Shared drive with neighbours - Am I not allowed to block my own half of the drive?

Slithery

Mickey666 said:

The answer to the question posed by the OP is contained within the thread title.
The OP doesn’t have ‘HALF a driveway’ to block, he has a half share of the WHOLE driveway - a subtle difference, perhaps, but an important one.  Both owners have a half share of the WHOLE driveway and therefore both of them have equal rights over the WHOLE driveway.  If the driveway was split into two halves there would be no need for either half to have shared ownership and each side could have TOTAL ownership of their respective ‘halves’.  For whatever reason, this is not the case, and the key thing is that joint ownership means just that, for every square metre, square centimetre and square millimetre.

We don't actually know if it's shared or not though do we? The OP thinks it might be but despite being asked early in the thread still hasn't looked at either of the deeds to accertain this fact.

trex227

Mickey666 said:

The answer to the question posed by the OP is contained within the thread title.
The OP doesn’t have ‘HALF a driveway’ to block, he has a half share of the WHOLE driveway - a subtle difference, perhaps, but an important one.  Both owners have a half share of the WHOLE driveway and therefore both of them have equal rights over the WHOLE driveway.  If the driveway was split into two halves there would be no need for either half to have shared ownership and each side could have TOTAL ownership of their respective ‘halves’.  For whatever reason, this is not the case, and the key thing is that joint ownership means just that, for every square metre, square centimetre and square millimetre.

I don’t think that’s the case (hopefully OP will check title and confirm either way). It seems I have pretty much the exact same set up. There is no joint ownership, my drive is mine and the neighbours is theirs. We have no rights over each other’s drives, it just happens there is nothing on the boundary. The original boundary marker (I assume a fence of some description) was removed years ago. If I wanted to I could install a fence tomorrow.

steve866

muffingg said:

We have just bought a semi-detached house and we have a shared drive with our neighbours.
The house boundaries run right through the middle of the shared drive so we both own half of it. Each half of the drive fits 2 cars next to each other. We often have guests over who we always ask to park in front of us on the street (i.e. blocking our cars from going out).
The problem is that our neighbours have a lamppost in front of their drive and if we have a car parked on the street in front of our half of the drive, it makes it difficult for them to get into their drive.  It is still possible for them to enter the drive, but just a bit tight. Therefore, they always make a big fuss of us obstructing their driveway although our guests are parked fully on our side of the boundary line.
They have justified it by saying that since it's a shared drive, the boundaries don't matter for the access to the drive and legally we need to leave the entire entrance free. Is this how it works?
Diagram below not to scale, just to give an idea

No idea or the legality but if it makes it difficult for them to get in and out of their drive, morally you should stop doing it.

blue_max_3

Presumably it was made a shared drive because of the lamp post issue. Can your guests park on the road?

oldbikebloke

Mickey666 said:

The answer to the question posed by the OP is contained within the thread title.
The OP doesn’t have ‘HALF a driveway’ to block, he has a half share of the WHOLE driveway - a subtle difference, perhaps, but an important one.  Both owners have a half share of the WHOLE driveway and therefore both of them have equal rights over the WHOLE driveway.  If the driveway was split into two halves there would be no need for either half to have shared ownership and each side could have TOTAL ownership of their respective ‘halves’.  For whatever reason, this is not the case, and the key thing is that joint ownership means just that, for every square metre, square centimetre and square millimetre.

you miss the entire point of the thread. THERE IS NO SHARED DRIVEWAY 
The question is, as per OP's diagram, can his guest car park across the drop kerb?
that is not driveway, shared or private, it is a crossover on the public highway (/pavement). You cannot own a part of the public highway.

As someone has said earlier, the set up is quite common where a single crossing point allows access to two separate driveways built on private land. Either from the word go, or changed by previous owners, there is no physical divider between the two private sections, it is just one expanse of hard surface, 2 cars on the right, 2 cars on the left. But again that is not the issue, the issue is the crossover which it appears is wider on OP's side than it is on neighbour's side because neighbour has a lamppost on the verge.
What we don't know is exactly how wide the crossover is between lamppost and an imaginary line extending out from between the 2 properties, ie just how good a driver does neighbour have to be if they cannot use the bit of the crossover on OP's "side" of such a line 

OP seems to think that it is their right to cause such inconvenience as they think the public highway is their personal parking spot to do with as they please because it is outside their house. It isn't: a) they have no such right and b) it is just plain inconsiderate, even if neighbour is a perfect driver.

couriervanman

steve866 said:

muffingg said:

We have just bought a semi-detached house and we have a shared drive with our neighbours.
The house boundaries run right through the middle of the shared drive so we both own half of it. Each half of the drive fits 2 cars next to each other. We often have guests over who we always ask to park in front of us on the street (i.e. blocking our cars from going out).
The problem is that our neighbours have a lamppost in front of their drive and if we have a car parked on the street in front of our half of the drive, it makes it difficult for them to get into their drive.  It is still possible for them to enter the drive, but just a bit tight. Therefore, they always make a big fuss of us obstructing their driveway although our guests are parked fully on our side of the boundary line.
They have justified it by saying that since it's a shared drive, the boundaries don't matter for the access to the drive and legally we need to leave the entire entrance free. Is this how it works?
Diagram below not to scale, just to give an idea

No idea or the legality but if it makes it difficult for them to get in and out of their drive, morally you should stop doing it.

Those two houses had single driveways years ago then they both decided to knock down walls/hedges to double up and one house had a friendly agreement with the other to drive over driveway because of the lamppost.As other have said nothing to stop OP putting a fence up which would still leave space for other house to get two cars on driveway

hazyjo

Awful lot of bossy presumptions being made on here lol.

Suggest the OP pays the £3 to determine who owns or shares what. Pointless speculating until we know more.

No, we do not know yet if it's a shared section or dropped kerb. Many houses have shared areas even if you could effectively draw a line down the middle.

Let's just wait and see...

brianposter

feathers12 said:

I cannot see that the details of ownership have any relevance.

In both diagrams the guests car is parked on public property, not private property, and is causing a minor obstruction. Technically the OP does not have a leg to stand on, for ownership of the house does not convey any particular rights to the road or pavement.

The answer to the OPs question is that he is not entitled to block his own drive.

Sea_Shell

Going by that diagram, kindly posted, Is there any way that the guest car could just pull up where the dropped kerb is, and then back up a bit to go "up the kerb", thereby giving the neighbours a bit more space???    At the end of the day, we're probably only talking about a foot or so of extra space needed to manoeuvre in, surely.

Do they need to pull up right to the "boundary"?

MoneySeeker1

Sea_Shell said:

Going by that diagram, kindly posted, Is there any way that the guest car could just pull up where the dropped kerb is, and then back up a bit to go "up the kerb", thereby giving the neighbours a bit more space???    At the end of the day, we're probably only talking about a foot or so of extra space needed to manoeuvre in, surely.

Do they need to pull up right to the "boundary"?

Absolutely!

Very petty of the parents to do that/OP to encourage them to do that. 

Some of us know just how galling it is to have a selfish neighbour that is absolutely intent on taking literally every last inch of space they might conceivably get away with (even though that space isn't theirs to take).

One day OP might need a favour from those neighbours and his attitude is making it highly likely they'll turn and look the other way - rather than helping.