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Or is the intention to offer a right of access over the existing drive in return for them relinquishing their rights to build a new one?
Essentially, Yes.
Actually to make our neighbour come to the negotiating table. We just want to sell our house - nothing more, nothing less.
It wouldn't allow them to reconsider the second access point as the driveway is 10 metres wide - i.e. 5 metres each, which is plenty under existing planning laws. The point is without using our half of the driveway they would need to completely reconfigure the outside of their house - expensive.
The ridiculous thing is - its purely about personal gain (for our neighbour), I would have bought out the right of way for a reasonable figure (say 5-10k) and probably still would but I find it hard to believe someone would behave like that.Money won't buy you happiness....but I have never been in a situation where more money made things worse!0 -
Just be careful that your solicitor doesn't egg you on so that you end up paying them a massive sum instead of the neighbour!
Have you approached the solicitor who dealt with your purchase of this house? Do you have the paperwork? Could there be any comeback to them on this?0 -
Are you absolutely sure that your half really is 'your half' rather than you both having access to all of it?
This level of confrontation is not going to help your chances of selling at all, can you not try some mediation with the neighbour first?0 -
The neighbour does rather look like they've "cut off their nose to spite their face". £100k demand so that they can't do what they couldnt do anyway without your agreement (ie build an alternative access route).
They should have thought this through re putting a garden etc on their half of current shared driveway.
I'd be inclined to save myself money going to a solicitor and just say to the neighbour "You have two choices - forget about that right you have and sign a document accordingly OR we will improve our house by cutting off access to your use of our shared driveway (as it's on our land). Take your pick. You can see our title plan shows all the driveway is on our land and that there is nothing in the Registry entry for either house giving you the right to use our land as "driveway" ".
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BUT - The one thing I am wondering is how long this neighbour has been using your driveway for access to their house. You may need to get onto dealing with this fast - in case the neighbour manages to rack up 20 years or more of using your land like this and might manage to put in a claim for "prescriptive easement".
How long has he been using part of your land as "current shared driveway"??
EDIT; I see your original post says your house was built 10 years ago - so I guess it boils down to when his house was built. Fingers crossed it was also built only 10 years ago - which should leave you in the clear - provided your Title Plans and Registry entries don't show any of that land as theirs or them having any rights.0 -
They have a right, which they think might devalue their property if they give it away ...
They are right; a future buyer MIGHT pay a good price just because of that right.
Their right is of monetary value. You could buy that right from them... £10-20k without seeing it ... might make them "see sense".0 -
But what use is a "right" one can't actually use? - as OP needs to consent and obviously won't do so. I'd say their "right" is useless, as they can't exercise it then.
I agree with OP that there's NO chance I'd pay the £100k they're trying to extort and £10k--£20k is a lot for not doing something they can't do anyway. They'd be lucky if they got £5k out of me for "nothing" basically and I'm inclined to think I wouldnt pay them anything. I detest greed.0 -
moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »But what use is a "right" one can't actually use? - as OP needs to consent and obviously won't do so. I'd say their "right" is useless, as they can't exercise it then.
A right you can't use might be a selling point if you find a buyer who sees that right as a "maybe" .... even if they're living in cloud cuckoo land themselves.
Fact is ... extra access points are a selling point to many, making it a more desirable property than if it didn't exist, as it allows people to dream about what they could/might do ...
We don't know what people want... maybe somebody might want to run in an extra driveway for their caravan, boat, or a garage/workshop for their classic car. Or it could be built, then sold to somebody behind the house who didn't have any access.0 -
If you do this will you not force the neighbour to exercise their right to build the new access route? As he will otherwise be afraid your purchaser could do the same thing at any point? Or is the intention to offer a right of access over the existing drive in return for them relinquishing their rights to build a new one?
My thoughts exactly.
If you block access on the existing drive he may then decide to use the agreement for the new access.
The council may then approve it once they discover he no longer has the access he had previously.
Any disputes will need to be declared if you decide to move.
Yes, your neighbour is being completely unreasonable with the £100k but please ensure you're not starting a dispute that will take years to resolve - the costs emotionally will be high (and financially possibly even higher).
Finally, because this wasn't brought to your attention when you initially bought the house, is there any comeback there with the solicitor or vendor?
Good luck.
Ageing is a privilege not everyone gets.0 -
Marine_life wrote: »Essentially, Yes.
Actually to make our neighbour come to the negotiating table. We just want to sell our house - nothing more, nothing less.
It wouldn't allow them to reconsider the second access point as the driveway is 10 metres wide - i.e. 5 metres each, which is plenty under existing planning laws. The point is without using our half of the driveway they would need to completely reconfigure the outside of their house - expensive.
The ridiculous thing is - its purely about personal gain (for our neighbour), I would have bought out the right of way for a reasonable figure (say 5-10k) and probably still would but I find it hard to believe someone would behave like that.
You haven't really invited them to the negotiating table though, ie you have not made an offer.
10 metres shared is not usually 5 metres each, it is that both parties share rights over the full 10 metres.
Escalating this to a dispute will make it even harder for you to sell. You need to calm things down and realise you are negotiating from a weak position and going in "guns blazing" is not going to end well.0 -
Thanks for your comments. Here's a couple of other bits of information.
1. We've already tried negotiation and mediation and originally our neighbour agreed (not in writing) to remove the right of way. However, we think they then received some advice that they should aim for some money and hence removed their assent.
2. The driveway between the houses is not covered by any agreement. However, we do have plans for the plot on which our house stands which shows that our boundary includes the existing shared driveway.
3. We understand that the existing use rights for the driveway are not yet established (given the houses were only built 10 years ago) and therefore we are within our rights to enforce our boundary.
I would prefer mediation but when we're faced by an unreasonable settlement offer we've no choice but to go down another route.
We're in the fortunate position that we do not need to sell the house to fund another purchase (in fact we've already done that) and the house is in a very nice (holiday) area so we don't mind if this takes a year or more to solve. In fact the longer it goes on the more determined we will become that our neighbour does not get one red cent from us!Money won't buy you happiness....but I have never been in a situation where more money made things worse!0
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