COUNTY ROADS, PUBLIC ROADS, PRIVATE ROADS AND EASEMENTS

COUNTY ROADS VERSUS PUBLIC ROADS

When is a County Road not a County Road?
When it is a Public Road that is not maintained by the County.

Confusion exists generally concerning the terms public road and county road. Most people assume they are the same. They are not. All county roads are public roads, but not all public roads are county roads.

A public road is a road that has been dedicated to the public, either by express action by the owner of the land over which the road runs, or implied action by the owner –the owner took actions which, under the law, amount to an implied dedication. In most instances, the plat of the subdivision in which the road is located will contain a written statement expressly dedicating the road to the public. A public road may also be established through long and continuous use by the public. A public road that is accepted by the county for maintenance is a county road. Acceptance may be either formal or informal.

Approval of a subdivision plat for recording by the Commissioners Court does not amount to acceptance of the dedicated roads in the subdivision by the county. Action by the Commissioners Court to accept the improvements in a subdivision and release the letter of credit, bond or cash deposit put up by the owner or developer of the subdivision is formal acceptance of the dedicated roads in the subdivision so that they become county roads.

Roads dedicated to the public but not accepted by the Commissioners Court are public roads but not county roads.

An individual County Commissioner has no authority to accept a public road so that it becomes a County road. However, if an individual County Commissioner, or even a county employee, takes some action –such as assuming responsibility for maintaining a public road –such action could be construed as acceptance of the road so that it becomes a county road.

In summary, if you are in doubt as to whether a road is a county road or a public road, find out how the road is maintained. If it is maintained by the county, it is a county road. If it is not maintained at all or maintained by private entities, it is a public road.

What about Private Roads?
Generally, private roads are roads located in private subdivisions or on private property which have not been dedicated for public use or to which the public has not established a prescriptive easement. Private roads are not maintained by the county. In a subdivision, the roads are usually maintained by the developer or by a property owners association. Usually, some type of maintenance fee is collected from the persons who use the private road by the entity responsible for maintaining the road to cover the cost of maintenance.

What are Easements?
An easement is simply some right of use on real property. It may be an easement for utilities such as electric power lines, water or sewer pipes, telephone or television cables, etc. The owner of the land usually has fee simple title to the land where the easement exists, but has limited right to use the property since the landowner s use cannot interfere with the use of the land by the person or entity that holds the easement. An easement is also referred to as a right-of-way.

Easements may be specifically described by a survey and metes and bounds or by general reference. Easements, like public roads, may be expressly granted, either in a deed, plat or other written instrument, or obtained through long and continuous use. The most common easement is an easement for ingress and egress –the easement that a property owner has to get to their property by traveling over the property of another. In most instances, the holder of the easement has only the right to travel over the easement; they do not have the right to improve the easement, relocate it or expand it, unless such rights are specifically granted by the owner of the property. Many easements resulted from the division of property originally belonging to one family. When the original owners died and the property was passed on to their heirs, the property was partitioned. Owners of tracts that did not front on a public or county road were granted easements to travel across the tracts with frontage on the roadway. Subsequently, some of the heirs sold their tracts to third parties. In some instances, the third parties denied the right of the interior landowners to continue to use the easement. Unless such cases are amicably resolved, the respective rights of the parties must be determined by a court of law.

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