal charges, if possible.
Correction: Former Township Supervisor. Although I strongly suspect the "good ol boy" system is in operation in this case.
Be interesting to find out how many times that property was sold for the same dispute .
Sounds like a remake of Duplex only it’s a country farm .
@@splashpit The property isn't landlocked. It has public access from the eastern side of the property.
@@tonyhelms5904 never said it was , my reference was to a movie where an little old lady and adopted cop sun scammed people to buy property cheap some time after selling it to unsuspecting families.
Watch the movie “ Duplex “.
@@tonyhelms5904 question is the easement. Wonder if titlework at the sale describes an easement onto hornet ln
for anyone wondering how this ended here is the TLDR
In the new decision, the judge says a law that allows towns to abandon roads does not explicitly allow leaders to abandon only a section of a road:
"It is unreasonable and absurd to allow Defendant to deny maintenance of the latter portion of Hornet Street while maintaining the first portion, leaving the Crismans stranded while what exists of Hornet Street erodes away. The Town’s formal decision to abandon the latter half of Hornet Street came after the Crismans decided to reside at their home at end of Hornet Street.
"Not maintaining the latter portion of Hornet Street would leave the Crismans at the will of a neighbor who has gone out of his way to make it hard for the Crismans to access their home like any other town resident. Not maintaining the road could also block school buses and any emergency vehicles that needed to get to the Crismans’ home.
"Hornet Street is the only means of access to the home and not maintaining just the last quarter mile knowing that a family is living on the property is unreasonable and cannot be what the legislative scheme anticipated."
As part of the granted order, the town must resume maintenance of the road and remove posts that had been put up by a neighbor.
That's great news!
sadly this was reversed in the Appeals court and they lost access to the road and the Supreme court will not take up the case
Just reading this 2024. Thanks for the update
People don't give a shit in a small town. If this doesn't come to a head this will end bad. I don't know who is right or wrong. I don't know either party. Something needs to give before something really fucking bad happens.
@@harlockJC
How would this decision be reversed and why wouldn't the supreme court do their job (assuming the state supreme court btw not the national one)?
If the sheriff can warn you about plowing a road, it’s a government acknowledgment that the road exists. If the sheriff drove on the road to get there, he maintained the law getting there.
When you add in the fact that the family also paid to repair the road it's clearly not something that the 40-year rule should apply for.
The family should appeal to a higher Court. My guess is that the local judge, being an elected position, is siding with the local politicians for dirty reasons.
Yep.That's an admission the road IS in existence.
@@Elliandr the legal test should be multiple parts: does the road exist today? You can see it. People, Sheriffs, postal service have used it. So yes. Next question is, does removing it via an administrative action violate the equal protection clause? Since it goes half way to the neighbor, but not the second house on the road now via an administrative action that is by public statement clearly support an equal protections claim and harassment. The county commissioners made a road come from the other direction, now placing a burden on the home owner, when an existing road exists, couple with existing public statements, doesn’t that amount to harassment under civil rights violation?
The road existed. That's not the issue. What happened is that the Town exercised its right to decommission the road after not maintaining it for 25+ years.
You're just being logical when logic didn't have much to do with it.
"When you're fighting a corrupt town and a corrupt family who are all in bed together .. you can move and cut your losses or you can buy a bulldozer." ~ Marvin Heemeyer
Those are two possible options! However I have a few other possible options...
Kill doser
I have nothing but respect for Marvin
@@MAXIMUSMINIMALIST straight up
Time for killdozer 3?
I noticed in this piece, that when the family fixed the road and then asked the county to maintain it, the cops were called and told them they could not repair a public road. If it is a public road then the cops have the authority to stop them from repairing said road. However, if it is NOT a public road and the county doesn't want to maintain it, then the police nor the Sheriff have no jurisdiction! Then this is private property. It is either private property or a public road, you cannot have it both ways!
Yes! This…
You can in the right small town
If the township wanted to persecute the owners for plowing a public road, then they were admitting it was their responsiblity.
Yeah. In hindsight, the best thing the family could have done was to call the sheriff's Bluff and continued to plow right in front of the officers. If the sheriff's office would have arrest them for plowing a public road at that time the family could have used that in court to show that the road was considered public by the city. And to further say that if it wasn't public then the city was engaged in malicious prosecution.
It seems ridiculous to think that the best thing that a person could have done was to get in trouble with the law on purpose, but weirdly that's the case.
Still, I think the family should appeal this ruling and use this threat as an assertion of the city's prior recognition that it was public property.
The road wasn't abandoned until after the warning was issued.
@@erikawhelan4673 The 40 year rule includes provisions that stipulate that the road hasn't been maintained for a long time and is in disrepair. It's not something that can be abandoned so suddenly especially after the family spent tens of thousands of dollars to repair it.
Even if the rule did allow it to kick in suddenly, by both preventing the residents from maintaining the road and not maintaining it themselves it could be argued that the city made a conscious attempt even then to make it abandoned - and by "the city" I mean the guy who stood to financially gain from the move.
@@Elliandr The 40-year rule doesn't apply here. There's a Minnesota law that says that a township road that hasn't been opened or maintained for over 25 years requires the approval of the electorate to maintain.
@@Elliandr Sherrif saying something doesn't mean the City says it. They would simply argue the cop was confused.
You definitely did not stress enough how that local government official was abusing his power.
Reminds me of the Killdozer incident.
Swamp rats don’t just live in DC
@@BobBobbingsworth I just made that comment "Holy crap. We gonna have another Killdozer incident! Hot damn!" :D
I love 2 minutes in: The township supervisor owns the land the road is on.
@@JR-bb9ir FORMER township supervisor......
I've just looked up the case, the family is going to be getting back the use of the road after a judge ruled against the township.
I was looking for this comment
Thank you so much
I hope you have a wonderful day, week, month, year and life
Yea! 😁
It's ridiculous that it would take so long, cost so much, etc. It's totally ridiculous
Does anyone have a link to an article about the court ruling? I'd like to see some updated information.
Even then, the other neighbor would still be forced to give an easement either way. You can't have a road be public property forever, be the literal only access point to a property, and then just act like you can landlock them out. Even if the township doesn't have responsibility of that portion of the road any longer, the landowner would still have to grant an easement since it was already in place for decades.
"You're not allowed to plow it - it's our road"
"We're not going to maintain it - it's not our road"
One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong...
thats what i was thinking... how were they going to arrest them for plowing a road they released interest in and claimed didnt exist.
That's what I was thinking. If the town doesn't own the road then the family should be able to plow it. Also, the town should not plow it for the other family either.
I would try to get the charges for plowing - this could be an ultimate proof that the city takes ownership of it..
The red light is green. If you go through the red light, you are running a red light. If you stop at the red light, it's actually green, so you're blocking traffic.
Okay, so I wasn't the only one who picked up on this! How can the sheriff tell them they are not allowed to plow a public road if the town says it isn't a public road. It doesn't make sense.
As a former RE Broker in Mn I can tell you that under Mn law if that road has been used for yrs to access that landlocked property they have a legal easement established whether the council member owning front property likes it or not. And as such have legal right to continue use and can sue if it is blocked. Especially since the council member allowed them to repair the road. He essentially gave them and easement whether he intended to or not
Can you do anything for these folk?
@@j.dragon651 unfortunately no. But there are some very good RE lawyers who could straighten this out for them. I'm actually surprised that now this story is out that someone hasn't already reached out to them
@@curtissiewert2792 I thought the same, pro bono. The publicity would be worth it. Thanks for your sentiments.
I had the same thought
They most likely would not be eligible for an easement by necessity because another road was constructed adjacent to the property. They are not technically landlocked. Easement by prescription due to continued use could make sense but it’s very unlikely given the circumstances where they are in opposition to the town. No filed request that an easement be placed on the neighbors property would be properly considered
A permit is a legally binding document. - If the township approved the permit to build a house on that road, and that road is specifically named on the permit, in doing so, it acknowledged that: A) the road exists; and B) they have the authority over that road. And authority equals responsibility. I think the homeowners have a good case for appeal. Please keep us posted!
my thought exactly
I bet the lower court said something like "it's a civil matter."
yeah sadly, id say back, when the council goes as far to push and tell themt hey cant plow a public road,t hey confirm it is a public road and a government matter
@@abrahamlincoln9758
That could be a good case, but the township is claiming (possibly wrongly) an understanding of a local law that "forces" then to relinquish the road back to the original property due to not maintaining it for 40 years or some crap like that.
It wouldn't have anything to do with their building permit, now. The homeowners would have to argue in court that the law "forcing" the town to relinquish the road (or that last half mile) is illegal, or in some way unconstitutional.
If the law is relatively abolished, then the town would be required to start maintaining it again.
Too bad that after the first judge changed his order and required the town to return access to the property, the Court of Appeals reversed the lower court's decision. And while the state's Supreme Court would be the very place to raise the issue of it being unconstitutional, they aren't willing to hear the case. There's a possibility that it goes against your 5th amendment rights, or something. I'm no lawyer, so it's just a wild guess.
Maybe they should have saved the money from maintaining the road themselves that first year and hired a better lawyer.
When HoA boards get their own township...
@@M167A1 In 99% of cases, the person who moves in next to you is a complete stranger. Is an outsider somebody who moves in from another street, city, state? Seems to me people just label those they don't agree with as "outsiders".
@@addanametocontinue apparently you don't understand the divide between city and country folk
Sounds like a lot of "villages' on Long Island.
@@addanametocontinue You've never lived in small town, have you?
@@bill2629 ya rural hicks aren't worth anything.
I read this in the StarTrib the other day (Minnesotan here), and what struck me was the fact the neighbor, Schmoll, is a former township supervisor. It reeks of "good old boy" back room dealings.
Absolutely, I'm looking to move out of the cities and things like this worry me.
I'd wager a bet these idiots ended up costing their township a boat load of money. I mean the family has been there since 2017!
These things should worry you. Small towns don't like outsiders.
Had something similar happen to a friend here in WV. My friend sued the city and the landowner and won he got $150k from the city and the landowner and the landowner got arrest by state police and the chief of police was fired and city manager fired. He now owns the previous owners land.
@@chasemorris5610 I love a happy ending.
"Why was a building permit granted to build a home in a spot with no roads?"
Same reason the township is still collecting property taxes from this family: government greed
"All property, real and personal, shall be taxed, subject to such exceptions as the Legislature shall by law establish" or similar language to the same effect.
Capitalism.
@@Glmorrs1 LoL! The *GOVERNMENT* , is manipulating rules to take money and enjoyment from normal people. Ya...that characterizes basically everything but capitalism, but maybe one day you'll pick up a book on economics and government and understand...
Commie thinks greed was invented by capitalism, news at 11...
@@Glmorrs1 it's not capitalism, it's government issues.
Capitalism is an economy archetype, taxes are still taken in socialism, communism, dictatorships, and monarchies.
@@Glmorrs1 Government is the exact opposite of capitalism lmao
Cognitive disability?
I would argue that by sending the Sherriff out 4 times telling them to stop plowing the public road the township has admitted it's still their road and must resume maintenance on it and allow the family to use it.
I was thinking the same thing. Either plow it or tell the sheriff to shut up and mind his own business.
@@robertthomas5906
Your mistake is assuming anyone doing this is acting in good faith.
It's clear everyone involved in this is corrupt and just trying to harass the poor homeowner.
@@Dubanx good point. i'd keep plowing it until they arrested me for plowing a "public" road. then we'd go from there ...
They do seem to be flip flopping on the existence and ownership of the road as it suits them.
that's why eventually this will get pushed up to a higher court away from the jurisdiction of the local magistrate where the town will have less influence
This sounds like they should appeal the ruling to a higher court. My guess is the judge is buds with the local politicos.
I only play lawyer for fun, but as far as I can tell the 40 year rule isn't about requirements for municipalities to abandon their property, but rather about enforcing ownership against claims of ownership by others. That could benefit either the town or the former supervisor in an argument about who owns the ROW for the road, but wouldn't be a way for the town to abandon their ownership.
I think he said the neighbor was a county supervisor. If so, that explains the BS
Nothing but playing favorites and government corruption. Albeit on a smaller scale than the federal level.
Same judge apparently overturned this in November, so now the road must be maintained by the township.
@@jonirelan2904 I live down the road from a county commissioner. County commissioners are the most entitled, power hungry people you will ever meet. There's really no checks and balances on the county level, and the state government has no oversight of county issues. So when my neighbor (the county commissioner) decided to chop down trees thirty feet into my property (off a county easement) claiming it was a county project to help maintain the road, I had to lawyer up and fight like hell to get it rectified. He contracted the logging out to one of his buddies companies. They had to replant trees and I now have a restraining order against him. Every employee I spoke to at the county public works basically said they hate him, but he's a commissioner with a lot of power so no one wants to oppose or anger him.
I had a situation kind of like this where I’m from. The last house we had was down a country road along with 4 other homes. The guy that owned the road was ordered to gravel it because cars where getting stuck in bad weather. He did this reluctantly. There came a point where he and the neighbour in the last house got into an altercation over something unrelated. That was when he had a large bush and trees put across the road. He was ordered to remove them. He did but he waited until the last date on the notice. About a week later I drive up the road and there is a 10ft high pile of gravel in the road. He was ordered again to remove it and he didn’t. He then added a gate. Both are still there today and we sold the house 5 years ago. That was a huge pain because we ended up having to leave our car out on the main road and walk to our property. All kinds of weather and bringing shopping and groceries home was a nightmare. Even putting out rubbish was a 20 minute walk to the bin because we couldn’t bring it in. Anytime anyone left the 5 houses we all had to climb over the gravel because there was a bush wall around the land. The last straw was when our son needed an ambulance and it couldn’t get into us. Took a huge loss on the house but couldn’t be happier where we are now.
The town admitted ownership when they sent the Sheriff to cite them for plowing a public road.
I would have said "start writing that ticket, Bitch."
Agree-I'd have been like "as soon as you write that ticket it means you are ADMITTING this is a PUBLIC road and you will HAVE to maintain it, right?"
@Cipheiz they assumed it was their road. It wasn't forgotten about. The BUS came to pick up their kids. And they sent a government official based on that ownership. And they allowed a building permit on property with that road as an address, and probably collecting property taxes on that address as well.
All this shows is how corrupt the entire diseased temple has become.
@Cipheiz It was maintained, up to the first property owner's land. The road existed. Now the part they maintained up to the one property owner is to stay a road, but the other property owner on the road they maintained was denied the same service.
It's not so cut and dry. This isn't eminent domain or anything else. It's a bunch of vindictive dictatorial types who scratch each other's back.
Edit: At a minimum, the new "road" they installed requiring the homeowner to add a driveway that crosses through an area the floods should be brought up to where the other driveway existed. If they can build a new road, they could have maintained the existing one.
@Cipheiz yes, it's very cut and dry . . . corrupt city officials colluding with one property owner at the expense of another, and corrupt judges going along with it.
A few years ago, in my hometown, a warrant ('law' proposed by the Selectmen) was published in the town report to abandon all the class 4 roads. Class 4s are not maintained. This would have meant that millions of dollars of unimproved property could never be built on, dropping the values by 80%. Fortunately people noticed and voted it down at the town meeting, with only the Selectmen voting for the warrant. One of the Selectmen told the local newspaper "I don't know what everyone is so upset about, they didn't already have houses on the roads". The real trouble was that the town has become more and more a bedroom community and the Doctors and Lawyers who moved in and ran for Selectmen are clueless as to how the town operates or its history. After that fiasco, and the School Board wanting to build 3 indoor Olympic class swimming pools for the 8 kids who compete in State swimming, the locals started attending Town Meetings and School Board meetings. Voted out all the Doctors and lawyers, and elected mostly local business owners.
If you live in a Democracy you have to do the work. That includes going to meetings and standing for office. Or you get this sort of Council. Be warned!
@@thenormalyears At least the business owners have a vested interest in the community, and aren't there just to take up space.
Started trying to get involved in my town, it’s a historic city in California. The issue is that tons of people are moving in from San Francisco. They don’t understand the traditions, the culture, or the buildings. It’s terrible to see tasteless shopping malls put up in place of the old baseball fields, and bland cookie cutter houses replacing the old Victorian style downtown. There has even been a move by the city council to tear down the historic buildings in the area and to get rid of the yearly fair. It’s a shame to see things like this happen, and the only people fighting back are the older people of the working class families that have lived here for decades.
God knows what our tax dollars are spent on, it certainly isn’t basic preservation and maybe a little work on the rural roads.
@@M167A1 Correct. But if more people than not want new? New happens. Because there is no right to "tradition".
That is awesome that the locals went to meetings and
told the arrogant politicuans to do not let the door hit you
in the backside. Stop trying to steal peoples money, property and rights of the citizens. Jack asses not welcome, GTFO. If you dont stand up to these POS they just get worse. Good job locals.
Makes me sick to see city officials acting this way. I’m sure if you check you will see there is city corruption at the highest level.
And people are wondering why so many mass shootings are happening. How might this end up?
Hum how did the it looks like the township has messed up. You cannot threaten to fine them for plowing a public road, then turn around and claim it is not a public road. It sounds like the neighbor who is also a politician is a major part of the problem. The Minnesota Attorney General might need to do some investiagating.
It's a rural township. Probably half of them are like that. You mention laws to them, and they just say "Oh we've never done it that way." The majority of the township board where I grew up have been on the board for 20 years, and they don't bother to have their names on the ballot, because it's a hassle, so they just remind people to write their name in.
Seriously?? You want cop hating, self-serving Ellison to help these people??
@@ITSONLYMEWATCHING You an idiot or you just play one on TV?
Exactly - escalate the issue from the township to the Attny General. It will never be resolved at the local level; there are too many personal issues there.
Sue the planning board for the cost of the house, the road upgrades, and everything else they spent on the property since they received a building permit. Also include costs for their time improving the place.
As a settlement, offer to sell the property to the township for the costs above plus the original cost of the property.
Either way, then take your money and go someplace nicer
Seems equitable since the planning board is run by the same guy trying to get rid of them.
"costs above plus the original cost of the property."
That is too little. Original cost does not recognize that "but for negligence" on the towns part, the value of that property would have increased in the interim.
@@shaunclarkson7131 You're assuming that the property value has risen. I bought a house in a small town 26 years ago; the value has only risen 20%. My sister bought a house in a tiny town in South Dakota and remodeled it. She and her husband decided they couldn't take the weather; they couldn't sell the house for any more than they paid for it originally, so they lost every cent they put into the improvements.
Good advice. I wouldn't want to live in a community that treated anybody like this.
It reminds me of many years ago, when I was transferred to a city in northern British Columbia, Canada.
We found a beautiful log home on 10 acres that we fell in love with. There was, however, the possibility of a potential problem.
The property was in a rural area, but still within city limits. The driveway started at the end of what appeared to be little more than a wider driveway, about the width of a city road. There were no street signs, or any other indication that it might indeed be a city street, even though there was another driveway at the end close to ours, to another property.
The real estate agent assured us that it was a city road, but I decided before signing anything, to make sure, by going to city hall. It turned out that it was indeed a city road, built by, and maintained by the city, and that the real estate agent was correct in his assertion, so we bought the house, and enjoyed living there for a number of years. The neighbours turned out to be very nice people, and we became good friends.
The point I'm trying to make here is that, regardless of assumptions, appearances and assurances, to be absolutely sure, go right to the top, and get it in writing. Takes almost no effort, and can save a lot of headaches in the future.
Just wondering about the case in Minnesota, though. Because the "road" had served as access to the property for a number of years, could that not have established a "right of way"?
We had this on another property, where the neighbours used our driveway on our property to gain access to theirs. I was advised that, for legal reasons, I should lock the gate and deny access one day every year. I did that, in consultation with the neighbours, and picked a day when it would not inconvenience them, so it wasn't a big deal, until they sold their place to someone nobody should have for a neighbour. It didn't take very long until I gave them one month to build their own driveway. Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of problems with them, but that's another story.
The issue here is that the land owner didn't like these people at made problems for them. He was the Previous Town Supervisor so he knew how to handle the situation to make life hard on his neighbors. If they check, it would have been deemed okay at the time and it was deemed a road when they got their permit for building their house. It became an issue when the neighbor made it an issue.
sucks you got some bad neighbors,
@@WilliamW1979 but then again, that said neighboor, should also be carefull what he does, because he can brake some laws himself by doing this
@@nielsen145 He already broke laws when he pushed to have the road removed as a road just to be a spiteful neighbor. Abuse of Power and using connections to harass someone, he should be fined and the money going to the family in the house he tried to strand there.
So the local elected official who had the town plowing the road only up to his house gets the township to disown the road so that he can claim it as his own in an attempt to force his neighbors out? Also, how does the 40 year rule apply if the family was threatened with legal action for plowing a government owned road? At that point, doesn't the clock reset?
its a elected official trying to make land grab but the property was sold to someone else and he board chairman is doing anything he can to punish homeowner
Yet more proof that every town would be improved by sustained artillery bombardment of the local churches during service.
@@wrench0060 what a douche canoe, lovely legacy to leave behind. Consider instead he could have been the beneficent and dignified elderly leader of the township who's memory was kept alive by those girls for his kindness and wisdom. Now he'll be remembered very briefly after death for his consumate greed and territorial panic.
@@justicar5 drones with fireworks could be quicker and cheaper.
@@maebandy the quote that stuck out at me was "big city folks think they can come in here and do whatever they want..."
Yeah, ummm that sounds more like confession through projection.
My uncle was in a similar situation and found out the county was collecting federal/state dollars to maintain it but used it for income without the cost of actually doing the work.
Maybe these folks should check on their situation about this may be same situation ?
As a surveyor, I find these stories very interesting.
In Virginia roads could either be discontinued or abandoned. Roads are not abandoned if it would land-lock any properties. When a road is abandoned, the road right of way and any public access easements are abandoned. Roads that are discontinued still maintain a public easement, but are not publicly maintained. If you have a house on a discontinued road, you have to maintain it, but the public is still allowed access. Mail and school buses stop where the road begins to be a discontinued road. As you might expect, discontinued roads are dead end dirt roads with just one or a few houses on it. Counties do this to save money.
Their neighbor is a former county supervisor, and it makes me wonder if he's calling in favors with the current county board members. A corruption investigation may be in order.
Probably working to orders from the shape-shifting alien reptiles.
You should sue.
@@oldbatwit5102 you got any extra of whatever you're smoking? It must be pretty good.
@@elkvis I get it from 'current county board members'.
They are everywhere.
Former township supervisor. He's also been grazing his cattle on the other property, and cutting hay on it. On the land he does not own.
That's the way a lot of small town govts work. "I grew up with Bubba an' he owes me a favor. These people are 'outsiders' anyways."
odd that they claim the road to keep them from plowing it and then deny it is theirs for maintenance. Also many states have laws preventing the landlocking of property so that it has no access. The family being hurt by this should sue on that grounds.
It's not landlocked. Too bad if the other road is on the far side of their property.
@@nodak81 it is land locked. They said there was a swamp blocking the far side of the property
Plus that road was a right of way for them and was being removed which can’t be done.
The world easement comes to mind. It’s almost impossible to cut someone off that has been used by someone for years.
If the mail runs and they have school kids I can’t see anyone gets totally cut off.
After being with a sheriff department for 14 years, I’ve seen several of these. They are not fun and sometimes you can’t make everyone happy.
Here in Oklahoma, it is against the law to 'land-lock' a property. How well ya'll get along is irrelevant. If the county abandons the road, it basically has no authority.
My driveway is half a mile long and is a shared private drive. It predates my house, which I built at the end of it about a decade ago. It's on four different properties (thankfully near the edges) before getting to my personal section. If any one of them tried to block access they would be in violation of PA state laws. Now that said, I can't just buy a piece of land-locked property to which there is no current access and force a neighbor to allow me to build a road (unless that person is the one who sold me the property because then there is an implied easement which prevents people from selling plots of their land and then denying access to it).
They're not being land locked, as there is another access. The fact it's unfeasible or costly to accommodate is another issue.
@@ttww1590 If I understand correctly, at the moment, there is only one access. The landowner of the road cannot block access to the other land owner. That would land-lock the other landowner. IMO, just because the county agreed to grant access, by way of a different route, the land owner is under no obligation to choose that option. But I don't know all the laws and circumstances, so I could be completely wrong on that point. Interesting topic.
One can "land lock" themselves out by selling the "front" that has access and keeping the back. Can't sell the back without some type of access. I know of a case that went through the Texas courts where a lake was built and cut off road access to a large chunk of property. The courts ruled that there is access. By way of the lake.
@Cipheiz Well, there are a lot unknown details to dive into it too deep. If I were the landowner at the end of the road, I wouldn't do anything. IMO, once the county abandons the road, access should be 'grandfathered' in. By using this tact, the owner of the road is completely helpless, in trying to stop access. This of course depends on the 'grandfather clause' laws in the local area. Now, if the granted county access were indeed opened up, that changes everything.
There is so much wrong with this situation. Its also why zoning and permanent easements exist. If its a public road with a public address on it, the township is required to maintain it.
The judge needs to grant a permanent easement due to the township declaring the road private.
@@kamX-rz4uy usually there is an easement or right of way formthe road, which with a valid address onnthat road, should have never been abandoned even after the 40 year rule. It wasn't abandoned, as there was still a functioning address on it. The property owner being part ofmthe board should have raised all kinds of red flags and should lose the land. It would be interesting to see if they updated the property books and the deeds, because if they didn't, the town still owns the land. Its illogical the courts would side with,the town here, as they likely violated their own charter or laws.
I think the reason another road was extended to the edge of their property was so Smoles could contest the easement saying there was other access to the property. The whole things stinks of township corruption with the land owner the road runs across.
@@porcelainthunder2213 Oh I agree the township is in the wrong here but at the very least declaring an easement is in place would prevent loss of access in case this escalates before getting fully resolved.
@@tfodthogtmfof7644 It might be better for the family to connect to the other road but only if the judge declares the township pay for it. Due to the cost they'll probably back down and reinstate the original road.
I came across this same problem in Oklahoma. My drive crossed another property. The other land owners resented my perches of the land because they had been using it as there own for years. I found out the property taxes hadn't been paid i paid them then put a lean on the property of the other land owners. Now i have access to my property with no problems.
I remember a similar situation where a heavily armored bulldozer was used to flatten a large chunk of the township ending in a deadly standoff.
I have read Kill Dozer, from seeing another video about it. The last three to four chapters ruin the book.
Am I missing something, or is it the township's position that a)it's not a public road, so the township can't plow it, and b) it's a public road, so the family can't plow it?
I was thinking the same thing. If the township give them a citation for plowing a public road. Then it would be hard to say after that that it was not a public road.
@@AD-xt9og “It’s two, two, two roads in one.”
@@AD-xt9og They were never issued a citation; Just "told" to stop plowing it...Should have kept plowing it; Then, payed the citation, and used it as acknowledgement that the township considered the road public...
@@brentfarvors192 Exactly.
Apparently, "you can't have it both ways" doesn't apply in this town.
That sounds like it's a legal easement to access property that has been established since the early 1900s... and for the township to just say it is not a road any longer is incredibly ridiculous. I'm surprised the judge ruled in the favor of the township. Perhaps there is some collusion between the judge and township. Everyone has a right to access their property and the established easement should be the method of access.
I wonder if they have mail delivered to them. Maybe they can get the federal government to step in since it would be used for federal access. I would have gone to the county and/or state level since it connects to a count road.
I understand the township no longer wishing to maintain a road that is more like an individual family's driveway but their right to use the easement shouldn't be in question. If the neighbor is a township board member, there are ethical questions about his role in this dispute.
If I remember correctly, about 50-60 years ago a similar Type case went before the Supreme court, and they ruled You cannot prevent a person access to their Home..
We don't need courts to tell us that everyone has the natural right to wander the Earth freely and interact with any creatures they come across.
Good Fence's Make Good Neighbors - Land Locked Land Must Have Easement Rights
the problem is the township has already built or is offering to build another road to the edge of their property in an area the town knows it will be very expensive for the homeowners to build their driveway so the land lock part wouldn't apply in court
@@krazzygranny7032 Probably connects to the other side of the property from the house. Well, that's perfect for a meth lab! Let the neighbor barracade the road in, then the police will have to cross your 120 acre property on foot to get ya. Who needs a driveway when you have meth?
Soemone wants to get them to sale
Not in all jurisdictions.
@@djtraintxk 💯
As a native Minnesotan, I can confirm we have many Matthews here.
So let me get this straight. The “Township Supervisor” owns the land adjacent to these folks, he is the one the township is transferring ownership of the road to, and if he drives this family out there’s a piece of property, with no access, and a nice new house on it, at fire-sale prices. No one is going to buy a house that will cost ten of thousands of dollars to access. Must be sweet.
Not to mention a freshly graded road that the family just paid thousands to renovate.
Yep, corruption & scumbaggery at its worst.
@@jjnitzh1 thats not hard to destroy with a tractor and plow
Good chance that as soon as the supervisor picks the land up cheap, suddenly the town will have interest in maintaining the road again....
This is one of the things you fear in libertarian utopias, the owner of the road just deciding to cut you off from your home.
No one? I'm betting the jerk township supervisor would buy that land for pennies on the dollar since there's "no access." And then the access problems would mysteriously disappear, guaranteed.
I remember a man who tore up a town with a bulldozer because he couldn't use a road to get to his business, now it might be time for Killdozer 2: Family Boogaloo.
Oh, it was WAY worse then that. They did every dirty little trick to that poor guy. They even fined him for damages to the sewer line caused by the town itself... they kept pushing and pushing and pushing..
That's not true. They didn't charge him for damages to the sewer line. They were insisting that he had to pay for the sewer hookup...after he started dumping raw sewage into a drainage ditch.
He could use the road. He was just too greedy to pay for a municipal sewer hookup and kept demanding more money for his property.
The Frank Reynolds reference is spot on here
What can you do when you build on the mob's property, you pay the mob.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that if a road exists for longer than 10 years with regular consistent travel, it becomes an easement. I remember my business law professor talking about this when I was in college.
I own a house with an access road next to it controlled by the water conservancy district. It is a more convenient way to access my property and I use that road. In fact the original owners designed the house around access via that road. When I decided to go from renter to owner, the title company said I could no longer use that access road. I approached the conservancy district about getting a letter granting me legal access. They said no. When I went back in person to ask why, I was told "we know the property was developed around using that road and has existed for over 25 years, and we're okay with you using it but we're not going to sign a legal document granting legal access." Because I can access from the far side of the property, the title company eventually still approved the sale. But if for some reason the county sells the land, do I have an easement to keep the road open. My title company says no.
File a federal lawsuit instead of fighting it locally.
And what federal law did they violate? Also feelings is not something you can use to say was violated. There has to be a actual law.
@@sanangelo7926 federal RICO or fraud laws. The neighbor is using his power with the council to drive off the new neighbors. I'm guessing so he can scoop up the land, with a nice new house and a nice newly graded road along with other improvements. probably so the fucker can turn around and sell it to some other poor sucker. Small town bullying and congaming at it's worst. seen it before. the people who engage in it should be fed into a woodchipper and made into mulch
@@howlers8 this would still need to go through the Minnesota state court system as the state would ( or at least should) have applicable anti corruption statutes, unless the neighbor is scamming people across state lines federal statutes wouldn’t apply
Let this be a warning to anyone thinking of moving into that township. If this family is getting so much hostility from trying to access the property they bought, I can only imagine what will be done to the new access road.
It sounds more like a project for some eccentric multimillionaire to start moving more _“outsider”_ families in.
@@shoveI We don't know the story.
I'm sure all the access problems will sort themselves out after the neighbour who happens to be on the township board forces them out and buys the land and house with no access at pennies to the dollar....
The lesson is don't buy land that has access issues. Unless you own a drone copter
@@jerrydwyer9057 please explain how a "drone copter" will help to resolve the issue.
Surely the real estate company that sold the property is also at fault?
So the homeowner paid for the the road to their property to be graded and make room for school buses to turn around and then the township declares that road to be private property.
Now the township wants to offer a new path to get to the property but the homeowner has to pay to improve that road as well???
I think a suggestion might be made to the electors in attendance at the next meeting that they might want to find a solution before the entire township budget gets consumed by legal expenses.
Yeah and the family has been granted access then by the other family over the years and now so neighbors can’t really cut off access …. But they also allowed them to improve there property so is it the other families now because of swatted provisions? This is a crazy ass story we need more in-depth analysis!!
And I’d plow the road and get the ticket or they should have demanded the ticket for plowing that proves state consoders it their property and should be maintained by them as such
Of course, it is quite clear what this is, the other property owner has government authority and is using his government authority personally so as to make this family's life a living hell. Classic case of abuse of power by small town petty functionaries.
There's more to it than that - the description in the video notes that a new road would traverse a swamp - which could, and I suspect would, lead to charges of Federal Wetlands Protection violations. - I smell a setup.
-@@CountryConcertsVIP- Plus they can't have it both ways its abandoned because of the 40 yr rule, and its the townships right to maintain it so you cant plow it.
The township is being petty and making excuses, first the roads in disrepair they are not going to fix. New homeowner fixes that on his own dime. Now they still don't want to maintain it. We will grant you another access point but you the homeowner need to build it spend more money to appease us. Dictatorial bastards.
"This land here? That's not a road. Used to be a road, but now it's not a road any more."
"So I can plow it when it snows?"
"No ma'am, plowing a public road is illegal."
Consistency isn't their strong suite. :-P
@@aussiebloke609 consistently being corrupt power abusing mini tyrants
"Yawp, lotta history on that rod thar."
😆😆😆
um when they were talking about plowing the road that was not talking about snow plowing the road but plowing as in clearing an area for the road in this case it would be to remove the old surface gravel and plants over growing it AKA plowing up the old road getting it ready to be properly leveled for the new road surface to be put on
no one was saying you could not clear snow off a public road
so your statement should read
"This land here? That's not a road. Used to be a road, but now it's not a road any more."
"So I can plow it up and replace it my self?"
"No ma'am, plowing up a public road is illegal."
I live on a dirt road in Wells, Minnesota. Until recently this road was nothing but a 33' wide easement through a farm field. The owners of the farm wanted to subdivide two acres, at the end of the road, from the 200+ acre farm. The county required the owners of the farm to dedicate a strip of land 66' wide all the way to new two-acre parcel for a public road. The township requires the property owners along the road to maintain it, even though the property owners were required to dedicate the land for a public road. Private roads are not allowed in the county (Rice County) and the easement that was in existence, and used for the past 60+ years was not suitable to the goverment. We now have the property owners along a public road being forced to maintain a public road.
The best part is that a portion of the land given to the county the farm owners did not own. Back in the 1950's the owner of the farm gave a piece of the land to the property owners along the road for a shared well. I have no intention of ever giving up my ownership interest in that piece of shared property. I anticipate that the road will be getting a little narrow at that point.
This is life in a Minnesota township.
Regardless of who owns the property under the road, when the township granted a lawful resident the right to build a home on property within its jurisdiction, it also re-obligated itself to circumstancially maintain and improve all travel corridors and collateral utility rights-of-way historically established within its jurisdiction. Levying and then collecting even just a single tax revenue from a citizen minimally obligates an incorporated community to provide unbiased services to that as well as all other community members.
As someone who has argued many cases in Courts, I know presentation is everthing!
I am at aww with your presentation! I can tell that you know what your speaking about and you nailed it!
Sounds logical to me. A road cannot disappear when there is a property at the end of it. DUH. The lines have to be on a survey map. Sounds like prejudice to me and unconstitutional. These people call themselves humans. Time to stop paying their property taxes!
Also the property is owned by the Township supervisor, just a slight conflict of interest. It's plain corruption.
@Cipheiz You've never heard of the Good Old Boys Network have you?
Whether it's a public road, or private road, isn't there legal precident saying that they have to be given access to that road?
Saw this happen in Fort Worth, Teas when they built an extension to the Eastside of 820. They actually built a bridge right over the top of a neighborhood with no access or exit ramps. The only way residents could go home was to cut across a cow pasture. Many were arrested for trespass and violating, some strange ordinance the city and the landowner had to enact. Soon the entire community vanished off the map. I went back to Fort worth a few years ago and noticed that Lake Arlington was enlarged westward and the neighborhood that was once there, is somewhere 30 feet under the lake. At least a volcano wiped out Pompeii. Urban renewal is what I was told, just freaking steal the property from the residents and those that are too stubborn to leave and try to hang on, just send in 500 million gallons of water to do the job. We have seen the best of days and they are far behind us.
Can you find any articles about this? I’d love to read up on it. I’m a Fort Worth native and I also noticed the lake expanded but never knew the cause.
@@peyton1296 Back 40+ years ago I lived on the Eastside off Berry (Eastwood addition) near Stop 6. The community I mentioned was named Mosier Valley and was comprised of mostly pig farms near John T. White, south of Meadowbrook. Mosier Valley is now an exclusive part of North Richland. I last visited the original Mosier Valley in the 1980s to view a gravesite at a small Baptist Church in the area that is now completely submerged. It was the first Black community in Fort Worth and prior to that it was a huge plantation. Not sure of any articles but there are some youtube videos discussing the area and their battle to hang on to their legacy. But Lake Arlington and business expansions are at the few remaining residents doorsteps. I did hear a few years ago that the governor, at the time, forced the land owner and the City of Fort Worth to reopen the pasture so they could at least get to what's left of their homes. I enjoyed my time in Fort Worth and miss the community but I will never return. Retired from General Dynamic and Lockheed and moved to Ohio to a city the size of the date on a dime. Take care.
@@furturisticfrontierfilms then the expanding of the lake I’m talking about was definitely due to flooding. Your instance was way before my time. Thanks for all the info and your reply!
Damn that’s ridiculous. They should have banded together and exercised some serious rights.
@@ObservationofLimits Sure, the city would claimed the area was a high crime area and sent in the police and eradicated everyone under the guise of "Civil Disobedience" or some other made up reason that most "people" would agree with. See Philadelphia, where the Mayor Wilson Goode, blew up the entire neighborhood. These people had no rights that have to be recognized in any court, none.
When you are on a road that doesn't exist, what ticket and fine do you get for plowing the nonexistent road?
You want 'Kill-Dozer?"
Cause this is exactly how you get 'Kill-Dozer'
Somehow small town corruption was 1st thing that came to my mind reading the title.
Clear prior usage right of usage/easement case. They have even rebuilt the road (that is actually landowner's responsibility). Which could be seen as prepayment for the easement.
I would ask if the landlocked property has been self-sufficient or if the utilities were cut off when the township denied the existence of the access road. Maybe the utilities might protest having to realign to the 'second option' instead of having the right of way on the established road. Imagine the township being served with a detailed bill of projected costs that will be passed on to the state utility commission, with threat of legal action. Part of the reason for maintaining the access road is to provide repair crews... access.
I thought there was a law that you must have access to your property especially if the town is charging property taxes. This could be a huge law suit
Most states require that a property has 'access' before it can be fully transfered.
It could a road all the way to the property or a legal easement negotiated by the property owners, or in some cases, the easement is actually forced on a surrounding land owner.
From what I've seen, a lot of landlocked properties are listed over and over again, year after year.
Why? There isn't a public right of way to the property and there's no preexisting easement, which means that before the new owner can buy it, they either have to negotiate an easement (something nearly every property owner wants to avoid) OR they have to go through the city/county to force the easement (typically on a piece of property that was the last to have provided access). Forcing easements takes *forever* because property owners usually fight them, so the landlocked property never sells.
...let the attorney opine on that.
If I was in that situation, I would make a go fund me to buy an helicopter and be able to get off my property and have the road owner regret his decision by having to endure the sound of a chopper all year long. Lol
I came to post the same thing.
Matthew 1: Permission to buzz the neighbor’s house?
Matthew 2: Permission granted!
@Jim McIntosh Ok Arnold! 😂
I went to look at a empty lot a few years back with the intention of building a house on top of it. The neighbor came out and said he already bought it from the owner. It turned out he was lying. He either wanted the lot to remain empty, or wanted to turn away all the buyers so he could buy it cheaply. I am so glad he voluntarily came out and told us essentially “hey I am a jerk and don’t live next to me.” I feel bad for the seller but I would never live next to such a jerk.
I've instigated encounters with potential neighbors just to see how they handle themselves. You were indeed lucky to have him out himself . The resentment of someone buying the property out from under him, despite him being unable to afford it would have only festered with time and construction.
@@pa28cfi Not everyone has the kind of money that William Astor had to spite those they don't like.
@Thor Odinson you're a man after my own heart. Greetings from Ireland.
@@maebandy Sounds like tortious interference to me.
@@michaelsommers2356 instigate does not imply conflict. I let my dog run into a neighbors yard once during a viewing and showed up early to another and milled about in front of the sale property until someone spoke to me. I am nothing but kind and friendly. For some people that's exactly what pisses them off. I have no energy for neighbor revenge, it steals your time or money if not your pets. Id rather find a warm community than a solitary oasis.
This was tried in Florida and courts shut it down really quick. In many states by law access has to be given to land locked plots. I would presume Minnesota has a similar law.
This family would be the perfect candidate to build a fortified bulldozer and level the whole township and a few key people in it...and I would celebrate them as heroes.
Hell yeah bring on Killdozer 2.0
@@roachlarry1488 please post the link for the killdozer gofundme.
If I was them, and if I had the money for it, I'd be flying a helicopter in, low and slow, over the nasty neighbor. Random times, late nights, early mornings.
We had a somewhat similar situation about 30 years ago with some property we owned in New Hampshire. A town road (dirt road) ran down the property line between us and a neighbor (#1). Another neighbor (#2) owned property and a cabin at the end of that road. The town "abandoned" the road, returning the property, split down the middle, to us and our neighbor (#1). That left neighbor #2 with no access to his property. We and neighbor #1 just gave neighbor #2 a permanent easement to use of the road. We didn't have to, but neighbor #2 would have been screwed if we hadn't given the easement.
@@TheBooban Good question.
@@TheBooban NO the new property owner could sue for an implied easement. In most states you can not land lock a piece of property and deny the owner access to it.
@@TheBooban he did say they gave him a "permanent easement"
We don't own the property any more. We did give neighbor #2 a permanent easement (deed recorded). We did the same thing for a local snowmobile club that needed access to a trail on former railroad tracks. We gave them a permanent easement (deed recorded) along one edge of our former property down to the RR tracks. Both easements are binding on present and future owners.
@@robertbailey947 and the easement to the snowmobile club removes liability from the property owner and moves it to the state insurance. That's how it works here in iowa anyways. I know one guy that put every piece of ground he could into a trail easement to remove his liability if a snowmobiler was to ride there and injure themselves. Even if it wasn't a designated trail.
I have a neighbor that I don't get along with too well that needed to build an access road to his property.
I agreed. I couldn't imagine denying someone - even if he doesn't like me - access to his property.
The county doesn't maintain the road north of my gate, but my neighbors have the equipment to maintain it, I just have to pay for the gravel and fill-dirt.
This town needs to collectively have a "Come to Jesus" moment, since it seems none of them have ever met him.
Years ago I had a family that had a different situation happen. They owned a property that had two township roads on different sides. They built a 2 car gravel road through their property between the two roads. The family though it would be funny to get a "Novelty" road sign with their last name and put at the end of the road they built. Well the township in its redrawing of roads in the county made it a road on a Ohio road map with the family's name they put at the end of it. Much back and forth and the township basically said "you put a road sign now its on the map nothing they could do". They got fined for trying to block the road after putting up a gate to stop people from using it. So because of that they forced the county to pave the road as it was listed as a street and it required to be paved and maintained by the county.
THIS should be in the dictionary as one of the defintions of Ohio.
Takings clause didn't apply? Seems like it would.
Been in my house for 12 years. The guy who moved in 8 months ago called the cops on me 2 weeks ago for parking in front of my own mailbox. ON A SUNDAY. Now I park there every Saturday afternoon until about 3am on Monday. He just put his house up for sale.
The small town spoken of in this video is now officially shut down and its residents are now paying for whatever they refused to take care of because they do NOT want outsiders in their town so now the town residents are being held against their will for their hatred against outsiders.
“I was always willing to be reasonable until I had to be unreasonable. Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things." - Marvin Heemeyer
Wasn’t this case similar?
Yup, they claimed some of his property wasn’t his and there was some clearly back room shenanigans where they sold off part of his land to a big business that tore up the road then built a large building and landlocked him in.
Heemeyer did the right thing.
This sounds like you need to just keep appealing up to a higher court that does not have ties in the community then file a grievance against the judge for abuse of power.
And then move.
@@canileaveitblank1476 sure, unless your someone who loves to spite people. Then you open up a dirt bike corse on your property and make the other family regret ever messing with you.
@@DefectivePotato95 They never said they had to sell the property :P Plenty of money from the suit where they can just move and keep the previous property. I like your idea of a dirt bike course.
I'm from the UK.
Years ago I worked on a house which had no vehicle right of way. It could only be accessed by foot.
Planning permission is for the building, they wouldn't look at access to the site.
I know of several other houses which rely on footpaths or bridleways for access.
The last time a town conspired to do this with a guy the guy drove a tank and leveled the town
It was a bulldozer, layered in step and concrete armor that he sealed himself into using a remote crane.
Marvin Heemeyer, may his heaven be properly leveled.
Wasn't James Garner in that movie? I think that the name of the movie was, TANK.
If I’m not mistaken isn’t there a law that says something to the effect of “if a private road crosses your property and you’ve let people use it as a public road for a length of time (10 years I think), then you legally can’t deny people access to that road.” If so, it doesn’t fix all their problems but it does mean they can’t be denied access to their property.
I think if the town or county maintains that road it is for public access. Period. He can't block access to it. It is not his property.
What about right of way. Many states say it is illegal to block someone from access to their property.
Do you want a Killdozer? Because this is how you get a Killdozer...
exactly. Small town politics...
@@ThePyleDriver I grew up in a small town and hate small towns because of this shit. It's so stupid.
Duuuude I commented ALMOST exactly the same thing...
People will think I copied you...
@@wilfdarr naw even the sentence structure was nearly identical....the only difference was a space between the sentences,and I put quotes around the term 'Kill-dozer' because the dude never actually killed anyone
What gets me about this is that the City refused to replow & grade the section going to their house citing costs, but was was perfectly happy to cut a brand new access road on the other side of the property. hmm... I'm pretty sure it cost WAY more to cut a new road than to regrade an existing one. But what do I know, I'm not in public office, thank God.
If the road doesn't exist, then they don't have to pay property tax. No easement on to the property.
It sounds to me like what the town is really trying to do is make things so difficult for the family that they decide to move out.
That's exactly what they're doing.
The family may be terrible, we don't know. I can tell you that in Pennsylvania, the NYC and NJ part time residents are absolutely atrocious.
@@TheRoadhammer379 you ain't lying!!! I hate those cork soakers!!!
@@TheRoadhammer379 Steve states in the description that the neighbors don't like them. That doesn't mean that the newcomers are bad people; in small towns, if you're new, that's all it takes.
Killdozer: The Sequel
Steve, this happens more than you'd like to know in Minnesota. Happened to my parents and neighbors. Township sold land and gave permission for homeowner to build in middle of plotted road. The neighbors pooled their money for an attorney and fought to keep the road opened. After years of legal jargon the county decided to drop the roads from county responsibility. Basically there is no accountability for public servants and that need to stop. If you fuck up you fuck up. But you have to take responsibility for your fuck up.
So for those wondering... there is an update!
District Court ruled against the township, saying, "It is unreasonable and absurd to allow Defendant to deny maintenance of the latter portion of Hornet Street while maintaining the first portion, leaving the Crismans stranded while what exists of Hornet Street erodes away." Township asked judge to reconsider which they refused. Township is now trying to find a way to settle but gave a deadline of Jan 2022 before they file for an appeal.
The "township" is probably about four incestuously related boomers who in a just world would be sat out on this road while it is plowed.
If your moving to a small town, make sure the residents don't all have the same last name
Honey, after the divorce, will we still be cousins?
Inbreeding results in unfriendly offsprings.
Another red flag is a government office where most of the employees have the same last name.
Make sure their foreheads aren't all bulging. Another sign is bug-eyed.
Daly township is run by one family.
Very bad twp roads but the roads they live on are well gravelled and maintained.
That sounds like a beautiful spot for a hog farm.
nah, sounds like a nice big property for a Bonnaroo type music festival, corn maze, pumpkin patches, weddings, and very noisy and traffic filled activities.
Can we use this road that goes to our house? Can you pave or plow it? NO!THAT'S NOT OUR ROAD!
Okay, so can WE plow it ourselves then? NO! THAT'S OUR ROAD!
I get that you can dislike a family, but the actions YOU take on them still reflect on you.
So the township recognized the road when they did the building permits, yet somehow, it magically became not a real road when they needed access or service. I wonder if the township screwed themselves by acknowledging the road with the building permits. That was far more recent than 40 years.
@@Skinfaxi The same "rule" is true in New Mexico. The "land-locked" parcels have no direct access to roads or utilities which has led to the development of "colonias" which are sometimes very large in size but have no public roads. In many cases, the land owners are very poor so they don't really have the money to build or maintain any kind of road. Some places use arroyas to access their property. This is not a good thing since an arroya is a channel for water to flow towards a river. Floods are very common.
Steve did I misunderstand, I thought I heard you say that the land owner that controls the road and the township supervisor are in fact the same person. If that is the case wouldn't that be at least a conflict of interest if not an outright abuse of power.
Yeah, but who're you going to take that to? The local judge? He's probably the land owner/supervisor's brother or at least cousin. 🤷♂️
not sure if there was ever a follow up video, but a higher court overturned the decision and chastised the board, calling their actions, "unreasonable, absurd."
from an article from the star tribune, "Not maintaining just the last quarter mile knowing that a family is living on the property is unreasonable and cannot be what the legislative scheme anticipated," Hiljus wrote. "Nowhere in [state law] does it state that an electorate may vote to discontinue maintenance of only a portion of a road."
And an appeals court reversed that decision, the Supreme Court declined to hear it, leaving the Crismans without the road, as the neighbor put up gates blocking that portion of it.
@@wanderjahrengoodness, i wish that were an april fool's joke, but knowing how much the GOP has destroyed the sanctity of the legal system, it's entirely unsurprising.
"If I could falsely imprison someone and starve them to death, just because I don't like them, I would."
Such a charming neighbor...
If he was a total A hole as you insinuate he would not keep his road open for for their innocent Children, put 2 and 2 together, yes the township is in the wrong, especially the plowing issue BUT don't you find it odd everyone seems to hate them in the community? There has to be a reason for that, based upon her comments he read it sounds like she has a huge chip on her shoulder and went into the community with small town vs urban immigrants attitude from the start. I grew up in a rural area that became a hot spot for urban Californians to move to and many came there with massive attitude issues which included complaining about pretty much everything in how the County was run, pretty soon everyone in the community hated them.
@@deanfirnatine7814 These are the types of people who are also known as "Californicators". They leave California but want to turn their new location into the place they lived in California. I truly despise people like this. I've lived in many states including CA and in two other countries. I now live in New Mexico where my wife loves it. It's okay for me but it is away from heavy snow and cold so I enjoy that part of it. My rule of thumb: learn to live and adapt to the local communities so you fit in. I did this in Germany and it worked out well.
@@Harry-zz2oh How, though, when a lot of these communities view you from the beginning as the enemy, due to your simply not being born and raised there? If you don't have family locally, you're an "outsider" in a lot of them, and no matter how you act, how you treat people, and so on... sadly, it doesn't always matter. There's also the danger that you might LOOK different than the generalized community, and when it's already an "us vs them" mentality looking for conflict... it's sure some will be found.
@@deanfirnatine7814 Us. Them. They are not like us. They are something different. Not the same thing. They are not... just... people? Humans, same as we are?
Why not welcome a new person and hope they will BECOME part of the social community you love because you invited them from the beginning and showed them how nice it could be?
This tribal mentality is the cause of a large amount of unnecessary hatred and bloodshed. Humans are all humans. Full stop. Don't assume they're better or worse because of where they're from... if California were another country, would you guys still say all those same things?
Would they not be incredibly racist comments, if you instead of "Californians" were saying "Cubans" or "Germans" or "Chinese" or any other national race, the same way you're talking about people from your own country? Judging an entire culture for how you feel about one, or just a few, whom you have met or heard about?
I mean... maybe it's just my view from the outside, but it appears a bit... I dunno. Something seems unbalanced here.
@@deanfirnatine7814 yeah happens all the time in small towns, your great grandparents weren't from here you're an outsider and don't belong.
They need to have an attorney with strong property rights knowledge. Someone who really understands adverse possession and prescriptive rights and related state laws and case law. Pretty sure the adjacent owner cannot legally block access to their property.
The problem is the judge has proven to either be ignorant or complicit in the illegal act. Lawyers can only do so much when the judge won't do whats right. Even if the lawyer goes after the judge, the ruling still stands until another judge can overturn the ruling.
Thats one of the problems with small towns. When someone's in charge and is breaking to law, there's not much to stop them. Other then heavy handed coups or getting some higher level authority to step in, then these people have everyone under their thumb or run out of town.
@@solidmoon8266 Looks like an appeal is in order
The Star Tribune published a story last month reporting that a Kanabec County judge has ruled against the township, and they will have to maintain the (portion) of Hornet Street. The township board members refused to comment. 'Nuff said.
Uh-oh! Isn’t that how the Killdozer story began?
That man was a national hero.
@@alexmunoz569
Why? He made an offer to sell the property to the company. The company accepted it. He then offered them his property for something like 2x the cost again after they agreed. The company accepted that offer. Then he was greedy and wanted alot more on top of that, the company said no and canceled the offer. He could have been bought out for not only his asking price but the next price he upped it to afterwards. he was being greedy.
Killdozer was a greedy wingnut.
@@alexmunoz569 I agree 100%. “Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things”
That's what I was thinking as soon as I heard this story. I wonder if the victims have some welding skills. Visit that problem neighbor, and as many of the township leaders as possible, and see if there's a way through the impasse. With enough of the neighborhood made into level lots, maybe a developer could come in afterwards and put in new homes!
Supervisor owns the land the Road crosses says it all. Time to take this case to a higher Court and toss in the cost of fixing the road. Especially since the Sheriff has acknowledged it's a County Road🤦.
*There's no road there
-Ok, so we'll just plow this flat bit of land
*No, you can't do that
-Why not?
*There's a road there
-So you'll plow it
*No
-Why not?
*Because there's no road there
Nothing wrong with a weirdo. Weirdos have been some of the kindest and most understanding people I've encountered in my life.
As a weirdo I approve this message.
I'd rather live to a pleasant if reclusive weirdo than an extroverted jerk, speaking purely as the former.
Jeffery Dahmer was a weirdo. I guess he can be the exception to your rule.
Steve wouldn't the Family have a claim under MN law for Implied Easement, or Easement of Necessity? I know in MO you can not sell/transfer property without an easement if it would be land locked.
It appears that the township thought of that. They built another road to the family's property, but did it so that the house (that they permitted) is over a quarter mile of swampy ground away from the new road.
I believe that the easement of necessity would only apply if the property were landlocked. Apparently that’s not the case here.
I would definitely think so. Also maybe they are sick of outsiders changing their town but who knows.
How does someone buy property without ensuring a legal right of easement?
@@ohsweetmystery At the time they bought it, and the house was permitted, it was on a public road
So how can the city say its not a road because of this 40 year rule thing in order to not have to maintain it. But then turn around and say it is a road when the family tries to plow it so they can access their property? Sounds like bs to me.
"Hey! You can't plow that, it's a city road."
"Ok great, the city will plow it then."
"No, the city won't plow it, it's not a city road."
"Wut??"
Wonder if Mr. Plow would get arrested on that road.
Welcome to small-town bureaucracy.
I ran into a similar situation years ago when was a LEO. A piece of land was surrounded by other property and had one access drive in that ran thru one property. The driveway was not state or county maintained and had been built by the property owners of the surrounded property. The land that the drive was on was purchased by a new owner . He decided that he did not want the access road running thru his property. The surrounded landowners would have been fine building a new access road ,except for the fact that the way the other properties were laid out (hills, streams etc.) was not possible without a huge amount of money. The new landowner started blocking the access road by dropping trees across the road, throwing nails on it etc. The landowner was not originally from this state and had no clue how things worked down here. State Law does not allow blocking access to property that is surrounded by other property. The landowner whose land the access road was on kept his insanity up . The landowners of the surrounded property under the law were allowed to sign a warrant on him for the damages to their vehicles and equipment. They also sued him in The Court of Common Pleas (Civil Court) and won. In the end they ended buying the land that the access road was on tp end the issue. But at least this State is smart enough to say you CANNOT block access to someone's property.
Yeah, my state is the same. I find it hard to believe MN allows sale of land with no right-of-way OR accessible road frontage and when that new guy bought the land with the easement to it, that would have been in his deed...not like he didn't know about it.
There is common law regarding right of ways. If there is a road, path, trail that has traditionally been used for access to private or public property, it becomes an public easement and can not be blocked or encroached upon by the land owner who owns the land that right of way is on.
@@juliemunoz2762 Wouldn't that only be a private easement, such as having a driveway across the neighbor's land?
and why the everliving hell is that not a federal law? how can it be even remotely possible for anyone in any way or form to completely block of property? just what kind of missfire would ever allow something like that? absolutely disgusting.
I think the big problem here is , the new people want the Town to grade their driveway right up to the front door. I live four miles down a dirt road and that is not right. We drive 4 mi. to the mailbox and school bus that is on the pavement. Should the city snow plow clear your driveway up to your garage door? Of coarse not.
the township supervisor is claiming the land the road is on due to the townships neglect of road maintenance. The township board is afraid of boss hog (town supervisor) or voted to not maintain the road out of spite.
it seems they shouldn't be allowed to close the road to an existing residence. The dates of the towns decisions are pertinent. Was there ever a document to discontinue the full lenght of this road prior to this family moving in?
I looked at the application for building a structure. The application says specifically how far from a road. Since they approved application they did so knowing there was a road. It appears this is a case of good ole boy network, and the neighbor wanting the land/road. Hopefully the appeal process will work.
So let me get this straight, the family didn't just buy some land and willy nilly build a house. They went through the proper procedures and filled out a damn cuck application to beg mr. almighty guv'munt to approve it for the house, and the guv'munt approved it with the details as you stated. Then, when mr. almight guv'munt is required to follow their procedures and provide a road based on what was on said cuck application, they want to simultaneously claim no responsibility AND sick the sheriff on the family because they just maintained the road themselves. Every single one of them involved in this corruption is going to fry for it when they stand in God's court, no cuck app required!
As someone who used to live in a small town -- these are real "small town values." Petty, corrupt, exclusionary. People who wax nostalgic about small towns usually haven't lived in one.
It varies wildly. The vast majority of small towns are peaceful and friendly. It’s just the odd family that gets too many government seats and the power goes to their head.
I lived in a small town for almost 50 years. I would wouldn't want to live in a big city. The larger cities have more regulations, more rules, more cops, more criminals, more taxes ect.
@@alexanderlapp5048 The thing is, small towns appear easy going on the surface, but a lot of rules are unwritten. Everyone has their nose in everyone else's business; as long as you conform there's no problem, but if you're different in any way, watch out, they will gang up on you. It's best if you're born there, if not you're inherently suspect.
@@MrBirdnose,
It's best if your parents and grandparents were born there as well. Sometimes it's the newcomers who stir up trouble. Some times people come from the cities and bring drugs and other criminal activities with them.
@@alexanderlapp5048 I was a kid and didn't have a lot of choice in the matter, unfortunately.
In texas it is illegal not to give access to your property.
It's disturbing how people are totally willing to use the government's powers to totally destroy others financially over a personal grudge.
That's how society and humans have functioned since venturing out of the caves more than 2 at a time long ago.
You reported crucial bit of the story explaining why the strange township abandonment happened but failed to connect the dots: the property that have "consumed" the section of the road in question belongs to,.... taa-daa,... local official... That is the key. That is why this is happening. Not a story of misfits, story of corruption.
was that road on his property the whole time?
@@frankyflowers It only became his property because of the 40 year rule. It was assumed to be town property until then.
The 40 year rule sounds like a bad rule. If a town has unused roads they want to sell they should have some process to review what becomes of it. In some cases it may make sense to give it to an adjacent property owner, or to just hold onto it for the future. At no point should it be given to someone in a way that makes someone else's property inaccessible.
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the use of the road over time by the owners, current and former, of the dead end property established an easement. The attempt by a public official (aided by his friends) to gift it to himself shouldn’t erase that easement.
I would say you're probably right.
@@Xpnential999999 Well, that's the general principal. It seems though that in Minnesota it takes 15 years of uninterrupted use and the Crismans have only been living there since 2013. I'm not sure how the prior owners use might play into it, but it ain't a slam-dunk at any rate.
I have reason to suspect that since the "road" which "belongs" to a township supervisor is being closed to cost the family major bucks. And presumably force them out of the area. But perhaps worse, how could they sell a property, new house or not, with no address or Access. They seem to want to ruin this family. Perhaps a suit for eminent domain type issues should be pursued. If they cannot sell, and or need to spend tens of thousands to legally get to it, they have serious damages owed to them! Don't know if it can legally remedied but it is obviously true unless undisclosed information exists.
The township doesn't want the road because it costs them and it's unlikely that more revenue will come out of it. Why they granted the building permit? They get the fees.
House was most likely built previous to the family owning it
And the property taxes.