A home on a private road is common across North Paulding, Bartow, and the rural edges of Cherokee, and it is one of the few property characteristics that can stop a loan cold for reasons having nothing to do with the house. The buyer is qualified. The home appraises. Then underwriting asks for the road documentation and nobody has any.
Here is the reframe. Buyers think of the road as an inconvenience, a gravel surface that gets muddy and needs grading occasionally. Lenders think of it as a legal question: does this property have permanent, recorded, guaranteed access to a public road, and will that road stay usable. If the paperwork does not answer both questions, the loan does not fund, regardless of how good the borrower is.
Nicole France previously owned a mortgage company and has closed more than 600 transactions across Northwest Atlanta. Here are seven things to sort out before you write an offer.
1. Confirm the Road Is Actually Private
Start here, because assumptions about this are wrong constantly and the answer is a phone call.
Call the county roads and bridges department and confirm the road’s classification. A dirt or gravel surface does not automatically mean private, and counties use different classifications. Some roads that look neglected are county-maintained. Some paved roads inside older subdivisions are not.
Get the answer before you get emotionally attached, because it determines whether any of the rest of this applies. If the county maintains it, you have a normal transaction.
2. Legal Access Is the Non-Negotiable Part
Every loan program cares about one thing above all: a recorded, permanent right to get from the property to a public road.
That documentation is typically a recorded permanent easement or right-of-way, non-exclusive and non-revocable, running from the property to a public street. It may also be satisfied by an ownership interest in the road or by the road being owned and maintained by a homeowners association. The evidence usually lives in the preliminary title report, the vesting deed, a prior deed, or a subdivision plat.
Practical access is not the same as legal access. Everyone driving on the road for thirty years does not create a recorded easement. If nothing is recorded, you may be relying on a neighbor’s tolerance, and a lender will not lend against tolerance.
3. The Maintenance Agreement Rules Differ by Loan, and Half of What You Read Is Outdated
This is where the internet will actively mislead you, and it matters because the wrong assumption can send a buyer to the wrong loan program.
The VA changed its policy. Under VA Circular 26-22-17, effective November 25, 2022, an ongoing maintenance agreement from a homeowners association or a joint maintenance agreement among owners is no longer required for properties on private roads or shared driveways. A recorded permanent easement or right-of-way to a public road is still required in the loan file. The VA’s own reasoning was that many states already have laws governing private road maintenance, making the agreement requirement an undue burden on veterans.
Yet numerous articles, including recent ones, still state that VA loans require a joint maintenance agreement. They are citing a rule that changed years ago. If your lender tells you a maintenance agreement is a VA requirement, it is fair to ask them to check the current circular.
4. Fannie Mae Is Now the Strictest, With an Important Exception
The programs sort out roughly like this, and the conventional side is where the requirement actually lives.
Fannie Mae generally requires an adequate, legally enforceable agreement or covenant for maintenance of the street, and it should be recorded. Freddie Mac does not require a maintenance agreement but does require a permanent easement and that the road be maintained to community standards. FHA, under HUD Handbook 4000.1, does not require a joint maintenance agreement for private streets or shared driveways, but does require a permanent recorded easement, an ownership interest, or HOA ownership and maintenance. USDA does not require evidence of a maintenance agreement, though individual lenders may impose one.
The exception worth knowing: Fannie Mae will waive the maintenance agreement requirement where a state has statutory provisions defining property owners’ responsibilities for maintaining and repairing a private street. Whether Georgia has such a statute is a question for your lender and a Georgia real estate attorney, and I could not verify it from the sources available. Ask directly rather than assuming, because the answer determines whether you need signatures from every neighbor on the road.
5. All-Weather Surface Is Its Own Requirement
Separate from the paperwork, the road itself has to be usable.
An all-weather surface is one that emergency vehicles and typical passenger cars for the area can pass over in all types of weather. This applies across programs, and a road that becomes impassable in heavy rain can generate an appraisal condition on its own.
In North Paulding and Bartow, where clay soil turns gravel roads into ruts after a wet week, this is not a theoretical concern. Drive the road in bad weather if you can, and ask the neighbors how it holds up in February.
6. What a Real Maintenance Agreement Contains, and the Neighbor Who Will Not Sign
If you need one, know what it should say and know the most common way this goes wrong.
A workable agreement identifies the road and the parcels served, states who is responsible for maintenance and repair, defines how costs are allocated among owners, sets a mechanism for approving work and collecting contributions, addresses what happens when someone does not pay, and binds future owners. It should be recorded so it runs with the land rather than expiring with the current neighbors.
The failure mode is predictable and common: everyone on the road signs except one person. A single holdout can prevent a conventional loan from closing on a property that is otherwise fine. If no agreement exists, start that conversation with the neighbors early in due diligence rather than in the final week, and have a Georgia real estate attorney draft it rather than improvising language off the internet.
7. Understand the Ongoing Obligation You Are Buying
Financing is the hurdle. Ownership is the long-term reality, and buyers underestimate it.
Nobody from the county is coming. Grading, gravel, drainage, culverts, tree removal, and eventual repaving are all yours and your neighbors’ expense. Repaving in particular is a large, lumpy cost that arrives once every couple of decades and produces genuine conflict among owners who did not plan for it.
Ask concrete questions before you buy. Who has been maintaining it and at what cost. Is there a fund, or does someone write a check when it gets bad. How many homes share it, since the cost per household depends entirely on that number. Do school buses, delivery trucks, and fire apparatus come down it. And how does garbage collection work, since in Northwest Atlanta that varies by address and some services will not travel private roads.
What Buyers Need to Know
Sequence this into your due diligence period and do it early. Confirm the classification with the county. Ask the closing attorney to identify the recorded easement in the title work. Ask your lender, in writing, what their specific requirements are for this property under your specific loan program, since lenders can impose stricter conditions than the agency minimum. Then find out whether a maintenance agreement exists and, if not, whether you need one.
Consider your loan program part of the strategy rather than a fixed input. If a maintenance agreement cannot be obtained because a neighbor refuses, a program that does not require one may be the difference between closing and not. That is a conversation to have with a lender at the start rather than three weeks in.
For sellers, this cuts the other way. If you own a home on a private road across Acworth, Kennesaw, Dallas, Cartersville, or Woodstock, get the easement documentation and any maintenance agreement together before you list. A buyer whose lender asks for paperwork you cannot produce is a buyer who walks, and you will meet that problem with every financed offer until you solve it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I get a mortgage on a home on a private road?
Yes, routinely. What every program requires is documented legal access, typically a recorded permanent easement or right-of-way to a public road, plus an all-weather surface. Maintenance agreement requirements vary by program, with Fannie Mae generally requiring one and FHA, Freddie Mac, USDA, and the VA generally not, though individual lenders may add their own conditions. Confirm with your lender for your specific file.
What if there is no easement recorded at all?
That is a serious issue and it needs a real estate attorney rather than an agent. A property without legal access is difficult to finance, insure, and resell, and long use by itself does not automatically create a recorded right. Sometimes an easement can be negotiated and recorded before closing. Sometimes it cannot. Find this out during due diligence while you can still terminate and recover earnest money.
Who pays to repave a private road?
The owners who use it, in whatever proportion an agreement specifies or state law provides. Absent a recorded agreement, cost allocation can become a genuine dispute among neighbors. That is precisely why a recorded agreement binding future owners is worth having even when your loan does not require one.
Looking at Rural Property in Northwest Atlanta?
Access, easements, and road agreements are all answerable during due diligence and expensive to discover afterward. If you want an agent who checks the county classification before you write the offer, reach out.
(404) 867-3869 | nicolefrance-realestate.com/contact/
Selling acreage or a home on a private road? Start with a home value estimate, or learn more about Nicole’s background.
Sources: VA Circular 26-22-17 on private roads and shared driveways, a 2026 summary of current VA easement requirements, and a program-by-program comparison of maintenance agreement requirements.
This post is general information, not legal or lending advice. Nicole France is a REALTOR® and is not currently acting as a lender or attorney. Agency guidelines change, individual lenders impose their own overlays, and easement questions are legal matters. Confirm requirements with your lender and consult a Georgia real estate attorney about access and maintenance documents.
Nicole France is a REALTOR® with RE/MAX Center serving buyers and sellers across Acworth, Kennesaw, Dallas, Cartersville, and Woodstock. Client Focused · Results Driven.