Dreaded Shared Access

Village_Idiot

Hi All, first post but probably first of many.

My Wife and I are on the market for our first attempt at a "forever home". We've had a mortgaged flat before, and are currently renting.

We're finding that our criteria is producing us with a fairly narrow set of options for a new home, we're essentially looking for:

- Rural/Village location
- Detached preferred but not mandatory
- Older property with some character preferred but not mandatory
- Double Garage, or at least space to build one/extend a single.

We're aware of a house which is absolutely perfect for us, if you consider the house itself in a vacuum. We've been to view it, and it's really well finished inside and out - modernised where appropriate but still retains a lot of character and history. It's even in a really nice village that is on our "list" of places we'd like to be, and is well priced for us.

We are however losing sleep over the driveway and garden situation. In short, it has a very small front garden (it's effectively a 6 foot patio) and the driveway runs down the side of the house, and wraps around into a double garage where the back garden would normally be. The driveway is surrounded by some elevated terrace/seating areas and would generally be a nice enough place for hosting BBQs etc in summer providing we moved the cars elsewhere. There's no lawn, or place for a lawn.

The closest neighbour is directly behind this house, and in order for them to access their driveway and garage - then have a pass and repass right of way over the driveway which serves the house we're looking to buy. Day to day this should not cause any foreseen disruptions, as the right of way "strip" does not encroach on where we would park our cars (we have space to park 2 or maybe 3 cars PLUS whatever we can get in the double garage, so loads of room) but if we were sat outside - it may feel a bit odd to occasionally have the neighbour effectively driving through our "garden" to get to their house!

As a married couple with no children, this really isn't concerning us too much directly - but it gives me a nagging thought that this will be a hard house to sell. We know this because it's been on the market for 2 years already - and it's very much a family house, in a not-so family setting so the range of appeal will be small.

What's really frustrating is that there's a private/unadopted lane that runs alongside both houses - separated by a stone wall which could easily serve as access for the neighbour providing the appropriate right of way would be granted. I can't help thinking by having the neighbour access their property via this lane would increase the value of both their house and the one we perhaps may purchase, and be more convenient for both parties - but clearly it's not been considered for a reason, so I have to assume it's a no-go area.

I have a not-to-scale diagram which explains this better, but I can't post it as I'm a newbie member!

I've downloaded the Land Register documents which confirm that all of the driveway belongs to the house we're looking to buy - but that a "pass or repass" agreement was made years ago to allow access into the neighbouring house.



The concerns that I can foresee are:

- Privacy, will be a bit weird to be sat around in the sun - potentially with friends/family round and occasionally have a car drive through. It's otherwise a really secluded and sheltered spot, away from the street and any overlooking neighbours.
- I've marked on two red gates(on my diagram), the one closest to the main road can be opened/closed by either house (remote fob) but I don't know what a visitor would do who is visiting the neighbours... am I going to get constant knocks on my door to open the gate for them? (this is a question I can ask the vendor if/when we have a second viewing)
Even once a visitor is past the first gate, are they then going to be sat around - engines running on the driveway waiting for access into the second gate?
- Resale, we hope this will be a very long term home - but you can never predict the future. Current vendor has been stuck with it for 2 years, that seems like a long time. Speaking with the agent they confirmed that the lack of garden and access is pretty much the reason why it's not selling.

To emphasise, this house stands out over and above the hundreds of others in our search radius. This budget would otherwise get us a soul-less new build in a rammed estate somewhere, albeit with the same number of rooms/garage and with a bit of garden. We're not ruling out a new build, but we keep obsessing over this one for a reason I guess.

I would really appreciate some neutral bystander opinions on this to either calm me down or scare me off. What would you do? Does shared access have to be a problem, and are there measures that can mitigate/prevent problems proactively?! Obviously good neighbour relations are critical, but I'm open to other suggestions.

Money_maker

Was part of the back garden sold off to allow this new house to be built (hence the poor road access), will it overlook you?

ReadingTim

Only you know what really bothers you. Maybe some of your friends do, but randoms off the internet certainly don't. You must therefore come to your own conclusion, not be swayed by what you read online.

That said, there's a proverb about good fences make good neighbours, and a shared drive doesn't sound like a very good fence to me...

maisie_cat

That would be a deal breaker for me, one of my "no compromise" items for our forever home is no shared driveway or right of way over our property. I suspect as moneymaker said, that the back garden has been developed and left a poorly sized plot.

bertiewhite

My last house had shared access and it was a nightmare.

I had the middle of 4 terraced houses with a flying freehold over the driveway which had access to the back of all 4 houses. In effect, our back garden was split in 2 by the left hand neighbour's right of way.

It wasn't so much the actual act of cars going past the house that annoyed us so much - it was the neighbours' expectation to be able to use some of our garden in order to make it easier for them to turn round as opposed to using forward & reverse gears as stated in the deeds.

I'd avoid like the plague in future.

Village_Idiot

Thanks all for the comments so far, I feel like my diagram would be really useful to help explain things a little better. My new status won't let me post though

The back of the plot WAS sold off, but over 20 years ago - there's no further space for development, this setup is as mature as it is frustrating. The rear neigbour has no overlook into the driveway, and it's nicely fenced off. The only thing we'd see of them is as they cut through on entry and exit of their property.

Also agreed that only we can decide whether this is right for us or not, but I'm certainly looking for opinions and past experiences. I've done hours of googling across various forums, blogs, etc and most horror stories about shared access are specific to either terrace houses and back yard access, or in a row of semi's in which a single driveway forks off into two garages behind the houses. I feel this setup is fairly different though.

It's also fair to state that within the neighbours boundaries they have enough space to park at least 4 cars, maybe more - so we should'nt expect issues with lack of space (forcing them to encroach on the shared part). The neighbour is currently a single lady with a single car, but obviously this is always subject to change.

Village_Idiot

Penitent wrote: »

Could you fence off part of the back garden so you have a private area without cars coming through? (Essentially, treat the drive as separate to your garden, rather than part of it.) It does sound like a pretty badly thought out set-up, though.

Yes that could certainly be done, but would sacrifice a fair portion of our space and would likely prevent us from easily accessing the garage.

If I was more of a family man, and less of a petrol head - the garage would be sacrificed and this plot could instead have a lovely back garden with a nice bit of privacy.

ReadingTim

Village_Idiot wrote: »

Also agreed that only we can decide whether this is right for us or not, but I'm certainly looking for opinions and past experiences. I've done hours of googling across various forums, blogs, etc and most horror stories about shared access are specific to either terrace houses and back yard access, or in a row of semi's in which a single driveway forks off into two garages behind the houses. I feel this setup is fairly different though.

Fundamentally though, it's not. Ultimately, a shared drive (or shared anything) means you have to share with someone over whom you have no control, who may well have completely different opinions to your own and will not compromise whatsoever - basically someone who doesn't play well, or want to share, with others.

pinklady21

Have you knocked on the door and spoken to the neighbour?

Village_Idiot

pinklady21 wrote: »

Have you knocked on the door and spoken to the neighbour?

No, I've only visited the property once - but I have a letter typed up and in an envelope. On our next scouting trip we'll pop it round, it has a quick intro and some contact details for me - I'm hoping to gauge her opinion as she must have gone through similar when considering her purchase.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

My partner's house is a mid-terrace with shared access ie all 5 houses can walk through each others' back gardens to use a communal gate at one end. In practice this is rarely used and all the occupiers have lived there for years/decades without issue. So it doesn't have to be a non-starter.

The property doesn't sound like it has any proper garden though, which I would find weird.