Neighbour blocked shared drive deliberately, AIBU or are they?

just fyi, a blink doorbell lets you set area it records and areas it doesnt ‘see’ at all. so you can only see what you tell it is appropriate.

so you can capture your neighbours door but block it off in the app so it shows only a blank grey colour over any videos it takes or live viewing you do. so you cannot be accused of spying.

your neighbours sound like bullies. be a shame if one of the kids accidentally let their tyres down…..

Check your home insurance for legal fees cover.

our old neighbours owned the drive to our houses, but granted access. They put signs up, width limits and screamed and shouted at anyone coming up the drive in a van. They’d take the keys from van drivers.

4 years of legal action but we forced them to accept that they had no right to control who can/cannot use the driveway.

they were particularly entitled, but we beat them.

go round to your neighbours and explain to them that they don’t have the right to restrict access to your property by tradesmen and contractors you’ve employed. Tell them you will re book the collection and they will need to keep the driveway clear or you will see legal action against them, and you will win

make sure you’re there on collecting day, video and photo any issues

call the police too if you need to, they will have a word

Dump all the left over rubbish by their garage and say they csn get rid of it as you've already paid for it to be taken away once! As soon as I got home I'd be hammering their door and giving them what for, no need for what they did at all!

So the shared drive isn’t actually for parking on it’s just for accessing the separate sections at the top?
Just talk to them about it in the first instance.
‘Neighbour, I need to ask that you don’t park in the shared drive because it’s causing us not to be able to access our drive’. Follow up in writing and maybe suggest you’ll need to seek legal advice if this can’t be resolved. Or, if you feel like being petty, the next time the opportunity comes up, park on the shared part so they have to approach you to move your car to let them get to their section. That should open up a conversation at least.

Put the rubbish in front of your garage but just over. You need to put your foot down really, they owe you the rest of the bill, if they are being mean, ring the council.

After reading lots of similar posts on mumsnet, there’s no way in hell I’d ever buy a property with a shared drive; the neighbour always seems to be a vindictive weirdo!

Speak to them when you are home. Explain you won't ask for them to refund the fee on this occasion but not more shit till be tolerated as yo are both entitled to unrestrict access to your garage/garden
Book the rubbish guy for this week and tell neighbour they are coming.
Then start parking your car in your driveway.

I wouldn't write them a letter unless it was coming from my solicitor.
I'd knock on their door and be very firm in advising them that you are well aware they blocked the rubbish removal people as you have photos and what do they propose to do now to get the rubbish cleared.
I'd also be very clear that I would now be absolutely using the shared drive that I'd fucking paid for so their car needed to be outside their garage.
Stop enabling their bullshit.

I think you need to talk to your neighbours. ‘Hi neighbours - sorry the rubbish is still here - thought the rubbish would have been cleared but got some odd messages and photos from the contractors. Something about access being deliberately blocked? I mean who would do that? Makes no sense and I know you know we have shared access and the rubbish was piled up on our patch ready to be collected. What happened?’ See what the response is. Obviously the waste still has to be disposed of. If the neighbour did block access they can take the waste to the tip themselves or pay for a repeat visit if you were not charged a reduced rate.

Going forward absolutely used shared access to reach your garage and space outside it. If you can’t get onto your own space or access your garage you park temporarily in shared driveway until your neighbour removes the blockage.

Park you car @WoesFromAuntFlo outside your garage then he cannot park on the drive because it is blocking you

I would park YOUR car on YOUR drive part. Every time you cannot use it because of their car, knock and get them to move it

Book the rubbish removal again and then small claims court for the extra expense. Your deeds almost certainly (check this first) have a right of way to your garage and their deeds (again, get a copy to check) almost certainly have a restrictive covenant for your benefit that they are not to block the shared drive.

You can try a polite firm conversation first and say you won't take it further this time but warn them that any more silly buggers that costs you will be paid for by them.

You can set zones on a ring doorbell. Ours only films if anyone enters the zone

Fit a ring doorbell so there is evidence of the ridiculousness. Establish your boundaries - start parking on your own side leaving them no room to overlap your space.. aren’t people ridiculous. Hope you can get it sorted without too much hassle OP!

It’ll cost your more in solicitors fees and a lifetime of bad relations with your neighbours.

Your neighbour is a petty difficult human but this isn’t the answer.

This^^. After having the chat and dropping off the deeds and the discussion specifying shared ownership of the driveway, I think it would help them to understand the concept, if you park at your garage for the next few weeks it will underscore the point. If you enjoy using your parking space, continue to do so! If not, it would be worth parking there ever few weeks as a continuous reminder of the concept of shared ownership. This set of CF's seem to need some gentle education and reminders.

Block him in. Just keep doing it until he stops parking like a cunt.

Neighbour disputes are supposed to be declared for this very reason. Even just the scaffolding issue would have to have been declared. In regards to ring doorbell, can you mount it sideways, so its looking down the drive if you have enough space? Or attach it to the garage, The viewing angle can be adjusted in the app which can be shown to anyone that wants to check i.e. Police.

I've just accepted it sadly. I saved for years and used inheritance from my grandparents to buy my first house and discovered it the day I got my keys.

There's really nothing I can do. I have tried.

The solicitor who checked the access rights for me said they could send a letter to the neighbour, but they could ignore it, and the only other action I could take would be to go to court to get an injunction and it would cost a minimum of £100,000.

I'd be billing him for the cost of the rubbish collectors, you have photographic evidence that he blocked their access.

But this is exactly why my mum told me to NEVER buy a house with a shared drive.

That’s terrible that you had to give up your car. These people are bullies. Why can’t they grasp the concept of a shared driveway? It’s a form of domination. I wonder if it’s done to acquire land?

All the neighbour needs to say is that he wasn’t told about the collection and he was stopping some random bloke nicking the OPs things.

Why did you buy the house, knowing you had difficult people living next door? Did your sellers not declare any disputes when the house was sold to you?

Tbf it was a very good diagram

YANBU at all, in the slightest. We have this exact same situation (share drive) with our neighbour. Our houses are staggered, however they have a rear side door that opens on to the drive, and we had our front door open on to the drive from our porch. We had several occasion where they would leave their car outside the two doors and we couldn’t actually get out of our door to leave the house. It got the point we have now had to move our front door to the front of the porch. And coincidentally, they rarely use the side door now!
Really feel for you, as it can make life difficult.
We always have the mindset of, at least we can close the door and forget about them.