Per this story several communities are horrified and outraged that someone would dare - DARE! - to close off their private property to public use. Simply because in the past the private property had been being vandalized by the same public that was using it, and couldn’t be bothered to actually police their use of the property by their own groups.
So now you have people talking about how it’s an outrage that someone might take measures to protect their property from public use.
You stupid twits, you may even be able to win on this issue if you try to take things to court to get some kind of imminent domain claim going. But at the same time, you’re proving to any other property owner out there that there is absolutely no positive gain to allowing public access to any private property, and that it will actually leave the property owner at risk to court costs to defend their property if they try to enforce their rights, no matter the provocation. This is going to be one more case that any lawyer with any sense is going to use to justify telling anyone who asks them for advice to never, ever let the public use your property.
Which means that by raising a stink now, you’re providing incentive for other property owners to take steps, now, to prevent such hassles. By never, ever letting the public have access to their property.
Q.E.D., thanks for the exact legal process that might be made to work. All I could think of was eminent doman (which got used against my grandfather in a similar situation*) or hostile possession, which didn’t seem like it would fit here. And thanks eleanorigby for correcting the term I tried to use. At least the word I chose was spelled properly.
*In short - he’d tried his hand at some lumber farming, and while waiting for the timber to grow he’d allowed his neighbors to hunt on his property. When the stand of timber came mature, the town put through an eminent domain claim to keep him from cutting it down and ruining their hunting.
The comments on that article are informative. There’s been an easement on the land for over 60 years. Apparently, that means that when he bought the property, he was informed of the easements for access to the public lands behind the property. Which means, Hetfield probably doesn’t have a leg to stand on in this situation.
I started reading through the comments, jayjay, and while it is true that someone said that there has been as easement on the land for over 60 years, others said that there wasn’t. There was a lot of back-and-forth about prescriptive easements and “open and notorious” use easements, as well as statements about whether he did or did not put up “No Trespassing” signs which were torn down. I gathered that the previous owner had allowed horseback and mountain bike riders to use the roads, but that does not mean that a new owner is required to do the same.
In my neighborhood there used to be a little plank of wood over a ditch off to the side of some guy’s backyard that gave us kids a quick and easy path to get through from our neighborhood to the high school.
Then, some douchebag bought the house and put up a huuuuuuuuuuuuge wooden fence that kept anyone from going anywhere near his yard, let alone crossing alongside it to get to the high school. Now if you want to get over there you have to walk all the way around on the busy street, or make sure you wear galoshes to cross the dewey football and baseball fields.
I still scowl at that guy’s stupid fence, 20 years later. But still…his property, his right…
