Happening NowLand Banking (Buy and Hold)

What a landlocked parcel with no recorded access means with 14 days left on a title contingency

Take an 18 acre exurban parcel under contract at $71,000, with a title contingency and 14 days left to run. The commitment comes back with Schedule B showing the usual utility easements, an old pipeline right of way along the south line, and nothing granting access from the county road. The parcel touches the road for zero feet. Access runs across a neighbor's pasture on a dirt track that has apparently been used since the 1970s, with no recorded easement behind it. Documents an operator in that position should be pulling together: a 1978 plat showing the track as a dashed, unlabeled line, a tax map that treats the parcel as landlocked, and whatever the current neighbor will say about tolerating the crossing, keeping in mind that tolerance from one owner does not bind a future one. Prescriptive and implied easement claims exist in most states, but the standards vary enormously and turn on facts a buyer usually cannot verify before closing, so nobody should treat unrecorded historical use as settled. The realistic options are the same three every time this comes up. Ask the seller to fund a recorded easement from the neighbor before closing. Buy title insurance with the access exception carved out and accept the residual risk. Or walk and absorb the survey and commitment costs, which on a small deal like this run somewhere near $900. Making access a hard condition risks the seller relisting rather than negotiating, especially on a parcel that has already sat on market for a long stretch. The cheap lesson here is usually cheaper than closing on a landlocked tract and finding out later what an unrecorded track is actually worth.

tashaford30 SG2CPRO 16

Answer

nataliehsuServicePRO

Do not close on the exception. A land banking parcel makes its money the day you sell it, and the buyer at the far end will run the same title work you just ran and find the same hole. You would be buying a discount you cannot pass on.

The cheapest version of what you want is the seller paying the neighbor for a recorded, appurtenant easement with a described width and a maintenance clause, signed and recorded before or at closing. Appurtenant means it runs with the land instead of with you personally, which matters because you are planning to hand it to someone else in ten years. Recording practice and what makes an easement enforceable differ by state, so that document needs a real estate attorney licensed where the land is, not a form off the internet.

The 71 year old neighbor is the actual clock here. His kids selling is exactly the event that turns a friendly handshake into a lawsuit, and it is likely to happen inside your hold period. That is the argument to make to your seller, and it is also the argument that gets the neighbor to sign now while he still has a reason to be agreeable. Sometimes it costs a few thousand dollars. Sometimes the neighbor names a number that tells you the parcel is not worth buying.

On the 400 days, that is your leverage in the ordinary sense of the word. A landlocked parcel that has sat over a year has sat for a reason, and the reason is on your Schedule B. Losing $900 is a fine outcome compared to owning a parcel you can only sell to the neighbor.

nataliehsuServicePRO

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