Shared Driveway / Boundary Help Needed

GDB2222

These situations are pretty common. Each house owns its half of the driveway, but also has a right of way over the other half. If you put up a fence, you will deny your neighbour (the council) the right to drive over your half of the driveway.

Your neighbour claims that they have the greater right over the driveway, but that is ridiculous. Both houses have the same right to use the driveway as a right-of-way, and they should not park on it, nor should you fence it off.

If your neighbours occasionally allow guests to block the driveway, it may be better to grin and bear it than end up with a neighbour dispute. However, you certainly are within your rights to get them to stop. The only question is whether it is worth your while in the long run.

The real question you have no answered is whether you were actually disadvantaged? Do you often put your car in the garage? Have you ever been boxed in?

I have said all the above without see your details at the land registry, but this is such a common situation that it is unlikely that your position is any different.

Unsureneedhelp

G_M wrote: »

If the original conveyance was between the council and yourself, surely you know what you signed?!!!

Were you agreeing to the neighbour having foot-only or vehicular access??

At the time I purchased the property, I had been living there as a council tenant and was at that time on very good terms with my neighbour. We even used to go on family holidays togther etc. I would go so far to say we were good friends.

So when I purchased the property, in my stupidity, I did not give the drive a second thought. I was just excited at being able to buy my own home.

Welsh_Totster

What I don't understand is the wording you say that is crossed out. Isthis on a deed? If so I'd be checking the registered title and what has been set out by the land registry as any easements would be set out on your title with corresponding coloured tinting to the title plan.

Unsureneedhelp

Thanks for your response GD

GDB2222 wrote: »

These situations are pretty common. Each house owns its half of the driveway, but also has a right of way over the other half. If you put up a fence, you will deny your neighbour (the council) the right to drive over your half of the driveway.

Part of the purpose of this thread is to establish if my neigbour does have the right to drive over my half. The deed states -

"A right of way on foot only for the Council and others aforesaid in common with the Transferee or other the own or owners for the time being of the said property and all other persons authorised by him or them over the part of the passageway on the northern side of the said property which is shown coloured blue on the said plan the Council or others asforesaid contributing a fair proportion from time to time of the cost of maintaining the surface of the same such proportion in case of dispute to be determined by the said Head of housing and Services."

It should be noted that there would appear to be a faint line running through the words "on foot only". This may or may not be an amendment which is not counter intialled by either the Council or myself to indicate such (if that is required).

I know with a typed contract, usually any amendments should be initialed by each party to show acceptance of that amendment. On that basis, I was wondering if the Council could rely upon such an amendment.

GDB2222 wrote: »

Your neighbour claims that they have the greater right over the driveway, but that is ridiculous. Both houses have the same right to use the driveway as a right-of-way, and they should not park on it, nor should you fence it off.

If your neighbours occasionally allow guests to block the driveway, it may be better to grin and bear it than end up with a neighbour dispute. However, you certainly are within your rights to get them to stop. The only question is whether it is worth your while in the long run.

The real question you have no answered is whether you were actually disadvantaged? Do you often put your car in the garage? Have you ever been boxed in?

I have said all the above without see your details at the land registry, but this is such a common situation that it is unlikely that your position is any different.

For me, and this may seem petty to others, I feel I am disadvantaged because I have to keep asking people to move from the driveaway, when I come home and when I want to go out.

It almost feels like I have to ask his permission to leave and comeback..

I should add my neighbour has already converted his garden into a parking bay, there is room in front of his property for parking and that we have quite a few usually unsed parking bays very near our properties that his guests and visitors, I suspect at his request do not use, instead they park on the drive blocking my access.

Unsureneedhelp

Welsh_Totster wrote: »

What I don't understand is the wording you say that is crossed out. Isthis on a deed? If so I'd be checking the registered title and what has been set out by the land registry as any easements would be set out on your title with corresponding coloured tinting to the title plan.

Thanks for responding.

The title register, does not detail any easements, just says there are restrictive covenants.

The title plan, shows a boundary running down the middle of the drive

The third document, being a deed - details the rights of both parties and states -

"A right of way on foot only for the Council and others aforesaid in common with the Transferee or other the own or owners for the time being of the said property and all other persons authorised by him or them over the part of the passageway on the northern side of the said property which is shown coloured blue on the said plan the Council or others asforesaid contributing a fair proportion from time to time of the cost of maintaining the surface of the same such proportion in case of dispute to be determined by the said Head of housing and Services."

A line has been drawn through with a pen the words "on foot only".

This deed also including a plan of the property which unlike the title plan at the land registry is tinted, with my half of the drive being blue and my neighbours being brown.

Neither half in itself is wide enough for a vehicle to drive up, so when someone parks there, there is absolutely no access

Welsh_Totster

Hmmm that's an odd one then as I've have expected the register and title plan to have shown what's set out in the deed. in which case I'd suggest either seeking legal advice with regard to the deed or maybe contacting the Land Registry for advice on it, a copy of the deed should be filed with them seeing as as easement affects your property. Hope you get it clarified soon as I can imagine its a right pain in the 'arris.

GDB2222

Unsureneedhelp wrote: »

Neither half in itself is wide enough for a vehicle to drive up, so when someone parks there, there is absolutely no access

I really wonder whether you actually park your car in the garage at the back of your home? Most garages built a few years ago are far too small for modern cars. If you are simply annoyed that somebody else is "trespassing", I strongly suggest that you make yourself a nice cup of tea and try to relax until that feeling of annoyance goes away. Otherwise, you could let yourself in for a major dispute that could cost tens of thousands of pounds to resolve.

You really need to think how much all this is going to cost you, and whether it is worth it? What you are complaining about is that you have no access because other people block your drive from time to time. However, your preferred solution seems to be to build a fence down the middle of the driveway. That makes no sense to me, because once you have built the fence, you will permanently have deprived yourself of access, which is far worse than the occasional annoyance you have at the moment.

If you want to take this further, despite my advice, you need to download the deeds of the neighbouring house from the LR, so as to see what ROW you have over their land. However, regardless of that, if your shared driveway has been used by users of both houses for many years, you almost certainly both have an easement, meaning you can continue to do so. The same applies to your neighbour.

Strapped

So your neighbour (and you) have a garage that you want to permenantly prevent vehicular access to? Can you see that might be considered a little unreasonable? :eek: I predict that if you press ahead with it, your fence will have multiple nocturnal "accidents".

Unsureneedhelp

Welsh_Totster wrote: »

Hmmm that's an odd one then as I've have expected the register and title plan to have shown what's set out in the deed. in which case I'd suggest either seeking legal advice with regard to the deed or maybe contacting the Land Registry for advice on it, a copy of the deed should be filed with them seeing as as easement affects your property. Hope you get it clarified soon as I can imagine its a right pain in the 'arris.

The deed (document detaling the convenants) itself does not appear to registered with the land register, at least it does not show when I do a search for my property on their website. I am going to give them a call on Monday, someone on the Garden Law website suggested the Land Registry, for some reason, it never occurred to me to contact them.

Unsureneedhelp

GDB2222 wrote: »

I really wonder whether you actually park your car in the garage at the back of your home? Most garages built a few years ago are far too small for modern cars.

Both my neighbour and I built two larger garages several years ago. at that time, we were on very friendly terms and we even helped each other build them.

GDB2222 wrote: »

If you are simply annoyed that somebody else is "trespassing", I strongly suggest that you make yourself a nice cup of tea and try to relax until that feeling of annoyance goes away. Otherwise, you could let yourself in for a major dispute that could cost tens of thousands of pounds to resolve.

To be fair, for me at least it is more than just a trespassing issue. As a few examples (this is not all the time but at least several times a week).

I come home from work, I have to go round to my neigbours house, knock on his door and ask for his visitor to move their car, so that I can park mine.

I want to go out either in the evening or especially at the weekend, I have to go around to my neighbour again to ask their guest/visitor to move so I can get my car out.

Then when I come home again, I usually have to ask again.

To put this into perspective, my neighbour has already converted his front garden into a parking area - which is never used. There is space in front of his property for parking and about 50 metres down the round there are a number of parking bays which for the most part are always nearly empty.

Taking this into consideration, yes it does frustrate me that guests and visitors to my neighbour, despite all the avaliable parking spaces, decide to park on the drive, blocking access.

GDB2222 wrote: »

You really need to think how much all this is going to cost you, and whether it is worth it? What you are complaining about is that you have no access because other people block your drive from time to time.

Cost is of great concern to me

GDB2222 wrote: »

However, your preferred solution seems to be to build a fence down the middle of the driveway. That makes no sense to me, because once you have built the fence, you will permanently have deprived yourself of access, which is far worse than the occasional annoyance you have at the moment.

Not quite, my solution is that a fence be put down the drive way and as my neighbour has already I convert part of my garden into a parking area, combined with my half of the drive. That way, I park on my side and his guests and vistors can park on his side without blocking access.

If I can establish that my neighbour has "on foot only" right of way to my side of the drive, he should not be driving up it or for that matter anyone shouldn't be parking on it. I know it sounds like I am the bad guy here, I jsut fed up with having to keep having to ask people to move, when I want to go out and when I come home.

GDB2222 wrote: »

If you want to take this further, despite my advice, you need to download the deeds of the neighbouring house from the LR, so as to see what ROW you have over their land. However, regardless of that, if your shared driveway has been used by users of both houses for many years, you almost certainly both have an easement, meaning you can continue to do so. The same applies to your neighbour.

I have searched for neighbours property with the Land Registary. There are two documents, the title register and the title plan.

The title register makes no reference to any right of way and the title plan shows a boundary running down the middle of the drive.