Marlene – I had the same problem here in Idaho with a
private road. The nice guy at the end said go ahead and ride on my
property, but the horrible woman that was the first house on the road said
get off my road. (she even hit my horse with a rolled up newspaper.
Since I had permission from the man at the end, I went to the county and
looked at the deed and it showed the road was designated as one anyone could
use. I wrote her a letter explaining this (and so did the guy at the end)
and warned her that I carried my cell phone and would call the sheriff if she
bothered me again. A private road here is just a regular road that the
people living on it need to maintain – instead of the county maintaining
it, but there are no restriction on driving down it. You really should
check and see if they are even allowed to keep you off the road. They can
keep you off their property for sure, but maybe not the “private road”.
It probably has it showing up as a deeded right of way so that people can
drive /walk on it. Otherwise, what if someone on the road told everyone
that they couldn’t drive thru my portion of the road? Then what
would the other residents or their visitors do? They couldn’t keep
you off legally. Also, might be something about the fact that you have
using it for so many years and they cannot stop you now that it has been so
long. I think they call it something like and unwritten right of
way. It has been a long time so I don’t remember the correct
wording.
