Driveway Access - Pinch Points - Knowing My Rights for Right of Way

diego_94

And this ladies and gentleman is why you shouldnt get a huose with a shared drive. This all seems very tit for tat

Ditzy_Mitzy

400ixl said:

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

GDB2222 said:

It may help to be more precise.

It’s the neighbour’s drive, on the neighbour’s land. Matt has a right of way over it.

I'm aware of that; I think it would be interesting to find out what Matt wants or expects the neighbours to do, and his rationale for wanting them to do it.  

Hasn't he put that previously.

To get leverage to force the neighbour into a compromise position where they get to park on the driveway in exchange for the OP being able to wash his car on the driveway and for his children to ride their bikes on it.

Unfortunately it would appear both sides have got themselves into a position where a compromise is not possible without using leverage and it being under duress rather than neighbourly.

And therein lies the problem.  Attempting to 'force' someone, be that Mr Furious or the neighbour, to behave reasonably cannot be done; use of 'force' leads to further entrenchment on both sides.  The issue, currently, is that Mr Furious has a rather short lever, the right of way, and the neighbour has a longer one, ownership of the land.  The parking is totally irrelevant if it causes no material detriment to the right of way.  I would suggest that all this talk of 'passing places' is nonsense.  

DE_612183

The bit we haven't been party to is why the relationship between the two parties has broken down.
We see on TV many time "Nightmare neighbours from hell".
If the relationship was ok to begin with - what happened to change that?

Woolsery

diego_94 said:

And this ladies and gentleman is why you shouldnt get a huose with a shared drive. This all seems very tit for tat

I'm no gentleman, so I'll suggest you're painting with such a broad brush the end result's  a work of no great merit.

Of course certain shared access arrangements are less desirable and some might be better avioded altogether, but the devil is always in the detail. There are houses worth millions with shared private road access. Ruling it out would seriously limit people in many country locations, or would it be better to be slap-bang on a major road, which is often the alternative?

MattFurious

The title is what it is. "knowing my rights".  

Thank you for all your messages, I am engaging with a Solicitor, because while opinions for the basis for discussion are available, only official legalities will tell me where my rights are.  There is enough of a challenge in place that deems their usage is not acceptable based on the written words, in the same way my usage from not understanding was not acceptable also.

Getting a defined answer will make the house more sellable in future if the answers are positive, and to be honest, we are already at the most negative version of the agreement, so I am in a no lose situation.

The story will unfold as more legal information is passed, and I can update this thread, but for now, everyone has an opinion and I am thankful to those who contributed.  It has helped me to decide to spend the initial outlay of cash to investigate the issue through a Solicitor.  

Cheers Everyone

GDB2222

MattFurious said:

The title is what it is. "knowing my rights".  

Thank you for all your messages, I am engaging with a Solicitor, because while opinions for the basis for discussion are available, only official legalities will tell me where my rights are.  There is enough of a challenge in place that deems their usage is not acceptable based on the written words, in the same way my usage from not understanding was not acceptable also.

Getting a defined answer will make the house more sellable in future if the answers are positive, and to be honest, we are already at the most negative version of the agreement, so I am in a no lose situation.

The story will unfold as more legal information is passed, and I can update this thread, but for now, everyone has an opinion and I am thankful to those who contributed.  It has helped me to decide to spend the initial outlay of cash to investigate the issue through a Solicitor.  

Cheers Everyone

I think that is very sensible, as you will drive yourself mad with all the conflicting opinions on this forum. 

I don’t recommend going to court, but finding out what your rights are may make you feel better, I suppose.

Ath_Wat

At the moment you can always drive through to park your car in the garage.  Whether the neighbour parks his car on it or doesn't is fairly irrelevant to you as long as he doesn't block your ability to do that.

What are you hoping to gain from spending money on a  solicitor?  To try and force him into letting you wash your car on the drive, or just to stop him parking there out of revenge for him not letting you do things?

Remember it is his land.  I wouldn't want someone on my land spraying water around for an hour every Sunday when my kids might want to ride their bikes up and down it.  Maybe he wanted to do folk dancing where you were washing your car, or where your kids were riding their bikes up and down.  It's his land,  he can do whatever he likes on it as long as he can move to let you through when you need to go through.  You can't.

Section62

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

I would suggest that all this talk of 'passing places' is nonsense.  

On what basis would you suggest that?

I can't say categorically because I'm not seeing the planning consent, but my highway engineering experience would lead me to strongly suspect that passing was the principal purpose of the 'bulge' - so vehicles don't have to reverse out onto the main road. It may also double up as somewhere that vans (e.g. the postperson) can pull over at to make deliveries, rather than parking on the main road.  However, the shape as shown on the OS plan is not consistent with a normal layby for parking.

Also, if the purpose was for resident parking, then why would they have made the extra width symetrical so there is an opportunity for 'parking' (which he isn't allowed to use) on Matt's side as well?

Titus_Wadd

I completely sympathise with your starting position; I had some knowledge of rights of way, maybe more than many would, but our conveyancing solicitor didn't really advise us of any real potential pitfalls.  Without asking specific questions, conveyancers don't tend to cover every possible eventuality.  In our case without a degree in Psychiatry I don't think we could have been forewarned about our NFH.  Mind you, he did review our whole conveyance without charge when our NFH started pontificating about his version of the Law, and found nothing to support the outlandish claims in either deeds.  The general weirdness started from day one, but took a more sinister turn within 6 months of us moving in.  It still winds him up that we refer to him as the "Servient Tenement Owner" even after his solicitor explained that he is!  Language is powerful! He's built a small estate of houses in what used to be the grounds of an old house, but cannot cope with people living around him and so only one house, of 4 built and 4 more in the pipeline, has ever been occupied and he has just never learned to share.  He calls it a shared driveway but in reality he doesn't think we should use it and that we shouldn't even have Royal Mail deliveries if it comes in a red van rather than on foot!

OP it's definitely worth checking your house insurance or union memberships for legal cover, in case you ever need to send a letter to your neighbour.  Seriously though I think you'd be better focusing on keeping the peace (through gritted teeth) and moving somewhere else before the dispute can escalate further and need declaring when you sell.

MattFurious

Ath_Wat said:

At the moment you can always drive through to park your car in the garage.  Whether the neighbour parks his car on it or doesn't is fairly irrelevant to you as long as he doesn't block your ability to do that.

What are you hoping to gain from spending money on a  solicitor?  To try and force him into letting you wash your car on the drive, or just to stop him parking there out of revenge for him not letting you do things?

Remember it is his land.  I wouldn't want someone on my land spraying water around for an hour every Sunday when my kids might want to ride their bikes up and down it.  Maybe he wanted to do folk dancing where you were washing your car, or where your kids were riding their bikes up and down.  It's his land,  he can do whatever he likes on it as long as he can move to let you through when you need to go through.  You can't.

Deeds are legally binding.  When they bought the house, they knew I had a RoW, so they are understanding and exercising their rights to tell me not to wash my car etc.  I am fine with that.

All I want to know is, based on the deeds, what are my rights.  Why so much negativity.  Chill, relax and be merry.

Mr Fury was the name I wanted to use, but thought it to be comical by making it furious instead.  It was all tongue in cheek fun, but I guess some of you see the name and think of me as some furious cyclone of a monster LMAO!!

Anyway, happy times.  Stay safe and keep the positive constructive messages coming in