ROW/Boundary

Tank86

Hi,
I posted on here a while ago about a width of a ROW which has now led to some more problems with our neighbour. 
I will try and tell as much of the story as I can......
I live in a row of 6 terraced houses and I live in one of the middle two. The first three houses have long gardens that run all the way down to a river, the other three houses have gardens that only run half the length and there is a piece of land that runs along the back of their three houses. Our next door neigbour owns this piece of land and we have a ROW across her land accessed by the main road and the acccess leads to a garage halfway down our garden. This is on the title deeds and we have used our garage sparingly over the 6 and a half years we have lived here. 
We decieded to remove the garage as we didn't really use it but still wanted to retain our access (useful for garden dleiveried and logs etc.) as we always have done so we took the garage down and planned to install a gate there with exactly the same dimensions of the garage door, also opening the same way. When the garage was removed our neighbour objected to what we were doing, instead insisting that our ROW runs along the bottom of ther garden against the wall as it depicts on the title deeds. My argument on this was that we were not changing the way in which the ROW had been used for the time we were in the property so didn't see how it was a problem. The garage had stood in its current form since 2004 and there were no objections to this before we demolsihed it. Our neighbour also couldn't articulate why the objected. 
The boundary that the garage sat on is our neighbours so they said that they wanted to install a fence panel where the garage stood and leave a gap of around 3 meters (which is a width we dispute) from the wall for us to install the gate, thus shifting the access point for our land. The issues I have with this are that it makes the access point difficult as it is right up beside her wall and that there are butresses and trees that are intruding the ROW against the wall which haven't been considered. 
We tried to negotiate with our neighbour but it was clear they were not willing to reasonably talk through this and were going round in circles. We thought we had always got on with our neighbour and helped them out a lot during lockdown as they lived on their own, however it became clear in the chat that they were particularly unhappy with an extension that we had done on the rear of the property, despite them being fully informed of the work and obtaining planning permission. Whilst conversaitons were at a brief pause (a matter of days) I came down from a meeting to see a fence panel had been installed without any consultation and subsequently blocking access to my ROW for several days with disgarded materials. There was no request for any of this to be done. 
In my head the next steps should be that I write to my neighbour and ask them to have the panel removed or failing that I will remove it myself (given appropriate time to remove it themselves firstly). The alterations that we are trying to make do not alter the way in which we use our ROW, in fact it probably makes it better for our neighbour not to have a huge garage to look at halfway down the garden. 
It would be great to get some feedback on the approach and clarify if I am missing anything. Happy to answer any questions to add clarity to the issue.
Thanks

moneysavinghero

insisting that our ROW runs along the bottom of their garden against the wall as it depicts on the title deeds

If that is what the deeds say, what are they doing wrong? Maybe they got on well with the previous owner and were happy for them to build a garage on part of their land (on an informal basis). And while the garage was still there they were reasonable enough to allow it to stand. But now the garage is gone, why should they not reclaim their own land?

Tank86

moneysavinghero said:

insisting that our ROW runs along the bottom of their garden against the wall as it depicts on the title deeds

If that is what the deeds say, what are they doing wrong? Maybe they got on well with the previous owner and were happy for them to build a garage on part of their land (on an informal basis). And while the garage was still there they were reasonable enough to allow it to stand. But now the garage is gone, why should they not reclaim their own land?

Whilst it is depicted in the title deeds it also states that it is just a guide and not to scale. Also on the deeds it shows that ROW leading to the garage. I don't think it is an acceptable action to simply install a fence panel without consultation. If our neighbour has an issue with the way in which a ROW is used I would expect them to go through the proper channels to do this as we aren't fundementally making changes to the use of the ROW. 

gwynlas

if the deeds show ROW to where garage stood then this cannot be moved. If/when your property comes to be sold an off road parking place could be a valuable selling point. You should maintain a hard standing in place of the garage but can of course landscape it with moveable pots and planters if you want to. It might be that you need to enforce your argument with a solicitors letter outlining the above.

Tank86

gwynlas said:

if the deeds show ROW to where garage stood then this cannot be moved. If/when your property comes to be sold an off road parking place could be a valuable selling point. You should maintain a hard standing in place of the garage but can of course landscape it with moveable pots and planters if you want to. It might be that you need to enforce your argument with a solicitors letter outlining the above.

The deeds do show the ROW leading to the garage but they don't show it leading to the where the garage doors were. It goes to the edge of the garage not the central point. I am guessing that on the deeds was a previous garage which which may have been smaller. All I know is that the garage in its current form has been there since 2004. The ROW was established in the 1950's.
Exactly on your point about keeping a hard standing area. We plan on removing the concrete and laying something, gravel for example, and having movable pots. There is also the potential to install a car charging point should we wish to go down that route in the future.