Shared driveway issues

Simby

Op, I would run away from this property.

Even if there is a ROW, it sounds like the vendor has opted to pay the neighbour, so irrespective of legality I suspect the neighbour will want to continue receiving money and may not be too happy to have a new neighbour who does not want to pay.

princeofpounds

Maintenance isn't usually such a big deal. If you are the 'dominant' party (i.e. the one with a right of way) then you usually have the right to maintain the access route at your own cost even if the 'servient' party (the land owner) doesn't want to. It's rare, but not impossible, that the servient party objects to it, but you just have to realize that you might have to pay yourself. If both parties use it, usually they split the cost.


But that's not necessarily the case when there appears to be some kind of license agreement involved, as here.


Issues around blocking, frequency of access etc. tend to crop up more frequently, from what I have seen.


The poster who suggested the details are most important is correct. But I'd never buy a shared driveway situation without discussing it with the prospective neighbours directly and being absolutely clear on the legal situation. And even then, you can get an idiot moving in next door one day.

davidmcn

The OP may have confused things by calling it a "shared driveway" in the subject line as it sounds like it isn't what most of us would call a shared driveway, but the neighbour's driveway and only used by this house for access to their garden. Which I'm guessing is a "nice to have" additional means of access rather than essential, but would be good if they came back to clarify.

Davesnave

The more intelligent, reasoned responses above make more sense to me.

People are advising "run away" without full knowledge of the facts, including the likely price difference between a property with it's own drive and one without, or with restricted access of some kind.

We don't know either whether this access levy is reasonable or extortionate, written into a formal agreement, or randomly applied.


Once these things are clarified, is the time to make a judgement.

zagubov

A shared driveway's only useful if you don't depend on it!

Your neighbours might be great but supposing they rent out the house of sell it?