Neighbour blocked garage with fence

pmlindyloo

hazyjo wrote: »

Devaluing it even further with a neighbour dispute! The neighbour's a Muppet. Neighbour should've discussed this with tea and cake as G_M suggests before doing anything.

It may not be too late for that.

Tea and cake approach may still work.

The OP would need to keep calm but at the same time make the neighbours realise that this is not neighbourly behaviour, it could cause a neighbour dispute which would have to be reported if they ever wanted to sell and explore the possibility of their resolving it some way. (BUT approach this with the next couple of sentences in mind -i.e what have I done to annoy you?)

I still find the whole thing a bit strange. Perhaps whatever is annoying the neighbours may 'come out' during tea and cake.

Smodlet

I think we are getting only half the story here. It is not "normal" behaviour to wake up one day and suddenly be seized by the urge to erect a fence... Is it? :eek:

Badger50

I'll try again.Implied Easement of Common Intention. My case would be that the original owners, on any reasonable assessment, cannot have intended anything other than to grant each other rights of way over the drive. The physical set up speaks for itself. The land is a drive which is only one car wide. There's a double garage astride the boundary. What else could their intention have been? It is very unfortunate that it is not documented.

Norman_Castle

Is the property on an estate of identical properties with the same shared driveways? It seems obvious access will be needed for the garages, were they a later addition to the properties? Is there now a dropped kerb leading nowhere?

mrschaucer

pmlindyloo wrote: »

The OP would need to keep calm but at the same time make the neighbours realise that this is not neighbourly behaviour, it could cause a neighbour dispute which would have to be reported if they ever wanted to sell and explore the possibility of their resolving it some way.

But it's not the neighbours who are doing anything wrong, really. Much as OP would like there NOT to be a fence along the drive, it would appear that the neighbours have put a fence where they are quite entitled to put one. They are not the ones causing a neighbour dispute. If OP decides to make it a dispute, which he would be silly to do, then that's on his shoulders.
No one knows why people suddenly do strange (to OP's eye) things. We only know half the story. I agree with The Cake Strategy!

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Badger50 wrote: »

I'll try again.Implied Easement of Common Intention. My case would be that the original owners, on any reasonable assessment, cannot have intended anything other than to grant each other rights of way over the drive. The physical set up speaks for itself. The land is a drive which is only one car wide. There's a double garage astride the boundary. What else could their intention have been? It is very unfortunate that it is not documented.

We don't know yet if the garages are original. They could have been built at any time. What is now a drive could have been two fenced off side gardens.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Cakeguts wrote: »

I can't see why the neighbour would want to block access to the garage. I can see why the neighbour might want to stop someone from parking on the drive.

Even 2.5 m is narrow. If I took my house layout, the neighbour would be essentially be driving right past my kitchen window regularly. I would want him to stop that, if there was no upside for me in him doing it.

victoriavictorious

I feel it's reasonable to suspect that had the neighbour driven a Mini like OP does, which would have made his garage more usable for its intended purpose, he might have been perfectly happy to share the access, instead of suddenly erecting a fence down the middle, Steptoe & Son style, where Harold and Albert divided their living room in half after an argument so each could only sit on half the sofa, and view half the tv.
I agree with Badger that this was probably originally intended as a shared driveway.
Either way, seems quite a bizarre thing to do, I doubt it would do either of them any favours if they ever sold, and I too feel there must be a pretty interesting back story to this.

happyandcontented

Op can you tell us the back story?

Have you been on good terms with the neighbour prior to this incident? Has he ever indicated that he wasn't happy with you accessing your garage over his half of the driveway?

Badger50

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

We don't know yet if the garages are original. They could have been built at any time. What is now a drive could have been two fenced off side gardens.

True, but if the pair of garages was built later than the houses I think it would still imply a common intention on the part of the two owners at the time. Perhaps even more so because they must have actively cooperated on the project and shared the cost.