Parking rights issue with neighbour

Doozergirl

talisker1947 wrote: »

Are you serious?

The neighbour started behaving like a cheeky muppet, exploiting my kindness and parking in front of my garage access on land that belongs to my title. We are past the friendly neighbours part because they are cheeky and wanted to ruin our relationship by ignoring an informal approach for the bleeding obvious. If you had bothered to read my post you would also read that we had a "sensible" conversation with the neighbour from the very first day.

My home is not a charitable car park for other people's visitors. I paid a premium to buy a property with off-street parking and clear deeds to avoid parking disputes. It is my right to enforce it when other people are attempting to disrespect the title repeatedly.

As I wrote in my post the street is generally empty for them to park their cars. If the neighbour is not happy driving a few yards down the road to park then they are free to sell and buy elsewhere!

You cannot seriously suggest that I should ask a cheeky neighbour "politely" to let me access my rightful garage. Should I bake them a cake as well?

You didn't buy a house with clear deeds and boundaries, you bought a house with some manner of shared access! And that involves patience, compromise and politeness. Perhaps even on more than one occasion. You buy yourself peace only with clearly marked and fenced boundaries.

The phrase "disrespect the title" is absurd. The sooner you realise this is about humans, not paper, the better chance you have of having an amicable relationship with people who are probably okay.

And yes, I absolutely did suggest that you ask someone "cheeky" in a polite manner, because being polite gets you a long way further a lot quicker than notes left on windscreens or the subsequent solicitors letters ever will.

Be nice to people and they'll find it hard to be rude. Be confrontational and it's easy to retaliate. I'd actually suggest you widening the drop kerb so it covers your clear driveway area (which it really should in order to be a proper drive) and then look at erecting a fence down the centre line on agreement, rather than have a turf war.

MisterBaxter

Doozergirl wrote: »

You didn't buy a house with clear deeds and boundaries, you bought a house with some manner of shared access! And that involves patience, compromise and politeness. Perhaps even on more than one occasion. You buy yourself peace only with clearly marked and fenced boundaries.

The phrase "disrespect the title" is absurd. The sooner you realise this is about humans, not paper, the better chance you have of having an amicable relationship with people who are probably okay.

And yes, I absolutely did suggest that you ask someone "cheeky" in a polite manner, because being polite gets you a long way further a lot quicker than notes left on windscreens or the subsequent solicitors letters ever will.

Be nice to people and they'll find it hard to be rude. Be confrontational and it's easy to retaliate. I'd actually suggest you widening the drop kerb so it covers your clear driveway area (which it really should in order to be a proper drive) and then look at erecting a fence down the centre line on agreement, rather than have a turf war.

There are quite a few of these properties near to where I live and I have friends who live in this type of property. In our area there are strict limitations to how far you can go with widening the drop kerb area so that may not actually be an option, it is worth checking though.

You can't simply erect a fence because it isn't allowed in the deeds. The boundary lines are shown on the deeds as to who owns what; ownership of the central driveway that provides access to the rear garage is split equally between the two adjoining properties but the whole driveway is then coloured on the plan to show that both parties have shared rights of access over the whole driveway; if you put a fence up down the middle it would be in contravention of the deeds which would probably cause more problems than it solves.

A lot of the people who live in these properties have similar problems; occasional tolerance seems to somehow turn into acceptance and people don't know when they have overstepped their welcome. Parking always seems to be very emotive. The friendly approach works well where relationships are on a good grounding but when relationships have broken down it turns into all out neighbour war.

Doozergirl

Mister Baxter, deeds can be altered. I did say on agreement and wasn't suggesting just chucking one up and waiting for the next argument when someone pulls out their deeds again and gets solicitors to write letters.

Both values would improve slightly through having clear ownership.

MisterBaxter

Doozergirl wrote: »

Mister Baxter, deeds can be altered. I did say on agreement and wasn't suggesting just chucking one up and waiting for the next argument when someone pulls out their deeds again and gets solicitors to write letters.

Both values would improve slightly through having clear ownership.

I appreciate that a Deed of Variation can be used to change boundaries but if the OP's property is similar to those in my area I'm not sure that it would make matters better. The shared driveway between the two properties is only just wide enough to get a car through, this drive services the garages in the rear garden of each property. Fencing down the actual boundary which would be dead centre of the drive would mean that neither property would be able to access the garages at the rear; this could actually detract from the value of the property if parking in the area is at area premium.

The issue with these properties is that the ownership and boundaries are clear on the deeds but each owner has access to pass and re-pass over their neighbours half of the drive without restriction. Without this the drive simply becomes a path to the rear and is no longer a serviceable drive.

If it were me I wouldn't agree to vary the deeds in a way that removed the rear vehicular access and given that both parties obviously want to use the drive I'm not sure it will get done by agreement.

OP - If I have misinterpreted the layout and yours isn't like this then ignore all of the above.

hollydays

The problem with putting things in writing , is exactly what you wrote, and how the tone was interpreted.
have you ever read a text and read it in an " angry voice" ?
When it may not have been meant that way at all.

Doozergirl

The OP said that the garages are useless for modern cars and for storage only. You therefore don't need to get a car down the 'drive' to the garages and no one person is allowed to park on the drive for a period of time so as a 'drive' it is useless and now the source of a problem.

It makes sense to me to turn them into regular semis with a nice access path to the back for bins, lawnmowers and storage.

And probably move the drop kerb so the OP isn't driving over next door's bit to get on their drive. Make it clean for everyone. It doesn't have to be widened, just needs to be conventional.

The neighbour always has the option to replace garden with drive.

Mojisola

Doozergirl wrote: »

The OP said that the garages are useless for modern cars and for storage only. You therefore don't need to get a car down the 'drive' to the garages

It may be possible to knock down the old garage and build a bigger one.

MisterBaxter

Doozergirl wrote: »

The OP said that the garages are useless for modern cars and for storage only. You therefore don't need to get a car down the 'drive' to the garages and no one person is allowed to park on the drive for a period of time so as a 'drive' it is useless and now the source of a problem.

It makes sense to me to turn them into regular semis with a nice access path to the back for bins, lawnmowers and storage.

And probably move the drop kerb so the OP isn't driving over next door's bit to get on their drive. Make it clean for everyone. It doesn't have to be widened, just needs to be conventional.

The neighbour always has the option to replace garden with drive.

Many of the owners by us have rebuilt the garages in their gardens or simply created a hardstanding for parking because of a general lack of on road parking and a front garden space that isn't large enough for their needs. Whilst doing away with the drive is an option it may not be the best for the OP simply because a neighbour can't be respectful in the way the drive is being used. The fact that the current garages aren't large enough doesn't necessarily make doing away with the drive and vehicular access the best long term solution.

There is of course the possibility that the neighbour wouldn't want to lose the drive either, particularly as they seem to use it, and they may object just to be awkward. There will be costs to be borne by both sides in a Deed of Variation.

How it would affect the value of the property will in part be determined by the general availability of parking, if it is at a premium then having access to some off road parking may actually make the property more valuable or at least more sellable than without the option, even if that potential isn't currentlybeing used.

I personally think that doing away with the drive is a heavy handed solution to the problem, there must be other residents who are quite happily co-existing with their neighbours so this is just a neighbour dispute, if not the drive then probably something else.

spannerzone

Inconsiderate neighbours use to block my car in and park in the lane that led to my house (and theirs but they had no legal right to park in the lane) - After a number of times me hassling them to move, one day I got up to go to work at 4am and found my car blocked in, I called and woke up the usual neighbours to ask them to move the car, from that point on I rarely got blocked in - waking them up at 4am seemed to do the trick.

lovethewebsite

I am in a similar position. I have a shared pathway and it clearly states for access only. My neighbour parks here, at times I am unable to walk past.

I have politely asked him twice and he has just ignored me. I am taking it further now as he has completely disrespected me.

I understand how annoying it is, when you have asked them and they ignore you. Yes, they may not have liked a note, but they are still ignoring you no matter how it was requested. This is also bad neighbours.