Neighbour constantly trespassing in yard, claims right of way.

chappers

So you are saying that both you and the old lady are the freeholders and each own leases in one building, and you each have a door to the yard.
Then a second building in separate freehold ownership has a door onto the yard too.
If the yard and the doors are part of the original setup, I would say it's highly unlikely that both buildings don't have rights of access. I can see if your building had been split that a ROW might not have been created for your flat.
But find it hard to believe that two separate buildings with a common yard wouldn't have had shared access or a ROW.

I would guess that one of two things have happened;
1) someone has in fact given away their rights to access in which case you are correct
2)someone has cocked up a previous conveyance and say assigned a piece of land to a sole owner when they shouldn't have

Also if the doors onto the yard and the setup with the yard is original it might be said that denying access is unreasonable as a setup as unusual as you suggest would normally have to be explicitly noted, you don't build doors into buildings which open onto land over which you have no access, nor would it be reasonable for someone to expect that when they bought a house that they couldn't use the doors to get in and out.
Also just because you can't find record of something in the current documents doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

How old do you reckon the properties are?

bris

Pingfah wrote: »

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.

It only takes 20 years of unchallenged access to create a ROW even id the don't already have one, which I still doubt.


Maybe the mother who is ignoring you knows more about this than you do.

Davesnave

I expect the OP will have found and read this.

http://blog.landregistry.gov.uk/guide-prescriptive-rights-way/

The matter is complex, but if the pesent occupants of the house have been there only in recent times and previously their house was let out to a variety of people, obtaining statutory declarations will be difficult, or more likely impossible for them.

Locking the gate, and doing it in conjunction with a solicitor's letter will force the other party to act within a year.

Let's hope it's a strong gate!

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Pingfah wrote: »

They own their property, not rent.

Then when you said in your first post "I am confident that neither the owners nor the tenants have a right of way over the property.", who are the tenants in question?

Pingfah wrote: »

To be clear, I am the joint freeholder of the land, I also have a back door onto the yard and even I do not have a right of way. I am quite certain of this as I asked my solicitor to check when I bought the flat, and I have seen all the relevant documents pertaining to our own shared property I don't walk through her yard myself, despite having her permission, because I am not a !!!!, and I respect her privacy.

I'm just trying to help the lady out as she is very distressed about people trespassing, and wandering past her open back door. They are also littering and leaving things lying around her yard, both of which are certainly illegal whether they have a right of way or not.

You've suddenly launched into talking about "her yard" and "the lady" when you have previously described it as your property and not mentioned any lady. In addition it has moved from one visitor occasionally walking through to numbers of people leaving "things" and litter. It all seems rather inconsistent.

bertiewhite

Pingfah wrote: »

I'm involved because I own the other flat and I'm the joint freeholder of 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.

I'm more confused than I was at the beginning of the thread now.

Why would you need to be told you had right of way over your own land? My last neighbours had a right of access over my driveway and this was clearly stated the deeds stated but nowhere did it say I had ROA because it was my land.

Aytoun27

Common sense suggests that the OP should find out exactly where he stands before he starts putting up gates and locks.
In his shoes I’d find a good lawyer and ask the following questions;-
· 1) As joint freeholder am I within my rights to take direct or legal action, given that I don’t hold the lease on the yard or even have a ROW myself?
· 2) When the back door from my flat into the yard was installed was a ROW not created because I have automatic access rights to the yard as joint freeholder or do I have no rights of access to the yard at all?
· 3) As I understand it there were originally two houses both with back doors into the yard, does this imply shared access and how common was this kind of arrangement with these types of houses in this area?
I wouldn’t want to do anything before I knew exactly where I stood legally and putting up fences, gates and locks in a yard he may not even have legal access to himself might not be a very good idea.
I think that he has to at least consider the idea that the neighbours may be correct about the ROW and find out what his own legal rights and obligations are before he does anything.

Scotbot

I am confused too but as Davesnave says put a strong lock on it, send a solicitors letter then the next move is up to them. If as the original post says it is only the visiting mum who is the problem I suspect this will stop her.

Putting a lock on an existing gate is easy to rectify if the neighbours can show tgey have ROW

lincroft1710

It would be very unusual for 2 houses which both have doors on to a piece of land which has its own access, not to have an ROW across the land to that access

Cakeguts

I visited someone once who lived in a converted maisonette. It was the back part of a row of shops. There was door in the property that was kept permanently locked because when the conversion had been done there was no longer any access across the small piece of land outside this door. The land belonged to someone else and there was no right of access across it so the door was never opened. This is just one example of how a conversion can affect the right to access a piece of land. I can imagine that this could be the case here and not only should the gate be kept locked but also the back door as it no longer leads anywhere.

chappers

Cakeguts wrote: »

I visited someone once who lived in a converted maisonette. It was the back part of a row of shops. There was door in the property that was kept permanently locked because when the conversion had been done there was no longer any access across the small piece of land outside this door. The land belonged to someone else and there was no right of access across it so the door was never opened. This is just one example of how a conversion can affect the right to access a piece of land. I can imagine that this could be the case here and not only should the gate be kept locked but also the back door as it no longer leads anywhere.

But if access was there before the conversion then afterwards the ROA would have to be explicitly removed as part of a transfer. Just selling the land behind the door to someone else wouldn't be sufficient to nullify the ROA, as the continued access across the land prior to the conversion would be sufficient to establish the access as lawful.
The owner of the door would have to explicitly give up the right to access or else someone would have to buy it with the denial of access explicitly written into the transfer .