Shared drive dispute

trickydicky4321

I'd appreciate some advice on the following matter.
On the map you will see a public road marked in red.  Coming off that road is a shared drive/road (marked in yellow) which leads to 5 houses which I've marked with numbers.  I live in house 1 at the very end of the shared drive.  My private drive is marked in blue.
We've lived here for 20 years as have the residents of all 5 houses.  We've never had any issues with the shared drive or access to our properties.  Last week my neighbour (house 2) said he'd got a copy of the land registry map and has found that he owns the area in purple, which is currently a large chunk of the shared drive.  He said he wants to dig out this area of the shared drive and pave it as his drive.  He says it wouldn't affect me because he'd make sure I can access my drive.

My issue (and the neighbours in houses 3 & 4) is that for a start it would look absolutely ridiculous.  I'd have his new drive way across half of the front of mine, plus it would extend partially across house 4's driveway.  Secondly, if he did start parking on his new driveway I couldn't access my drive properly.  Thirdly, even if he didn't park on the new driveway, if he moved house, any new owners may think they have a right to park and block my access.

As I suspected it would, this has quickly escalated into bad feeling and there was a big stand up argument between houses 2, 3 & 4 over the weekend.

I've looked at the land registry and house 4 property goes half way onto the shared drive, as does house 5.  House 3 owns from his current end of the drive up to the purple area.  None of them have ever moved their drives and don't intend to, so I have no idea why house 2 thinks it is acceptable.

My question is, what can and can't the owner of house 2 do in terms of work on the shared driveway?  What protection do I/we have against what he wants to do?

TELLIT01

You need to check the deeds of your property, and those of house 2.  Although house 2 may well own that piece of land it is likely that other properties have right of access across it.  If that is the case the owners of house 2 cannot do anything which will affect that access. 

The fact that it might look ridiculous would not in itself stop the surface being changed.

DB1904

If the purple part belongs to house 2 then they can surface it as they see fit. 

trickydicky4321

I thought that may be the case.  However, it feels like the start of a slippery slope.  First off they pave it, next they start moving their car further over and make it awkward for us to get our car on our drive.  Once the boundary onto the shared drive disappears how do we know where that boundary was exactly?  What can we do legally if the position of their car starts affecting us?

Bendy_House

"He said he wants to dig out this area of the shared drive and pave it as his drive.  He says it wouldn't affect me because he'd make sure I can access my drive." He needs to know, in no uncertain terms, that of course you'll have access to your drive at all times, right over his paved area - nothing will change in that respect. Being 'paved' will have no bearing whatsoever on your, and your other neighb's, entitlement to do this. So, "why on earth would you want to go to this expense?" (Try and get an answer.)

"Once the boundary onto the shared drive disappears how do we know where that boundary was exactly?  What can we do legally if the position of their car starts affecting us?" You don't even have to wait until it 'affects' you - if he does anything to restrict or narrow the access road as a result, then he's in breach of the terms of the deeds and you can take legal action, whether or not you can actually wriggle your way around it. Take it to its logical conclusion - if the occupants of Nos 4 and 5 were to park their cars on the road, even partially, that would restrict access and everyone would be rightly peeved even if they could still squeeze through. It would clearly be a breach of the terms of the deeds.

Should it become clear that he still plans to proceed with this work, perhaps you and No4 could mark out where that driveway edge currently lies? You could, for example, hammer in a SS coachbolt into the tarmac at each corner of the house-side purple line, leaving just the head partially protruding. That's your waymark.

First, though, you - and your neighbours - need to accurately establish the facts, by going through everyone's deeds. I suspect very strongly it'll be as said above - each house 'owns' a section of drive - which usually comes half-way across the shared access road - but all properties have a right of unhindered access across the whole drive too.

Once you establish this as being the case, then it'll need to be made clear to No2 that even if he were to resurface 'his' section, it wouldn't in any way whatsoever affect the right of all other households to have unhindered access over it, just as they currently do. So it might be block paving or whatever, but you'll still be driving over it every day.

If he persists on going ahead, then there might* be little you can do about that, but you certainly can take action to have it kept accessible to passing traffic at all times afterwards. This will likely involve you taking photographs of any breach - the nose of his car coming over what was the old boundary - followed by the threat of legal action.

Do you have Legal Protection on your house insurance? If so, first establish the facts (deeds) and then call them up for advice.

*You may also want to explore if there is a way of actually preventing them from even starting this work - again a mix of 'deeds' and 'legal'. For example, the deeds might suggest how the drive's upkeep is shared between its users. It might state that permission should be sought should any one household wish to carry out work on the drive which could affect the access to others even temporarily. For instance, if a householder wished to have a large skip outside their house for a couple of weeks, what process would they be expected to follow - ask permission from the other households? If there is anything like this in the deeds, implied or actual, that permission should be sought before doing anything that could cause a restriction to the access, then a good 'legal' might be able to make a case for refusing this work as it is not essential maintenance, will cause a restriction to the access of the other houses during the work, and permission has not been sought by No2.

For instance, if No3 currently drives straight on to their driveway, how will this be affected by this work when they want to reverse back out in order to leave?

trickydicky4321

That's great, thank you.

alittlecynical

Go and take lots of photos and record as it is now. Also have you read this? https://www.landregistry-titledeeds.co.uk/frequently-asked-questions/information/private-rights-of-way.asp

980233

DB1904 said:

If the purple part belongs to house 2 then they can surface it as they see fit. 

I'd wager he doesn't own it and it's ROA only. These types of driveway access are a pain in the proverbial and ripe for disputes and bad parking.

Rosa_Damascena

Bendy_House said:

"He said he wants to dig out this area of the shared drive and pave it as his drive.  He says it wouldn't affect me because he'd make sure I can access my drive." He needs to know, in no uncertain terms, that of course you'll have access to your drive at all times, right over his paved area - nothing will change in that respect. Being 'paved' will have no bearing whatsoever on your, and your other neighb's, entitlement to do this. So, "why on earth would you want to go to this expense?" (Try and get an answer.)

"Once the boundary onto the shared drive disappears how do we know where that boundary was exactly?  What can we do legally if the position of their car starts affecting us?" You don't even have to wait until it 'affects' you - if he does anything to restrict or narrow the access road as a result, then he's in breach of the terms of the deeds and you can take legal action, whether or not you can actually wriggle your way around it. Take it to its logical conclusion - if the occupants of Nos 4 and 5 were to park their cars on the road, even partially, that would restrict access and everyone would be rightly peeved even if they could still squeeze through. It would clearly be a breach of the terms of the deeds.

Should it become clear that he still plans to proceed with this work, perhaps you and No4 could mark out where that driveway edge currently lies? You could, for example, hammer in a SS coachbolt into the tarmac at each corner of the house-side purple line, leaving just the head partially protruding. That's your waymark.

First, though, you - and your neighbours - need to accurately establish the facts, by going through everyone's deeds. I suspect very strongly it'll be as said above - each house 'owns' a section of drive - which usually comes half-way across the shared access road - but all properties have a right of unhindered access across the whole drive too.

Once you establish this as being the case, then it'll need to be made clear to No2 that even if he were to resurface 'his' section, it wouldn't in any way whatsoever affect the right of all other households to have unhindered access over it, just as they currently do. So it might be block paving or whatever, but you'll still be driving over it every day.

If he persists on going ahead, then there might* be little you can do about that, but you certainly can take action to have it kept accessible to passing traffic at all times afterwards. This will likely involve you taking photographs of any breach - the nose of his car coming over what was the old boundary - followed by the threat of legal action.

Do you have Legal Protection on your house insurance? If so, first establish the facts (deeds) and then call them up for advice.

*You may also want to explore if there is a way of actually preventing them from even starting this work - again a mix of 'deeds' and 'legal'. For example, the deeds might suggest how the drive's upkeep is shared between its users. It might state that permission should be sought should any one household wish to carry out work on the drive which could affect the access to others even temporarily. For instance, if a householder wished to have a large skip outside their house for a couple of weeks, what process would they be expected to follow - ask permission from the other households? If there is anything like this in the deeds, implied or actual, that permission should be sought before doing anything that could cause a restriction to the access, then a good 'legal' might be able to make a case for refusing this work as it is not essential maintenance, will cause a restriction to the access of the other houses during the work, and permission has not been sought by No2.

For instance, if No3 currently drives straight on to their driveway, how will this be affected by this work when they want to reverse back out in order to leave?

Is that you, Jeeps?

grumbler

980233 said:

DB1904 said:

If the purple part belongs to house 2 then they can surface it as they see fit. 

I'd wager he doesn't own it and it's ROA only.

Well, if so, how come

trickydicky4321 said:

 house 4 property goes half way onto the shared drive, as does house 5.  House 3 owns from his current end of the drive up to the purple area.

??

fenwick458

Rosa_Damascena said:

Is that you, Jeeps?

I noticed that too. defo is