Tearing down neighbours' gates

NeverEnough

Helen1971, in fact we do have a similar shared driveway situation at home which has led to several acrimonious neighbour disputes in the past, not relating to gates, but certainly to a wall section on our property which the neighbour at the time decided to "remove" in order to grab himself some parking on our private property. One of our household arrived home while he was atually in the process of removing the wall, a concrete post and slab type, and there was a situation in which he rushed at them with a spade held up high, making threats to kill. The police were called at that point, and without going into the whole longwinded affair, there was no criminal damage involved in removing a section of wall without damaging it and putting it on our property - this was later confirmed by a solicitor, who also said the post and slabs had not been damaged by the removal, just removed and placed back on our land. Basically the removal of the wall and the attempted landgrab was a civil dispute and ended up costing us thousands to resolve.

That neighbour then subsequently wanted to move and ended up paying for our wall to be resited exactly as it had been before the Hot headed boyfriend decided to grab himself a parking place.

These sorts of disputes rarely end happily - if there are only 3 properties up your driveway and two are occupied by people openly hostile to your rights, you may be better off moving.......I regret that we didn't move as the aftermath of our driveway issue has gone on for 9 years now and the driveway is still a very hostile place.

You are certainly entitled to remove the gatepost on your property and its attached gate, without damaging it, and placing it on the neighbours property or delivering it to their property, again without causing any damage. If you are set on doing it, video the procedure or take lots of photos so you can prove there was no damage done.

There certainly will be acrimonious repercussions, so steel yourself for them if you go down this route, as is your right to do.

Just check how long the gates have been up as there is some local law about a certain time elapsing and the gate post then being accepted as being accepted by you on your property, I think this is a long time though, around 20 years, so probably not a problem.

Personally, I think gates at the bottom of the drive would be a useful security measure and it is a bit unfair to expect them to be kept open all the time, as that defeats the purpose, but if they are electric they should be in good working order with appropriate bell or intercom and remote opening. Perhaps it would be more useful to ask your solicitor to go down the arbitration route to try to get to a compromise with the enighbours, either way I forsee a lot of money going to solicitors and a lot of distress to yourselves, who are outnumbered 2:1 by household on the driveway.

Believe me, it isn't worth the expense or the heartache- we have absolutely been there, in a very similar set of circumstances to you, and the outcome is never ideal after this kind of issue.

missile

Shared driveways always seem to be a problem. Near the top of things to avoid when looking at prospective properties.

shocky_2

There is a useful alternative that noone has mentioned. You could sue your neighbour in County Court, asking the court to grant an injunction declaring that the post is trespassing onto your land and ordering them to remove the post. If the court decided in your favour this would put the matter beyond doubt and your neighbours would not have a leg to stand on.

The disadvantage of going to court is that you would have to pay a solicitor to run the case. If your neighbours fight the case and lose they will have to pay most of your legal fees, but you would need to pay their legal fees if you lost.

Even if you don't actually go to court, threatening to start proceedings might encourage your neighbours to reach a sensible compromise. It is much more likely to get results than threatening to damage the gate which will simply elicit an aggressive response from your neighbours.

If you do go ahead with removing the post, there are a few things that could go wrong:
1) Your neighbours could report you to the police as causing criminal damage. I doubt this would go anywhere but the police would at least investigate.
2) Your neighbours could sue you for the cost of putting the gate right, alleging that you did not have the right to do what you did.
3) This is a highly aggressive action that will cause your relationship with your neighbours to deteriorate even more.

I don't know the full facts, but based on what you have said just remember to keep this in proportion. It is mildly annoying to have a gate in front of your driveway but a lot of people want one and it is not unusual. Obviously the gate should be kept in good working order, but delivery drivers and friends needing to buzz your house is only a very minor inconvenience.

Just be careful not to let this dispute spiral out of proportion to the actual problem. It would be more sensible to compromise with your neighbours, e.g. you won't take the matter further if they promise to have the gate repaired and keep it in working order.

summerholiday

Neverenough! Were you able to use legal insurance - if you have it - on your housebuilding and contents insurance to help you in this what must be a hellish situation?

andy.m_2

fit a wireless doorbell from the gate to your house, no problem with malfunctioning "buzzer" then.

Neighbourly disputes never end well, you may well win this round, but they will be hell bent on getting you back.
You may well lose this round, and have to put up with their smugness ad infinitum, and subsequently seething in a pool of self pity.

Move along with your life, for your own benefit.

noh

Helen1971 wrote: »

Hello, I wondered if anybody had experience of something similar to my current situation, or perhaps an informed view, please?

My husband and I live at the end of a long drive serving three houses. We own one half of the drive, which is divided lengthways, with a wayleave (I think that's the correct term!) allowing us to drive over the other half.

Our neighbours on either side are 1. A couple and 2. Their daughter and her husband.

We've had months of hassle over the electric gate at the end of the drive, which was installed when our vendors lived in our house and which belongs to the houses on either side, not to us. In a nutshell, we want it to stand open whilst the neighbours insist on closing it all the time which causes us no end of hassle with deliveries, guests etc. I asked for advice on this board during the summer, to which I received some helpful responses...........................

Previous thread is here
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3961293

pinkshoes

If your deeds just refer to access, then you already have this, hence your solicitor is saying that the gate post on your land is the only way to go.

If you really don't want the gate, then I would suggest asking your neighbours to leave it open 7am until 7pm, otherwise you do not give them permission for the gate post to be on your land.

Personally I'd just move!

You could always put a big sign on YOUR gatepost informing any potential viewers for your neighbour's house that there's a dispute. The EA couldn't care less. (But surely you want this neighbour to move???)

NeverEnough

summerholiday wrote: »

Neverenough! Were you able to use legal insurance - if you have it - on your housebuilding and contents insurance to help you in this what must be a hellish situation?

Sadly not in this instance, as it was deemed to be a boundary dispute which the Legal Cover doesn't cover and is specifically excluded. It did cover us for a dispute about some very badly done building works though, (reroofing which went badly wrong and builder wanted us to pay £24K :eek:) which saved us thousands in legal fees.

I would say to the OP that going down the road of legal disputes with neighbours is expensive and pretty horrible seeing as its just yourselves against the two other hostile households - but obviously you need unfettered access to your own home, and it sounds as if you are not getting this with the faulty gates - have the neighbours provided you with a remote to open and close the gates? Is there some sort of intercom or bell so people can ring to alert you of a delivery / visitor?

I don't think having the gates is a particular problem provided you are given the means to allow access to yourselves/ your visitors reasonably and the gates are kept in full working order with proper override mechanisms if they become faulty. It sounds as if you have not been given a remote and are therefore not able to allow entry to your visitors without a lot of hassle - manually opening, etc. You may need to enter into dialogue via a solicitor, putting them on terms to provide reasonable access to you or you will proceed to Court as per youngsolicitor above.

Problem is that County Court judges are a law unto themselves and some seem to live in cloud cuckoo land, so what should be very reasonable to the rest of the world may end up getting an unwelcome decision from a judge. You need a decent solicitor for this, not a numpty, so please do take care to go with someone who knows what they are doing and have dealt with neighbour disputes before. Cheapest is not necessarily best. Good luck........it is a lonely road.

DRP

OP - I think the cheapest solution and the one with the most satisfactory outcome would be to upgrade the gate/buzzer/lock so that it works properly.

This will no doubt end up costing far less than legals.

Sensible_Jess

Hi OP

If getting access across the drive for your car or deliveries is an issue because of the gates being closed, how about installing a LOUD airhorn for people to hoot for attention when this happens?

Bet the neighbours will be more willing to find a resolution with you then...:D