Right of Way

trevormax

OP, personally, I would give them the silent treatment. They are looking to get a rise out of you in revenge for the conservatory, and your actions are giving them what they want. If you are sat outside when they want to walk through on one of their little excursions, completely ignore them. Act like they are not even there. Say nothing to them and do not respond to them if they say anything. They will eventually get bored and probably give up their dickish behaviour.

If your CCTV has audio recording, that could be useful. As far as harassment legislation goes, the definition of harassing behaviour is not defined, and says "A person must not pursue a course of conduct which amounts to harassment of another, and which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other." It is the "reasonable person" test, as in, if a reasonable person had all the information, would that person consider the behaviour to be harassment. Therefore, the neighbour repeatedly using the ROW is probably not enough to be deemed harassment".

However, if you are sitting there doing nothing and not antagonising them, and they then decide to start insulting you, coming unnecessarily close to you, shouting at you, making rude gestures to you, this could be deemed as harassment, although it MUST be on at least two occasion to be deemed a course of conduct. Bare in mind, reporting stuff like this to police will need to be declared when selling the house.

As far as I know (and I may be wrong), there is no law (criminal or civil) which prohibits someone filming on private property without the owners consent. But while you may not be able to stop them wearing a body worn camera as they walk through the ROW, they are not allowed to use it to invade your privacy which could potentially be deemed as harassment (standing in the garden and filming the house for instance). Again, this is very weak and the Police may decline to intervene.

I would refrain from doing things to get back at them, as it will just draw out this confrontation. Ignore them completely. Do not acknowledge their existence. Act like they are not even there (obviously, don's sit there blocking the ROW ignoring them), and you will have won the argument. 

pretamang

Ath_Wat said:

pretamang said:

given how ugly this is getting, have attempts been exhausted to find the original solicitor? Was this missed by them entirely when purchasing the house?

The OP said they bought it from a solicitor who was dishonest; not that there was an issue with a solicitor they hired.

OP must have had their own solicitor working on this, who missed the ROW and can also advise on possible remedies against the seller?

Section62

pretamang said:

Ath_Wat said:

pretamang said:

given how ugly this is getting, have attempts been exhausted to find the original solicitor? Was this missed by them entirely when purchasing the house?

The OP said they bought it from a solicitor who was dishonest; not that there was an issue with a solicitor they hired.

OP must have had their own solicitor working on this, who missed the ROW and can also advise on possible remedies against the seller?

The property was purchased some time before 1996.  The RoW only became a problem after the neighbouring property was sold.

Seems unlikely the vendor of the OP's property has any residual liability - assuming they are even alive.

Ath_Wat

pretamang said:

Ath_Wat said:

pretamang said:

given how ugly this is getting, have attempts been exhausted to find the original solicitor? Was this missed by them entirely when purchasing the house?

The OP said they bought it from a solicitor who was dishonest; not that there was an issue with a solicitor they hired.

OP must have had their own solicitor working on this, who missed the ROW and can also advise on possible remedies against the seller?

Not necessarily.  They may well have brought up the ROW and been told by the "dishonest solicitor" seller that nobody ever used it.  Which may even have been true at the time.  No solicitor is going to say "don't buy this because there's a ROW", just ask if you are aware of it.

Completely missing a ROW through a garden seems unlikely, especially as there's a gate there.