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Neighbour constantly trespassing in yard, claims right of way.

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  • bertiewhite
    bertiewhite Posts: 1,904
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    Lysimache wrote: »
    Why do they do that? Do they have a front door going onto the front garden/street?

    I rarely use my front door because my "boot room" is round the back of the house and traipsing the dogs and my muddy boots through the front of the house would be a disaster.

    Why is using the back door as a main entrance such a strange concept?
  • Davesnave
    Davesnave Posts: 34,741
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    Why is using the back door as a main entrance such a strange concept?
    Because people are odd.

    My first house, which was a re-build after war damage, was the only one in the street with a corridor from front to back, which completely buggared-up the downstairs layout. A neighbour who had lived there all her adult life told me it was built like that because the 'man of the house' didn't wish to push his bike around to/from the back, which involved a slightly muddy lane.

    Presumably it was OK for the ladies living there to clean-up behind him!:rotfl:
  • bertiewhite
    bertiewhite Posts: 1,904
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    Davesnave wrote: »

    Presumably it was OK for the ladies living there to clean-up behind him!:rotfl:

    We always had to use the "tradesman's entrance" at my Nan's when I was a kid because the front entrance was only for "proper" visitors. The front living room was also out of bounds unless we were visiting on a Sunday when the best china came out - Weekday & Saturday visits were always confined to the dining room at the back of the house.
  • LandyAndy
    LandyAndy Posts: 26,377
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    I'd never really thought about it before but we, and all our neighbours, and pretty much everyone I knew used their back doors as the main entrance to their houses when I was a child (50s, 60s, 70s).
  • Katgrit
    Katgrit Posts: 555
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    edited 5 October 2017 at 10:39AM
    I used to live in a small rural village where many of the houses were old cottages, with added back porches, entrances down little lanes, through back yards, conservatories on the front/side,a real hotch potch of different arrangements. Not been moved in long when about half 10 one night I heard someone knocking on my patio doors at the back. Knowing the back gate and side gate were both bolted and locked I wondered who on earth it could be. Went to look and immediately saw that there was no shadow of anyone outside from the nearby street light cast against the closed vertical blinds. The knocking continued, with me feeling scared. Built up enough courage to peep through the blinds and there was no-one there, but just as I looked came another knock on the glass, just inches away from my faces. No-one out there but definetly someone or someTHING knocking! Was completely sh¡Tt¡Ng myself at this point, and despite being a complete sceptic was actually thinking it must be something supernatural. I was absolutely petrified. Built up courage to open the patio doors, all the while the knocking continues. Gingerly stepped into the empty back garden almost in tears to find my 80 year old neighbour stood on her back doorstep with a long curtain pole with a door knob attached to the end leaning over to knock on the patio door!!

    "I've been knocking for ages! I've got a parcel for you. I think the postman will have put a note through your front door."

    What the hell?!! I know she didn't use her front door because she'd lost the key years ago, but apparantly she'd seen me come back from work and couldn't understand why I still hadn't been over to collect my parcel. Why? Becsuse it was a dark winter night and didn't want to scare an 80 year old lady by knocking on her back door in the pitch black thats why!! The irony was lost on her.
  • sheramber
    sheramber Posts: 18,859
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    Skutter47 wrote: »
    Red squirrel, both owners in this building share the freehold, myself and the person upstairs . She has the lease on the yard, it's her property. Between the two of us we are attempting to prevent people next door, who do not own or lease the land from trespassing.

    I'm involved because I own the other flat and I'm the joint freeholder of the yard. Neither her nor I wish to have people from next door wandering through the yard.

    I don't have ROW because when our house was split up, into upstairs and downstairs that's what was agreed. I don't want or need ROW and neither do they.

    David, 40 years at least. There's no mention of any rights of way in our deeds, and this is the first time it has been challenged. They have a back door to the yard, but no need to use it as their front door opens onto the same road, just round a corner.

    What about access for maintenance/repairs to the back of the house?

    Could it have been a shared yard for all three properties originally- probably rented houses with the one owner. Over time the houses have been sold and the yard allocated to the flat.

    Presumably it has not been brought up until now as the nobody was concerned about neighbour using it.
  • Fosterdog
    Fosterdog Posts: 4,948
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    It really can’t be that unusual for people to have a back door into a small yard that doesn’t lead anywhere. The way old mining towns and villages were built it’s very common for houses to have a back door into at best a garden at worst a thin strip of land the length of the house. The only thing different in OPs scenario is that they don’t have a fence around their part which the neighbours have taken advantage of.

    The first house I ever rented had a small concrete square as the back garden with the only access being from the back door, if the neighbours didn’t have a fence I would have had easy access through their small concrete strip to their side gate.

    Most people’s back garden may be bigger than the small strip talked about here, but the size of the garden makes no difference to how it is accessed, would it be different if the black door opened onto an acre of land? Even if it still couldn’t be accessed any other way than from the house? Having a door leading to a small bit of your own landlocked property (if it can even be classed as landlockedwhen you can access it from your own house) doesn’t give you automatic ROW over your neighbours property. What if it was a row of 100 houses with them all just having a thin strip of land, should they be allowed to walk through 99 other gardens just to get to a rear/side entrance in the first house?
  • lincroft1710
    lincroft1710 Posts: 17,543
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    The 2 houses could have been owned by the same person, but when either or both were sold on, any potential ROW was erroneously not documented.

    I think this is one of those situations where the true facts will never be known.
    If you are querying your Council Tax band would you please state whether you are in England, Scotland or Wales
  • parkrunner
    parkrunner Posts: 2,610
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    Back door is better if the front door opens directly into the lounge, a kitchen floor is far easier to keep clean.
    It's nothing , not nothink.
  • chappers
    chappers Posts: 2,988 Forumite
    edited 6 October 2017 at 2:47PM
    The 2 houses could have been owned by the same person, but when either or both were sold on, any potential ROW was erroneously not documented.

    I think this is one of those situations where the true facts will never be known.

    That's the most likely situation
    Rights of way are usually written into the transfer of the sold property which is in turn itemised into the title of the property that retains the freehold of the land over which the ROW is granted and it has been thus since forever.
    If this came up before the land tribunal, they would look back through all of the previous titles and transfers and if they couldn't find any record of the right of way having been removed legitimately, they would probably rule that it still exists.
    Assuming that the current set up is original and the neighbours haven't at some point just decided to build a back door on to a yard that wasn't theirs.
    If the setup was original and all the buildings and yard were contemporary to each other they would make the assumption that both houses would originally have had access to the yard.

    This is where decent solicitors earn their money, making sure transfers truly reflect what is actually being transferred, so problems don't rear their heads down the line.
    Lazy conveyancing causes these sorts of problems.
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