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Gate across private driveway in cul de sac
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Another thought, for the neighbour next door in particular, the OP and any visitors will be stopping outside the neighbours house, most likely with the engine running, whilst opening said gate or delivery drivers unloading parcels/shopping and walking it up to the house. This might also block said neighbour if they were to want to enter/exit at the same time....
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lookstraightahead said:AnotherJoe said:Id just put some gates in, maybe cheaper ones to start. and tell no one official*. If a neighbour asks, say its to stop the kids running into the road. (though how old are they? If young enough they need gates there should be someone with them, old enough not to need someone they'll be able to open the gates anyway)* better to ask forgiveness etc. Otherwise you are into a complexity of permissions etc esp if its not clear who can give permission (even if its needed) as people will be reluctant to give it if they arent sure.
Why woudl they care, AFAICS (but maybe i missed it) it just goes into his driveway and neighbours dont go down that far?
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While these cases often come across as someone wanting to be cheeky and to sneak a bit of extra land from what is communal (we had a neighbour move his garden fence back four metres overnight and then desperately try to paint the new fence before anyone noticed) this one does look initially as the OP’s own land.
The restriction on building on the road looks to be because of the access needed for the water or the drains, ans so there’s no obvious reason why the gate can’t be out in but...
The devil is in the detail, as others have said about neighbours’ right of access, and even if they have none, it’s the sort of thing that can easily sour relationships. At the moment the properties are all the same, each has a small private parking space and a road to get to it. After the gate the OP may have taken nothing from the neighbours, but will have gained something himself, “for free”, so it’ll take a careful approach not to end up with grumpy neighbours and some “accidental” bad parking that makes driving through the gate difficult.
If it were me I’d check the facts very carefully, and then visit each neighbour for a chat to politely explain that as your plot really I’d different to theirs that you would like to close it off in line with the true boundary, rather than just go ahead and do it.0 -
There's no debate that the OP owns the blue area. It is inside their red boundary line.
Because the OP has not posted the plans and deeds to the neighbouring houses, we don't yet know for certain what their relationship to the shared driveway is.1 -
princeofpounds said:There's no debate that the OP owns the blue area. It is inside their red boundary line.
Because the OP has not posted the plans and deeds to the neighbouring houses, we don't yet know for certain what their relationship to the shared driveway is.
I will be back with an update later tonight after work. Still looking into the details on this. Just wanted to thank everyone who has contributed to discussion so far.
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Mickey666 said:Seems strange that part 13 restricts the erection of any "building or structure" on the OP's blue patch but ALLOWS the erection of a hedge. What, in practical terms, is the difference between a hedge and a gate - other than the fact that a gate can easily be swung open to allow the water authority to access the blue patch whereas an apparently allowable hedge could not be so easily moved?
I think it makes sense if clause 13 (as I've suggested) relates to some earlier agreement between a previous land owner and the RWA. In other words, the situation that existed prior to the development.
If the double-hatched area is something like a protection zone or easement for an asset (such as a trunk main or high pressure rising main) - and that existed prior to the development - then it makes sense that the RWA wanted to stop it being built over, to be able to access it, but in turn were willing to allow the owner (possibly a farmer?) to plant a hedge as a boundary/shelter feature, provided it wasn't one which would grow in a way which meant the roots would interfere with the asset. Subsequent (temporary) removal of a hedge to be able to work on an asset wouldn't have been considered a big issue in a rural/farming context.
During and post-development the building over and access requirements remain relevant. But for the OP the hedge provision is something of an anachronism, although it might be relevant to them and neighbours 1 and 2 if they wanted to plant a front boundary hedge which might lie just inside the double-hatched area.
I think it likely this asset existed before the development as it appears from the plan that the houses have been built to fit around it. The size and position of the property to the left looks as if it has been done very carefully to just keep out of the zone. Likewise, I suspect the layout of the OP's 'estate' was done to maximise the development potential within the constraint imposed by the asset. Without that constraint the developer could have achieved a better outcome by dividing the plot into quarters and having a central (and much shorter) shared road/drive.
Thus the reason for the shared access way being as long as it is (as per a previous post of mine) could be because it was the simplest way of satisfying the RWA that their asset would be permanently accessible and not harmed by future domestic activity.Mickey666 said:
It looks to me as if the OP owns the blue patch and the implication, by its differentiation from the rest of the driveway, is that the neighbours do not have a right of way over this blue patch - which makes sense because why would they need to access the blue patch anyway? It would be interesting to see the deeds of the neighbouring houses.
I think I might come to the same conclusion, but not because of that differentiation. Neither the blue or brown shading relate to access rights or obligations between the OP and neighbours themselves in the current situation.
Blue references rights of a third party (the RWA) and brown to land adjoining 'the estate'. Neither appear to be relevant to the OP and neighbours accessing their own properties or making use of the shared access for that purpose.
I suspect the neighbour's plans might show the shared access on their property shaded in yellow - making more sense of clause 4. Although presumably the area affected by the water authority's rights will be somehow indicated as well.
Seeing paragraph 5 of the first schedule might be important too.
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Ok, it took a while but I got hold of the title plans for all three properties. HM Land Registry was experiencing some delays yesterday.All three titles look very similar and are acompanied by very similar plans. Relevant parts of each plan are shown below (side by side):N1 N2 My plotIn all three cases dotted and solid lines are plot boundaries with solid red highlighting of the plot in questionOn my plan, blue dotted line is the sewer according to the title plan. This last details is interesting because it does not match with the information that RWA returned to me during searches. Below is the schematic returned by RWA which frankly speaking makes more sense and is more modern. Yet this detail is probably not critical to the main point. It could be that both sewers coexist.The interesting part I assume is the section C of each title "Charges Register".These look very similar too and each has a reference to the same document (not to identical documents but to the same exact document referred to by number)All three titles contain identical clause. The wording is as follows:The parts of the land affected thereby are subject to the following rights granted by a Deed dated XXXXXXX made between (1) [Developer company name here] (2) [RWA name here].
The said Deed also contains covenants.
NOTE: Copy Deed filed under DYXXXXXXXX.Document number DYXXXXXXXX is exactly the same in all three titles and I have a copy of it.The plan posted earlier (with blue and brown sections) is taken directly from DYXXXXXXXX so I have reasons to believe that N1 and N2 have exactly the same version of the plan without variations. I don't anticipate that HM Land Registry would store different versions of the same document and bother with version control between them. if these were different documents I believe they would be stored under different unique numbers.
The entire document is specific to the sewer and does not at any point talks about driveways or right of access for neighbors. It is also the only document refered to in the section C of all three Titles. Is it reasonable to assume at that point that this part of the equation is solved?Now back to the content of DYXXXXXXXX. The document consists of two parts, one appears to be an agreement between Developer and RWA and the second the transfer of the responsibility from Developer to the first owner of the plot.Besides the diagram DYXXXXXXXX contains a lot of clauses written in a language that I find difficult to read. @Section62 has expressed interest in paragraph 5 of the first schedule (and rightly so). Here is a copy:Also here is an interesting detail:I still cannot find any references to the crosshatch area in DYXXXXXXX.Any further thoughts / opinions?
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Sorry for drip feeding the information like this, but I don't want to dump the entire document here (it is a lot of reading) and I am also taking extra care to photoshop out any confidential information that belongs to neighbors / companies / developers and myself.
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8username8 said:Here is an update.From title plan:1
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PerfectMess said:8username8 said:Here is an update.From title plan:1
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