Boundary & Easement  ·  October 16, 2026

Who Pays to Fix a Shared Private Road in California?

The short answer

If several properties share a private road, Civil Code section 845 makes the owners of the easement, meaning the properties the road serves, pay to keep it up. Subdivision (a): "The owner of any easement in the nature of a private right-of-way, or of any land to which any such easement is attached, shall maintain it in repair."

How the bill is split depends on whether there is an agreement. Subdivision (b): the cost is shared "pursuant to the terms of any agreement entered into by the parties for that purpose. In the absence of an agreement, the cost shall be shared proportionately to the use made of the easement by each owner."

And if a neighbor refuses to pay, subdivision (c) lets the others sue for that owner's share, in small claims court if the amount fits.

There are also three things the statute does not do. It does not make neighbors pay for improvements, such as paving a dirt road, that they did not agree to. It does not, on its own terms, put the maintenance duty on the owner of the land the road crosses. And it contains no attorney fee provision.

This matters across Los Angeles. Hillside and canyon neighborhoods are full of private streets and shared driveways, and the classic case holding that paving is not repair arose on one of them.

Who is responsible for maintaining a private road easement?

The easement owners, not the owner of the land underneath

Subdivision (a) puts the duty on the owner of the easement "or of any land to which any such easement is attached." Civil Code section 803 defines the terms: "The land to which an easement is attached is called the dominant tenement; the land upon which a burden or servitude is laid is called the servient tenement."

So the duty runs with the properties the road serves. That matches the longstanding common law rule. In McManus v. Sequoyah Land Associates (1966) 240 Cal.App.2d 348, 356, the court described it as "equally well settled that as between an easement owner and the owner of the land upon which the easement is situated (i.e., the servient tenement owner), the duty to keep the easement in repair rests on the former rather than the latter."

What the statute does not squarely answer is the common hillside situation where the owner of the land underneath also drives on the road to reach a house. Section 845's text speaks of easement owners and the land the easement is attached to, and we have not found a published California decision holding that a servient owner who also uses the road must contribute under the statute. Many owners in that position do contribute, and a written agreement can require it. Absent one, expect the point to be argued.

What "repair" means

The Third District gave the phrase its modern definition in Schneider v. Lane (2024) 107 Cal.App.5th 39, 50: "To us, the phrase's commonsense meaning is to keep up and preserve the easement in good and sound condition." Filling potholes, re-rocking a gravel road, clearing a washout, keeping a culvert open: that is maintenance.

The court also drew the line. Flooding had destroyed the original road along a riverbank, and the trial court ordered the easement owner to stabilize the riverbank to protect the relocated route. The Court of Appeal reversed that order. At pages 51 to 52, requiring riverbank improvements "some 30 to 50 feet away from her easement route" obligated her "to do more than keep and preserve her easement in good condition. It requires her to construct a new improvement." And at page 54: "Constructing a new improvement to protect a relocated easement that is presently not broken is not repair or maintenance."

Can my neighbor make me pay to pave the road?

Not under section 845, without your agreement.

Holland v. Braun: Oak Pass Road

Holland v. Braun (1956) 139 Cal.App.2d 626 (2d Dist., Div. 1) arose from Oak Pass Road, a 40-foot road easement built on an old bridle path that deeds described as connecting Benedict Canyon and Franklin Canyon. After Los Angeles adopted private street regulations as a condition of building permits, some of the owners had the road improved, including widening and paving it, and sued the others under section 845 for their shares. They lost.

The court relied on the ordinary meaning of repair, quoting the Supreme Court: "To repair means to mend an old thing, not to make a new thing; to restore to a sound state something which has become partially dilapidated, not to create something which has no existence." (at p. 632.) Its conclusion, at page 633: "Paving the dirt road was not 'maintaining it in repair.'"

McManus stated the resulting rule at page 355: "nonconsenting coowners of an easement in the nature of a right-of-way may be compelled to contribute to the keeping of the way in repair, but they may not, without their consent, be compelled to contribute to the cost of major improvements." Schneider treated Holland as consistent with its own reading in 2024.

When an agreement changes the answer

Consent can come from a document. In McManus, the court held the easement owner liable for half the cost of building the roadway anyway, because the recorded grant of easement contemplated that a roadway would be built on it (at pp. 356 to 357). Read your deed and any recorded easement agreement before assuming section 845's default rules apply.

Improving it at your own expense

A separate question is whether one easement owner may improve the road at all, paying for it alone. That turns on the easement's scope and the owner's secondary rights, not on section 845, and the answer is not automatic. We cover it, including Bernstein v. Sebring (2025) and Dolnikov v. Ekizian (2013), in the easement says road, it doesn't say paved.

How is the cost split when there is no agreement?

"Proportionately to the use made of the easement by each owner." Read literally, that could require counting cars.

The Sixth District declined to read it that way in Healy v. Onstott (1987) 192 Cal.App.3d 612. A bridge on a private road serving a 12-lot subdivision in Santa Cruz County had been destroyed in a storm; three lots had houses and nine were vacant. The court, at page 617, said a literal construction "would require the trier of fact to distinguish between residents having two cars and those owning only one," and that "the arbitrator and judge must be free to paint with a broad brush." It then gave three guidelines:

"Obviously, a property owner may be asked to contribute only to the maintenance of that segment of the right of way lying between his driveway and the public road. Also, a distinction must be made between a parcel having an occupied residence and one which is unimproved, although we are not prepared to say that the owner of the latter should escape all contribution as his property is obviously benefitted by the maintenance of the common easement. But within those general guidelines, the trier of fact must be allowed to fashion any reasonable contribution scheme."

In practice that means: the owner nearest the public road usually pays only for the stretch between that owner's driveway and the public road; a vacant lot pays something, but less; and within those limits the court has latitude. Healy was decided under an earlier version of section 845, but the "proportionately to the use" language it construed survives unchanged, now in subdivision (b).

How do I make a neighbor pay their share?

Subdivision (c) sets out the procedure, in the form enacted by Assembly Bill 1927 (Stats. 2012, ch. 244), effective January 1, 2013, which replaced the former court-appointed-arbitrator procedure.

Demand in writing first. The right to sue arises "[i]f any owner refuses to perform, or fails after demand in writing to pay the owner's proportion of the cost." The other owners may then sue "either jointly or severally" for that owner's share, "or for specific performance or contribution."

Timing is flexible. The action "may be brought before, during, or after performance of the maintenance work." You do not have to front the whole cost and then chase reimbursement.

Small claims if it fits. Under subdivision (c)(1), the action may go to small claims court "if the amount claimed to be due as the owner's proportion of the cost does not exceed the jurisdictional limit of the small claims court." As of October 2026 that limit is $12,500 for a natural person (Code Civ. Proc., § 116.221) and $6,250 for other claimants, such as an LLC or a corporation (§ 116.220, subd. (a)(1)). Small claims judgments do not set the split for future costs that were not requested.

Otherwise, superior court with judicial arbitration. Under subdivision (c)(2), a larger claim is filed in superior court and "notwithstanding Section 1141.13 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the action shall be subject to judicial arbitration." A superior court judgment does not apportion future costs not requested in the action "unless otherwise provided in the judgment." If you want the formula fixed going forward, ask for it.

Venue. Absent an agreement addressing maintenance, an action for specific performance or contribution must be brought in the county where the easement is located (subd. (c)(3)). Other ADR programs remain available (subd. (c)(4)).

Fees. Section 845 has no attorney fee provision. Under the general American rule (Code Civ. Proc., § 1021), each side pays its own lawyer unless a statute or an agreement says otherwise. A recorded road maintenance agreement with a fee clause changes that. Without one, a dispute over a share of a few thousand dollars is usually a small claims matter.

Two narrower provisions round out the statute. Subdivision (d) treats snow removal as within an existing maintenance agreement in specified circumstances, and subdivision (e) excludes railroad rights-of-way regulated by the Public Utilities Commission.

Why a recorded road maintenance agreement matters

Section 845's default rules are workable for a pothole and poor for a bridge.

An agreement can fix the percentage each parcel pays, require contribution from owners who would otherwise argue about it, set a reserve, decide who manages the work, authorize improvements by majority vote, and add a fee clause.

To bind future owners, it should meet Civil Code section 1468. That statute lets a covenant run with the land where, among other things, the burdened and benefited land are "particularly described in the instrument"; successive owners are "expressed to be bound"; each act "relates to the use, repair, maintenance or improvement of" the land; and the instrument is recorded in each county where the land lies. An unrecorded handshake among today's neighbors does not reliably bind the person who buys next door.

Two cautions. A road association that collects assessments may be a common interest development subject to the Davis-Stirling Act, with its own procedures for raising dues. And in Los Angeles, the building department may require a recorded covenant before issuing permits that depend on a private driveway or street; that was the background in Dolnikov.

What to do before the next storm

1. Pull the recorded documents. The deed creating the easement, any recorded maintenance agreement, and the tract map. An agreement controls over the statute's default.
2. Separate repair from improvement. Restoring the road to its existing condition is section 845 maintenance. Paving, widening and new retaining structures usually are not, unless the owners agree.
3. Get bids and photographs before the work, and keep the invoices. A contribution claim is proved with them.
4. Send a written demand with the bid and a proposed split, segment by segment if the road is long. The statute makes written demand the trigger.
5. Choose the forum by the amount. Within the small claims limit, small claims. Above it, superior court and judicial arbitration, and ask for a judgment that sets future shares.
6. Do not block the road to force payment. Interfering with a neighbor's easement is its own claim, as Dolnikov shows.

If the dispute is about where the road may go or how wide it may be, rather than who pays for it, see the easement says road, it doesn't say paved, how long you have to sue over an encroachment, and our boundary and easement practice. Dividing fences between neighbors fall under a different statute, Civil Code section 841, which we cover in whether a neighbor can claim part of your yard.

Common questions

This article is general information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes and case law change, and how they apply depends on the specific facts. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. Robert B. Mobasseri, State Bar No. 193193, ROMO Law Group, Encino, California.