Shared Driveway into two private driveways

chrishall93

Hello everyone,

Let me set the scene, myself and my partner are looking at buying a house which has a shared driveway with a neighbouring semi-detached house. (kind of classic 1930's build with a garage to the rear.

I would like to separate the shared driveway and make two separate driveways, and when I spoke to the neighbour it was something they wanted to do aswell, it's the current vendor which never wanted to do it because he used the garage to the rear of the property. However the neighbours have changed their garage into a summer house.

Each house has got a brick wall which the shared driveway goes between so I envisage knocking down the walls, separating the driveway, dropping the kerb and hence make two separate driveways. I would obviously insist upon a change of deeds incase future neighbours wanted to change it.

my questions are:

a) Can it be done?
b) Would I need a solicitor - and if so does anyone know how much it would cost?

Thank you for taking the time to read, and any responses would be the most helpful.

chrishall93

Also any other information you have which you think I would find useful would be great as well! !!!55357;!!!56836;

PasturesNew

If both sides agree, then it can be done - but you'd need to read the deeds to see what they say.

There are two scenarios:
1/ Each house owns the freehold of their side/half - and the neighbour has the right to pass and repass on foot/vehicle over both halves.

2/ It actually is "shared", which tends to be less common as it's a bit harder/pointless to create one part of a diagram that's shared when the rest isn't.

You can download the documents from Land Registry for £3 instantly as a PDF and see what it says.

If you own one half, with the neighbour having rights to pass over it, then something would need to be done legally (at a cost) for the two of you to remove those rights from each other, else it'd be a problem for both when trying to sell at a later date. Either do it properly, or not at all.

Owain_Moneysaver

You will need local authority consent for any alteration to the dropped kerb and the location where your drive(s) cross the pavement.

The dropped kerb must also be carried out by the local authority or their approved contractor (at your cost).

unforeseen

I would think both would need their mortgage lenders approval as well (assuming the properties are mortgaged)