Shared driveway - workaround or avoid?

KPyro

SneaksyWhippet said:

Pretty much all of the houses on my street, and nearby streets, are just like this. It's a fairly standard 1940's semi layout, certainly where I live. Most of the houses have turned the area in front of their property into a parking area (the garden in your pic) and use the existing dropped kerb, some have fences inbetween them and the non-adjoining property, I do see a few who park like your pic above if there is space (it's generally either very tight or too tight), but otherwise they park on the road. There is ample on-street parking though...maybe that's the difference.

It's a long main road, lots of different house layouts along it, further up the road most people seem to have their own driveways, further down the road it's terraces with no parking out front (presumably there is rear access for those ones). There just seems to be this one little section of 10 or so semis with this shared driveway layout.
Just a few doors up they've done this with basically the same layout but I note that obviously that's a situation where both houses now have parking, the neighbouring house to the one we're looking at is still a very nice front garden.

TBagpuss

I personally would avoid it but obviously when you buy a house you almost always have to make compromises at some point.
I think I would ask yourself whether you would still be considering the property if you knew for sure that you would not be able to get PP to create a space in the front garden, and that you would not be able to park on the shared driveway due to blocking access for the neighbours, or to use the garage for parking (if the neighbours blocked access)  - e.g in a worst case scenario if you can't sort out the issue created by the shared drive, would you still be interested and what price would you be prepared to pay, and then proceed accordingly! 

davidmcn

princeofpounds said:

KPyro said:
Thanks for the input, sorry it seems like i wasnt clear-the house pictured is the house we're looking at, ie the car parked is (presumably) the current owners of the house, and I would assume the the wall and railing are part of the front garden space rather than a party wall, though I will check that during the viewing.

Do you not think there'd be enough room to turn into the garden space (if it were converted to driveway) using the existing drop kerb?

IF we were to create a private parking space do you think it would be enough to remove this problem for future buyers or would you still be put off by the shared side access to the garage at the back?

That's the problem. You can't presume this. It could be next door's car - my bet is that it is.

Assuming the photo in the OP is from the listing of the property they're interested in, the car certainly looks to be on that side of the drive rather than the neighbour's (similarly in the aerial photo).

KPyro

TBagpuss said:

I personally would avoid it but obviously when you buy a house you almost always have to make compromises at some point.
I think I would ask yourself whether you would still be considering the property if you knew for sure that you would not be able to get PP to create a space in the front garden, and that you would not be able to park on the shared driveway due to blocking access for the neighbours, or to use the garage for parking (if the neighbours blocked access)  - e.g in a worst case scenario if you can't sort out the issue created by the shared drive, would you still be interested and what price would you be prepared to pay, and then proceed accordingly! 

That's a really helpful way of looking at it thank you. 
My feeling at this point is that we've only really been seriously looking for a few weeks at this point, which I know is no time at all in house buying terms so regardless of how many boxes the house might tick otherwise, it's not worth making that kind of compromise this early on.