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

SpiderLegs

Lots of questions around the legality of what you are doing, however I think the most relevant question is -

RobM99 said:

Reverse the situation, would you be happy?

Say you come home one evening to find your neighbours mate had parked in the same spot. Are you likely to kick off at that point or will you simply crack on and try squeeze through the remaining gap onto ‘your half’?

muffingg

allconnected said:

Where are the dropped kerbs? i.e. what is the actual legal access point from the road to the drives? Because it looks like your visitors are parking on the public highway and partly on the pavement, and not on private property. If so, what is relevant is whether they are parking across the dropped kerb or not.

AdrianC said:

Another vote for showing on the diagram where the drop kerbs are.

I can't believe there's a lamp post in the middle of a drop kerb...

The dropped kerb part spans only half the total drive. So roughly from just next to the lamppost to the middle of my drive (so half in front of the neighbours, half in front of my house). And It's roughly 2 cars wide. So the neighbours are parking half on the kerb and half on the dropped kerb.

muffingg

p00hsticks said:

I hope that your diagram isn't indicating that your guests are the sort of inconsiderate people who park half on the pavement and force pedestrians with wheelchairs or pushchairs to walk in the road ?

Even if they're not, then I beleive it's an offence to park across a dropped kerb, which presumably you have as access to the driveway.  And I would imagine that the reason for the shared driveway is to allow your neighbours to drive in and out of the house, so another reason not to park in front of the drive.

Surely the solution is for your guests to park in front of the lampost ?

It is indicating exactly that. In this area everyone on the entire road parks half on and half off the pavement. There are many such places across the UK where you are encouraged to park half on and half off the pavement. The pavement is wide enough to allow people, wheelchairs, pushchairs to go past. So, our guests can't park in front of the lamppost because they'd be obstructing the road and be the odd car out on the entire road.

Barny1979

numbercruncher8 said:

PCN code 27 covers parking in front of a dropped kerb. In practice though, if you owned the dropped kerb/property it provides access to, the guest could get the ticket cancelled on appeal as you have given permission.

Often Local Authorities now want permission in writing to issue PCNs made from the resident, but it is caveated that permission to issue a PCN covers any vehicle, so residents or owners could be issued and an appeal would be unsuccessful.

muffingg

GraceD_17 said:

That's a bit of a tricky one, you could always tell them to contact the local council about the lamppost and see if there is any way they can get it moved? Seems like such a strange idea to put a lamppost in front of someones drive. 

Understandable if not, do you have a google maps street view link where this can be seen to scale? 

It depends on how much of an understanding person you are, if you understand their need to come through where your guests park then perhaps work with them and get guests to park further left (or right if you're basing it on the diagram) or is there a way of guests parking with their car on the drive facing the same way as yours (toward the house) so it's parked straight up leaving more room?

Even more simple, agree with your neighbours that your guests park in front of their lampost? 

The dropped kerb part starts after the lamppost (just to the right of it). We are considerate people and don't want to make a fuss. But the issue here is that we were convinced that we are allowed to park in front of our own half of the drive. And we get lots of guests all the time. So even extending to 3 cars in the drive, it's bound to be not enough at some point. Since the right half of my drive doesn't have a dropped kerb, we always  have other people parking half across our drive (we can't stop them as the kerb isn't dropped). But the issue in that case is that we can't park on the half that is dropped because although that would still be within our boundaries, we are making it difficult for the neighbours to get in. Obviously,  whenever there is nobody parked there, we park our car as far to the right as possible, but this isn't always possible.

muffingg

Stenwold said:

If the dropped kerb runs the whole width of the shared drive, then I'm on your neighbours side. Irrespective of the legal aspect of whether you should treat the whole entrance to the drive as shared - the neighbour has no choice but to enter/exit on your side due to the lampost being there. Deliberately blocking that part of the drive seems selfish (even if it is possible to still get through). 

Nobody is doing anything deliberately. The neighbours can park in and we only have had to do this 2 times in the past 6 months that we made it tight for them. Notice: tight, not impossible. It's no big deal if they did that to us. It would only require take me an extra 5-10 seconds to park the car in. We would be understanding of the situation as long as it wasn't all the time. But they're making the fuss about it. Sometimes we are just forced to do this because the entire road is full and the nearest parking for them may be 5 minute walk away.

muffingg

MoneySeeker1 said:

They haven't "justified" it. They've "explained" it. Very different word.

You both have a Right of Way over each others drives - so I'm sorry but they have a ROW over your drive (as you do over theirs).

No-one is allowed to stop on a ROW except for loading or unloading people or goods. No parking on a ROW.

Not what you want to hear - but it is the case.

Does this mean, let's say I had a detached house somewhere far away from anyone else, I can't have anyone parking on the dropped kerb in front of my own house?

muffingg

ProDave said:

Why don't your guests park in front of the neighbours house, the bit already blocked by the lamppost?

Because on the road I live on, parking is meant to be half on and half off the road. Nobody parks fully on the road and they would be obstructing the road if they did so

Soot2006

Is it actually a shared driveway, or do you share the driveway?

As in, do the deeds set out a right of way over each other's bit, or could you technically put up a fence and gate if you wanted to.

It does seem like in the interest of neighbourly relations as much as anything else it would be best not to park across any of the dropped kerb, but nothing you've said confirms the legal situation in terms of access/right of way/etc (unless I missed it, in which case I apologise).

muffingg

RobM99 said:

Reverse the situation, would you be happy?

I wouldn't say anything if there is enough space in front of my drive to get my car in. It's definitely wide enough to get it in, although it would take 5-10 seconds extra because of the space being tight. If my neighbours get guests every now and then, I wouldn't mind if they obstruct their half of the driveway and their car isn't sticking out beyond their house boundary.