North Dakota's rules for shared roads

Is there a cost-sharing statute?

No, and no association act either; the recorded agreement plus nonprofit law is the entire structure, and collection is contract law on the documents.

Are the section lines by our road public?

Outside cities and platted subdivisions, yes: public roads open for travel to thirty-three feet each side of every congressional section line, and placing a permanent obstruction inside that strip without the board's written permission is prohibited. Map the road against the grid before the first gate.

Can a section line ever be closed?

North Dakota is the rare grid state that writes the exit: on petition by an adjoining interest-holder, after hearing and a public-benefit finding, the county board may close lines unused for ten years, blocked by terrain, or served by alternate routes, with closed lines reverting to the adjacent owners' benefit. The petition runs on documented non-use, which is a file a road group can keep.

Can public use convert our road?

Twenty successive years of a road being open and in use as a public road converts it, whether lawfully laid out or not, and the rule carries no maintenance element; permission letters and gating practice are the whole defense, started early.

Does road status ever move the other way?

Yes, by statute: a laid-out road not opened within ten years, or later abandoned and unused for ten, is declared vacant. Both doors swing on dated evidence of use and non-use.

What about canals and ditches?

The crossing duty runs against the ditch: where highways cross railroads, canals, or ditches, those owners repair their own works at their own expense so the road can cross without damage or delay; drain districts keep their own assessment machinery, so district questions still go in writing.

Why record the agreement?

NDCC 47-19-41 voids an unrecorded conveyance against the next good-faith purchaser whose deed records first, quitclaim or not, so the maintenance obligation follows the land only from the recorder's book.

What do lenders want on a North Dakota private road?

The section-line answer, the recorded obligation, and the payment history; on a grid whose road status moves in both directions, the file is the title story.

Where should a handshake road start?

Map the grid, record the agreement, and start the use-and-permission log; in North Dakota the same dated records that defend against conversion can also close a grid line or prove a vacation.