AIBU to object to neighbour using my garden as their main access?

Any up date with this situation OP? 😊

Any update on this OP?

Oh no, I am sorry to hear that.
What a nightmare.

Oh, yes, very glad! The new neighbour was an absolute nightmare in every other way, we ended up having to move because of him. We rented it out in order to get away from him.

Our rear gardens have a patio section and a garden section. Our garage is on the patio section so you turn from the main road onto a a shared access space and then can turn right or left at the bottom to access the rears of the houses.

No one here would find using the back unusual. We were more unusual to use our front door primarily and to have a letter box in it. That said we use the rear access plenty and muddy dogs always come that way. Our street has houses between 500k to over a million and the most expensive three still share an access road! I don’t think anyone cares. I used to live in a different town in a smaller house and it was the same there.

Bulbsbulbsbulbs
Quote - 'We managed to buy the easement from the neighbour after 20 years of living there when we realised that a new neighbour would probably use the easement very differently. It cost £5000 in legal fees alone.
A few months later the new owners of the house told us very angrily that they had intended to use the right of way on a daily basis! They didn't know the neighbour had sold it to us.'

You will be so glad you spent that money now!

I'm afraid you're wrong. If the ROW has no restrictions it can be used at any time by anybody to access the property. Obviously it's very antisocial to use it in this way and the neighbour is being a total dick. But the law says access must not be blocked or restricted.

There are many horror stories on the Garden Law forum. And many stories of people taking legal action and it costing them their house as they chase a 'principal' as they see it.

The law in an ass, especially relating to property.

op wouldn't be restricting access but making it a hassle for delivery drivers who want to be in and out quick, or food deliveries - for whom it would be easier to go to the front door anyway

as for vehicles going across the garden to the next door garden - really? is there a dropped kerb on the street?

Id place the gate at the far end of the garden - so they have to walk diagonally across the garden and not infant of your kitchen window. Put a fence panel in where the gate is now and have a gate put in at the top of the garden with a lock code

You'd just need the two fence panels changed which would set ou back but you're not denying them their easement. They might not like the idea but what can they do?

You aren’t necessarily correct @TourdeCrema. My access over the neighbours is unrestricted- a neighbour on a parallel block got to find that this was true for her after her neighbour tried to restrict it. The gate had to be left unlocked and resized so vehicles could pass through. I don’t think on the op has confirmed the situation of her access.

While they can use the path for access, an easement does not give them the right to cause a nuisance, disturb your privacy, or encourage strangers and delivery drivers to loiter on your property

Put in a key pad gate lock, give them the code and tell them you will change it every week for security, and text them the code weekly

That way it prevents easy access, but doesn't stop them having access

delivery drivers, friends etc can't just open your gate and get through

You are allowed to put a gate and have it locked - as long as the neighbours have access

There are lots of reasons for easements, not just the pavement thing. Lots of them are to access shared outside toilets, long demolished of course but the easement still exists.

Mine was because in the 1920's my neighbour built an extension over his pathway from the back garden to the front, so he had to use our back garden to access his back door from the front. The easement was granted and written on his deeds. It wasn't on our deeds at all! The first we knew was when we moved in. We soon learned that there is no point claiming negligence from a solicitor. We were firmly told it was a case of 'buyer beware'. Our legal fees to claim negligence would be huge and in the end, what were we looking for?

We managed to buy the easement from the neighbour after 20 years of living there when we realised that a new neighbour would probably use the easement very differently. It cost £5000 in legal fees alone.

A few months later the new owners of the house told us very angrily that they had intended to use the right of way on a daily basis! They didn't know the neighbour had sold it to us.

These are detached properties with huge front gardens. Any type of property can have a right of way.

I presumed they all had their own gate in their own back garden that opens onto one of those alley way things. At least that is what I see on the TV

Thank you

As others have said check you deeds carefully for the extent and nature of your neighbours right over your garden land.. If is a right of way at all times for all purposes over a defined strip I would section it off, if possible, with a decent privacy fence. If it's for limited use, then you will need to remi f your neighbour of the terms and conditions.

I wonder if your neighbour has blocked off the access through her garden for the neighbours to her right that should have right of access through it? I know you said you don't have the money, but I think on the first instance buying the deeds for the houses in the row, if only your neighbour and her immediate neighbour, would give you a clearer idea what is allowed.
I don't think any of these sorts of access are meant for full time use and more for bin day, taking waste or supplies too and from a garden so not to bring through the house, and maybe if the house is old enough, coal deliveries.
If it turns out the neighbour does have full access and not just limited, then I would look into moving the access to the end of your garden. Just make sure you have a strong, high fence all around your garden so people aren't tempted to just step over a fence to go through. I know it would mean you have less useable garden space, but it would be more than what you have now as it sound's like you can't really relax in your entire garden. It would probably make it easier to sell should you want or need to in the future.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, so i would start off by building bridges with neighbours and not antagonising them.
One course of action is to to speak to a property lawyer about legally rerouting the right of way round the outside of your garden and fencing it off. You might have to offer your neighbourd a financial incentive to agree to this. I can't really see any other solution other than moving. As previously said, even if a right of way didn't exist initially, it probably does now.

I'm invested in this - would love an update when OP has the time! ❤

Her previous diagram did show a green line where the easement is .

We know the easement exists whether it actually has any restrictions on we don't know until OP says what deeds titles say. You can not restrict an easement from designated use. So if it's only to take bins out bring gardening materials in allow access to rear garden when not practical from front of house is maintenance ie. ladders for cleaning gutters window cleaning then you can't make it difficult to put said bins out etc by making gate impossible to stay open while bin taken through by being too heavy or no latch to stop it self closing while going through.

I do feel sorry for the OP in that she wasn't expecting the neighbour to use it as much as she does. However if the neighbour is using the easement as title deed indicates IE what she is doing is perfectly legal, then the OP can't make her use of the easement harder than it currently is she certainly can't relocate it without neighbours agreement

She could put a fence separating the vast majority of the lower portion of her garden from path so she can have gate and thus enclose her own children and dogs.

Things change over time no doubt when these were built everyone used backdoor as main entrance as front rooms were seldom used on a regular basis terraces were often almost communal with kids and neighbours in and out all the time chatting in backyards while doing laundry etc and the easements would gave bothered no - one but society changes. Privacy matters a great deal more. People don't expect neighbours to just pop in or even family so the easement that was once a normal helpful access is now seen as a nuisance but the law doesn't change with changing society it seems neighbour has lived there for decades and is used to using it has it was historically and views using the backdoor as normal and so directs everyone that way. If the neighbour has used it that way for decades she almost certainly now has prescrtive rights to carry on using it like that. Not what OP wants to hear but practically it is the most likely scenario and will have to learn to live with it. Maybe trying to be friends with neighbour will be best bet.

Hence me writing that before doing that, she should follow everyone else’s advice and make sure there isn’t a specific path to follow, which at the moment there is no evidence to say there is 😊.

I have every sympathy with op

But it's very unlikely she can re route the path without her neighbours agreement, so your advice is unhelpful.

Not sure why people are being such dick heads, they clearly haven’t ever been in the completely overwhelming position of trying to buy a house alone while parenting and managing the complexities of a separation. No one would like this OP and no one would have expected this.

I know it’s uncomfortable but have you had a really frank conversation with them about how much this is affecting you? Could you write them a letter?

I agree with others, once you’ve checked there isn’t a very specific walk way that you must adhere to I would be moving the gate right to the end of the garden, putting a lock on the lower part inside and a padlock on the other, give her a key and just accept that you will be having to lock it yourself every evening. I would probably also get some bulky pots that make it possible, but awkward for people to walk around (but also difficult to break) to make it annoying, while still giving access, for people to use. I know you want to live peacefully but sometimes you do have to make a stand in order for this to happen, she feels very comfortable making you unhappy so get your big girl knickers on and accept the short term discomfort for the long term gains.

You’ve got this.

Yes. The op says in her first post
"There is the usual easement arrangement with the adjoining neighbour that they can get access to their back garden via my back garden. I know that is pretty standard and I was obviously aware of it when I purchased."

Fingers crossed here too. Can’t believe all the nasty comments either, obviously you wouldn’t have bought if you’d realised what a piss taker your neighbour is (and weren’t escaping an awful relationship). Ignore those people, don’t respond!

Fingers crossed for you OP. Please let us know how you get on. Ignore the nasty comments.