Neighbours from hell dispute over shared driveway

glitterycloud

I think it is a bit much for the neighbours to be expected to maintain/repair a piece of land that is not theirs, even if its in the deeds. I would try and come to some compromise between the 2 neighbours. Why not go 50/50 on it? Its your driveway that you want to look nice and they are not bothered what it looks like so maybe an offer of splitting the costs would go towards fixing the relationship between both parties?

I understand why the repair/maintenance is in the deeds but to repair a piece of land that is not owned by them is a tricky situation to be in.
I hope you have a soloution quickly

roses

Get one of those pillars with a key so you and your husband can park there and no-one else. It will cost a little to buy and fit but it will stop them parking there.

needahome_2

glitterycloud wrote: »

I think it is a bit much for the neighbours to be expected to maintain/repair a piece of land that is not theirs, even if its in the deeds. I would try and come to some compromise between the 2 neighbours. Why not go 50/50 on it? Its your driveway that you want to look nice and they are not bothered what it looks like so maybe an offer of splitting the costs would go towards fixing the relationship between both parties?

I understand why the repair/maintenance is in the deeds but to repair a piece of land that is not owned by them is a tricky situation to be in.
I hope you have a soloution quickly

I've come across these situations before, at first these do seem really unfair until you consider that because such covenants exist mean that the purchase price of the property would have reflected this. To change or ignore the covenants would mean the neighbours getting something for nothing as they would have had a reduction when buying the property.

regarding the clampers idea, I maybe wrong, but I was under the impression that clampers work for you for free, their "pay" being the clamping fees.

The people who run these firms are not the most respectable or professional of people and I am sure they would be interested in coming to a deal where you ring them up everytime someone parks on the driveway, and they come round to charge some hefty clamping fee.

You will find that most of these people who work for them are usually quite big and not averse to a bit of force should your nieghbours start threating you.

Blacksheep1979

pop up a sign saying that it's private property and that any cars parking there will be clamped - £250 release fee... (you need to be sia registered though)

hoggums

If someone came to me and said fix my drive because I want my house to look beautiful then I'd tell them where to stick it. Weeds, cracks or not, I'm sure the driveway is passable and usable so the other owners are perfectly in their right to refuse.

I think the OP sounds like the neighbours from hell, not their actual neighbour, for even thinking they have the right to order them to pay for their new drive. It's just so insensitive and selfish.

Have you even considered that they may not have the money to do this?

alm721

I can see both sides here but maybe they don't think it needs repairing? Two peoples ideas about what is acceptable and what is not can be very very different. Is there anything in the covenant that defines 'maintained' if not then if the driveway is passable they will argue that it does not need repairing and even if it does it seems like they are quite happy to ignore it so I really don't hink you'll get anywhere with it. TBH its a very similar situation at my dads house where neighbours have access over the drive but he owns it. As it is he fell out with his neightbours years ago after being friends for a long time which is quite sad but there is a lot of bitterness now. I'm not 100% whose responsibilt it is to maintain the drive although I'm pretty sure its his. He has in recent years taken to maintaing the part near his house and just ignoring the part near theirs.
If it really bothers you for it to be a mess could you not maintian the section at the front near your house and leave the bit at the back near theirs? At least that was you may feel better about it.

lindos90

There seems to be several different issues here that are getting muddied.

1) The NFH has a right to cross/use this drive to access his property, (therefore im guessing the OP can not legally stop him using/accessing the drive as has been suggested) however he is using the OPs drive to actually park on, rather than drive over, which he should not do.

2) As the NFH has a right to pass over the drive, he is therefore expected to 'contribute' to its maintainance.

3) Due to the drive being blocked and the relationship with the neighbour, the OP does not have access to his drive at all.

4) fair or unfair, The NFH knew the deal when he bought the house, and probably got this reflected in the house price.

OP, If you parked on the drive, would that prevent the NFH accessing their property? Its very difficult for us to grasp the set up without seeing a map of some sort.

As said before, you may have a very different opinion about maintainence needs than the NFH has.

I wonder if they think you are making them pay for something that they do not feel is needed as some kind of tit for tat as they use/park on your drive?...sometimes its very difficult to see where things started to go wrong.

Would you not consider 50/50? if there was some clear future agreement about access over, rather than parking on your land?

We had a smaller issue some years back, the fence between us and semi-attached neighbour was basically long sticks in the ground evey 6 feet, with white plastic chain hanging along it. We had kids, and they could easily get across this, and up the side of the neighbours house, and onto the road.

From the neighbours point of view, the fence was an 'adequate' boundary mark for him, from our point of view it was not a safe boundary for our needs. The boundary was his responsibility. We discussed it, and we agreed to go 50/50. He was happy to have a nicer fence, at half the price, we were happy to spend 50% on his boundary as it kept our kids safe.:beer:

Has it gone past the point of negotiating nicely?

MarkyMarkD

I am not sure why so many people are suggesting blocking access.

The neighbours have a right to access and that is absolute as far as I can see.

The question of maintenance is more subjective - by a long way.

Blocking the drive will be a breach of the neighbours' access rights and is not a good idea.

Clamping them if they park on it - which they do not have the right to do - is a far better idea. Given that relations with the neighbours are already rubbish, they can't get much worse. I agree with those who suggest that the clamping contractors may do it for nothing as they earn the money out of the clamping release fees.

If you go down this route, I would suggest writing to the neighbours telling them what you propose to do, and dealing purely with the parking issue and nothing else. This will give them the opportunity to stop breaching this one aspect of the agreement amicably, and the clampers may not be required. Then you can move on to addressing the other issues.

Whether or not you do the clamping thing, erecting some "no parking" signs would be a good idea. You can't expect all of their visitors to understand that it is an obstruction if they park there, if there is no signage.

A "private drive no parking" sign at the entrance to the drive would be a start.

guppy

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Given that relations with the neighbours are already rubbish, they can't get much worse.

Relations can always get worse in these situations. That is why you hear of people turning to violence over hedges etc.

There is no point in making things worse. A serious dispute will make both properties impossible to sell, and risks making the OP's life miserable.

MarkyMarkD

It's already way beyond a serious dispute. The neighbours are blocking access to the OP's garage and giving them nowhere to park.