I used to think if you could drive to it, you owned the access. Bought a 47-acre parcel in the foothills because it had a gravel road running right to it. Felt solid. Turns out that road crossed three different neighboring properties, and I had zero documented easement language in my deed. The sellers had just always gotten along with the neighbors, handshake style, for decades. First summer I owned it, one of those neighbors sold, and the new owner put up a gate with a lock. I was landlocked on my own property for eight months while attorneys sorted it out.
Everybody tells you to check the deed for easements. But checking that an easement exists is not the same as confirming it's recorded, described with a legal width, and actually enforceable. Verbal permission and longtime neighborly habit will vanish the second land changes hands.
Anybody else buy in a region where informal access has been standard for so long that even local attorneys treat it like a formality?