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

pinkshoes

You need to look at yours and their deeds.

It is a SHARED drive, but it will depend if you each have a right of way (ROW) across the other person's part.

If there is no ROW, then you are perfectly entitled to park across the front of your own driveway. It is your neighbour's own fault for purchasing a house that has a lamp post across their own driveway!

If they do have ROW, then you cannot obstruct the dropped kerb, so your visitors will need to park elsewhere. 

The whole thing seems an odd set up. I would look at getting quotes to get the lamp post moved and the dropped kerb moved all the way across both drives so that you both then have easy access and a 3rd parking space each. 

muffingg

Soot2006 said:

muffingg said:

Stratus said:

I imagine when these houses were originally built they each had a front garden which has since been paved over to provide additional parking. The original drive may have been shared in order to access garages behind each house. This would explain the limited length of dropped kerb.
Living in a community involves a bit of give and take. I think a bit more giving by the OP is required here.

I don't understand why everyone is so against us. Couldn't one also argue that if it's only a matter of taking 5-10 seconds extra for them to park in their drive, they should just put up with it and not make a fuss about it? It's not even an everyday occasion. It's only happened  2-3 times in the past 6 months.

You haven't responded to the ROW/ROA query.

It would be helpful and would change the way people are viewing the situation I think.

Basically, in my eyes: if there is a ROW/ROA then you're the annoying one.  If there isn't, then the neighbour is the annoying one. Do they actually cross your driveway or just your half of the dropped kerb? My neighbourhood is full of geometrically interesting parking situations from converted front gardens, etc. Where there are fences/hedges blocking a bigger access across someone else's dropped kerb or driveway, people just have to live with it, playing musical cars, etc ...

Hmm, the answer to the ROW/ROA is basically that I just don't know. My documents are still at my parents' place. Would they be part of the documents we got from our solicitor?

They only cross in front of our kerb, not the actual driveway. And that also very little only. Of course, that's no issue for us at all. We think we're quite considerate people and neighbours generally (i.e. we've even let them park inside our drive when they once had someone over before we had our second car. We just wished they wouldn't make a fuss about these little things especially as they aren't very frequent and all it takes from them are a few seconds of changing gears to get the car into the drive.

oldbikebloke

muffingg said:
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). That makes no sense, either there is a drop with a left and right hand side, or there isn't 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.

rather difficult to understand what you are talking about when you say you do not have a dropped kerb on "your" side. Do you in fact mean the dropped kerb starts to the right of the lampost and runs across the entire frontage of your property and only rises back up somewhere beyond the righthand side of your property? Or is the righthand side of the dropped kerb within the frontage of your neighbour. You cannot have a dropped kerb that has only one side.

If there is a (2 sided) dropped kerb (across whatever frontage) then what you and your neighbour have is a right of passage across council land to get to your respective off road parking in your own gardens. Your belief that your boundary runs out from your garden to the road thereby creating a "half" you "control" is fundamentally wrong and seems to be the route of your attitude to this issue.

If half on, half off ("HoHo") parking on the pavement is permitted in your area (with or without painted bays being marked up) then you have no more right to park in that spot than I or your neighbour does, unless a permit system is in operation, and even if it was a resident permit, it is not your space anymore than it is the neighbour's..

I accept the practical limitations caused by the lamppost seems to mean the neighbour has no ability to HoHo on their frontage, but by definition the lamppost cannot be obstructing the dropped kerb as that is a physical impossibility if the drop was legally installed. 

So it seems it all reverts back to how much space you leave for them to turn in and out with a lamppost restricting the angle of approach. There is no question of "rights", it is simply a matter of reasonable behaviour.

GraceD_17

I think a google map link would be relevant at this time, it seems the debate of a dropped curb and where it is has taken over

muffingg

GraceD_17 said:

I think a google map link would be relevant at this time, it seems the debate of a dropped curb and where it is has taken over

Yeah, I know it would make things way easier, but I really don't want to give any more details or pictures as I don't want to make anyone realise where I live or my neighbours to find out.

oldbikebloke

GraceD_17 said:

I think a google map link would be relevant at this time, it seems the debate of a dropped curb and where it is has taken over

since OP seems to think the pavement is his drive and he owns half of it then yes, the position of the drop is rather relevant because who parks where has nothing to do with a "driveway", and everything to do with roadside parking positions

gingercordial

For those querying parking on payments, as the OP says there are roads where that is permitted/required, for example this road near me in the north London suburbs.  It is a real pain as in this one there is no room left for pedestrians, but the cars are parked legally.



But OP you should not be blocking any of the dropped kerb.  Maybe they are not quite as confident at manoeuvres as you are.  Give them space.

sheramber

It looks as if both houses started with single drives and both have extended widthwise into the garden to make the drives double width.
  Is it really a shared drive with access allowed to each  neighbour over the whole area  , or is it just two drives next to each other each with its own dropped 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."

you have a dropped kerb to allow access for car 1 onto the original drive.
Neighbour has dropped kerb  to allow access for car 2  onto the original drive.
The fact that access is restricted  for neighbour's car 1 is because the drive was  extended sideways.  But  that bit of drive was not the original drive , hence the lamppost being placed there.
In that case  does your neighbour have a right of access over your dropped kerb or is it by  goodwill only?

muffingg

oldbikebloke said:

muffingg said:
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). That makes no sense, either there is a drop with a left and right hand side, or there isn't 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.

rather difficult to understand what you are talking about when you say you do not have a dropped kerb on "your" side. Do you in fact mean the dropped kerb starts to the right of the lampost and runs across the entire frontage of your property and only rises back up somewhere beyond the righthand side of your property? Or is the righthand side of the dropped kerb within the frontage of your neighbour. You cannot have a dropped kerb that has only one side.

If there is a (2 sided) dropped kerb (across whatever frontage) then what you and your neighbour have is a right of passage across council land to get to your respective off road parking in your own gardens. Your belief that your boundary runs out from your garden to the road thereby creating a "half" you "control" is fundamentally wrong and seems to be the route of your attitude to this issue.

If half on, half off ("HoHo") parking on the pavement is permitted in your area (with or without painted bays being marked up) then you have no more right to park in that spot than I or your neighbour does, unless a permit system is in operation, and even if it was a resident permit, it is not your space anymore than it is the neighbour's..

I accept the practical limitations caused by the lamppost seems to mean the neighbour has no ability to HoHo on their frontage, but by definition the lamppost cannot be obstructing the dropped kerb as that is a physical impossibility if the drop was legally installed. 

So it seems it all reverts back to how much space you leave for them to turn in and out with a lamppost restricting the angle of approach. There is no question of "rights", it is simply a matter of reasonable behaviour.

Sorry, I only just re-read my sentence and realised it didn't make much sense. Thee dropped kerb covers around 50% of my drive and 50% of my neighbour's drive. The right half of my drive doesn't have a dropped kerb and the left half of my neighbour's drive (including the lamppost) doesn't have a dropped kerb either.

In regards to parking in front of a dropped kerb, does this mean that if I was to pay for a dropped kerb for the right half of my drive, I still wouldn't be allowed to park in front of my own drive? I always thought the only person to complain in that case would be myself as I'm the only one getting blocked in. How is that the council's business whether I park in front of my own house?

Barny1979

gingercordial said:

For those querying parking on payments, as the OP says there are roads where that is permitted/required, for example this road near me in the north London suburbs.  It is a real pain as in this one there is no room left for pedestrians, but the cars are parked legally.



But OP you should not be blocking any of the dropped kerb.  Maybe they are not quite as confident at manoeuvres as you are.  Give them space.

There would be if the golf had been parked within the bay and the garden shrubs weren't encroaching into the Highway.