Access dilemma and (potential) dispute with neighbour

Marine_life

Davesnave wrote: »

The way you have spoken about the contents of the agreement doesn't suggest you have a right to refuse paying 50% of the costs.

If this is the case, then whether anyone else would put the money up front and go ahead is irrelevant; the agreement effectively puts a potential charge on the property and would make a sale difficult.

You're right it is completely silent on that - but (a) there is a presumption that we have the money; and (b) there is nothing in the agreement at all about how the process should play out (planning permission, getting quotes etc.) i.e. it seems like the agreement was some sort of weird afterthought and as a result there is very little precision.

Davesnave wrote: »

I think you might have to negotiate with your neighbour in order to find the simplest way out, but it would certainly be worth running the matter past a solicitor before you take any action. Sometimes agreements are badly worded..

Agree.

Davesnave wrote: »

Also, if this agreement was not brought to your attention when you purchased, how were you made party to it?

The agreement is worded such that it applies to the original signatories and any other future owners.

Marine_life

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Things like the question in the house-buying form about whether boundaries have been changed during last 20 years on the one hand. That legal doctrine (can't recall the terminology) that seems to be basically to the effect of "If you've spent time/good money using your home on the basis of the way it is now - then it stays that way - even if it wasnt meant to be that way in the first place iyswim".

Hence I'm wondering if something like this applies.

Always worth tossing ideas into the mix as to what might be possible and OP has some ideas in their mind of what questions to ask a solicitor - in this case on the topic of preventing the neighbour grabbing some of their garden for a drive for themselves.

Thanks - and that's certainly the case - the way the properties are used has now been established for 10 years.

As I say, its clear that there is no intention whatsoever to seek to apply clause but our neighbour believe it has a value to his property i.e. I think he is angling for a bung.

cloo

As I always say with things like this, it may be worth going to a property mediator about this to come to a solution if things seem entrenched. Mediation is not too expensive and it has a very high success rate.

ProDave

Don't forget, any new access onto the public road would first require planning permission and highways approval.

It might be worth searching your councils website to find the planning application for these houses and see if this "proposed" access was shown on the plans, or just the alternative access that was actually built.

Davesnave

Marine_life wrote: »

The agreement is worded such that it applies to the original signatories and any other future owners.

Clauses such as this always are though, which is why your solicitor should have pointed it out.

Looking at it from your neighbour's POV, it's maybe not such a great agreement for them either, if someone with different priorities from yours came to live next door. In theory, they too could end up with an unwanted cost.

Removing things like this isn't difficult if all can agree. With our last purchase, our solicitor picked up that we were tied to a neighbour for drainage purposes, which she felt was not in either party's best interests, long term. The neighbour agreed, so the clause was removed.

As you say, there may be practical considerations too which could limit the power of the agreement, such as an outright refusal from Highways Dept to allow such an entrance. This would obviously impact on it's 'worth' to the neighbour as a bargaining chip.

Many avenues to explore, but I'd start with the wording to see if it's badly drafted.

Winter_Phoenix

Present it as a positive to any potential buyer, rather than as a negative.

'If you and the neighbours ever wanted to move the driveway, the agreement is already in place.'

moneyistooshorttomention

"Reducing what is already a relatively small garden" is the phrase I noticed in the original post.

I didnt spot any comment about a new driveway would be "instead of existing driveway"???

********

I do agree it's worth checking out whether the Council would even give any consideration to giving planning permission anyway. You may well get lucky and find it's already "game, set and match" to you - as they wouldnt. Fingers crossed that you're in a standard area - rather than one where sometimes things get passed that shouldnt be (and wouldnt for anyone else.....) if the person concerned is a "local". But I imagine that doesnt apply and decisions would be objective/fair.

Marine_life

This has moved on and it's really a good lesson to everyone to check legal documents when they buy a house especially when there is a shared driveway.

So ....to recap...we have the following situation:

1. Our house is side-by-side with another identical house.
2. There is a driveway between the houses which provides access to both houses garages.
3. There is (unbeknownst to us) a right to build another access point to the houses that would mostly cross our land.
4. Nobody has any intention of building the alternate access but without this right being removed we cannot sell our property.
5. The neighbour refuses to have the access right removed.

We are now taking legal advice as our neighbour effectively requested 100,000 to have the right removed (our house is worth about 500k so of course, we have refused.) Meanwhile, there have been some interesting developments.

1. We now have a letter from the council which says they would not approve any additional access as the existing access is adequate. Unfortunately, this in itself does not allow us to have the legal right of way removed (I assume because a future council might allow it).
2. We have realised that the current driveway sits on our land -the "shared driveway" sits between the houses and there is a 10-meter gap between the houses. Our neighbour has built steps and a small garden on "their" side of the shared driveway (which had never been a problem before we bought our house as previously both houses were owned by a brother and sister). So....our solicitor will now look to enforce the rights we have to our land and we will effectively close off "our" driveway to our neighbour legally (and if necessary physically) - this would be massively inconvenient as it would cut-off access to their garage without an expensive amount of building work. I hate doing this but I can see no other way of moving the discussion on (our neighbour refuses to have a civilised discussion).

Feel free to throw any thoughts here.

Slinky

No advice Marine but it looks like your neighbour has sown the wind and is about to reap your whirlwind. Good luck to you.

Nicki

If you do this will you not force the neighbour to exercise their right to build the new access route? As he will otherwise be afraid your purchaser could do the same thing at any point? Or is the intention to offer a right of access over the existing drive in return for them relinquishing their rights to build a new one?