Neighbour blocked shared drive deliberately, AIBU or are they?

I think writing them a letter is a good idea

explain that now the panels are lose in the storm tonight and if they damage anything you have witness to the fact you tried to clear them out of the way and it is not your responsibility. How would the like it if you blocked the drive when they were having a delivery, this isn't the type of stunt you'd pull.

What a nasty, spiteful man - and what a pointless way to live your life. Does it actually bring him joy? I always think the same about vandals vs thieves: obviously both of them are despicable, but at least the latter stand to benefit personally; whereas the former are just seeking to ruin things for everybody with no actual gain for them either.

Imagine having to inhabit the head of a person who, when asked nicely if he needed to access his car, as some decent, pleasant hard-working business people needed to pull up for a few minutes for loading, their first instinctive action is to take the trouble to move their car purely to prevent them from doing so. How did that actually help him in any way?

I'd be very tempted to leave the uncollected rubbish somewhere at the front (on your property) where it will be ugly for him to have to see it every day; maybe add some more as well. If he complains, remind him that this is precisely what he wanted, by going out of his way to prevent its removal... remember?!

Op has already drawn a diagram

Park at your garage every time. If he is blocking access park on the drive so it is him that has to ask somebody to move a car.

I'm invested in this thread and would like to know what will happen next. Op please update us after talking to them 👀

I’m really confused about why the removals people were not able to get panel fences which must be all of 10cm thick past the car. The only way that could happen is if the total distance between each of your front doors is less than 3 metres!

You would only need a ring doorbell at the front of the house, i.e. facing the driveway (to monitor their batshit parking!), so it wouldn't be angled towards their front door, rather the joint driveway..

I think your front doors are opposite each other in what I envisage is a sort of passageway towards your garages.

This is the only reasonable course of action.

Your neighbours sound batshit but to clear up the ring doorbell - it’s not actually illegal.

As long as you have as little of your neighbours property captured as reasonably possible, which for you is easy to justify due to how your properties are positioned, and you have a notice that you’re recording up and comply with subject access requests for footage within 30 days, it’s all perfectly legal.

So if you want to, get one and point it as far away from their property as possible. You just need to have a good reason to have one ie. to protect your property.

If I were you, I’d look at using the evidence you have, if you could take them to small claims and recover the cost of the waste removal charge you’ve lost. I’m petty like that. In your position I’d be absolutely furious.

I think I'd be tempted to suggest your DH goes round and asks them do they want to have good neighbourly relations or are they looking to start a problem?

Tell them if they block access to your garage, you will park in front of them.

I think in future it’s probably best to try and be home when tradespeople come over to avoid situations like this.

You need to crack down on them parking too far over or it will become harder and harder for you to make use of your right of accesss. Dont pander to them by parking on the street

You need to park at your garage, if they block the way park as close as possible until they get the message.You're being too cooperative.

Personally I wouldn’t put anything in writing if you might want to sell at some point as that’s a dispute.

Might well come to that but best avoided, have a chat first.

And fgs start using your garage and parking area, no more off road parking.

Someone will be along to collect it is very different to saying some workmen are coming in a van, they’ll need access to collect the rubbish.

Why couldn’t you just arrange it for when you were there?

I would try to approach them civily to try to resolve the situation. If that fails you could refer the matter to mediation but they would not be forced to participate. As I understand it, you are still able to install a ring doorbell, it's better if it doesn't capture their property but if it does then you have to comply with the rules laid out on the ICO website.

I’m learning that shared access is something I won’t do again, we have shared access for a strip of 4 houses, next door are territorial and encroachy at the same time.
They told us in no uncertain terms to keep our things on our side, yet they were happy to leave their visitors parked across our space and asked if I was ‘going out’ and told me I was ‘making a scene’ when I reminded her that she needs to also keep her things on her side.
Don’t tolerate them parking over into your space! Ours park on the shared access now right up to the dividing line to prove a point, if I hadn’t challenged them when they parked across our space then they deffo would have interpreted that as their right 🙄

The mistake you made was not saying anything right at the beginning and allowing them to get away with it.

I live opposite two houses with an almost identical setup. The couple living there have 4 cars (despite being able to only park 1 in front of their own garage). They've spent years getting away with parking lots of cars on the shared driveway - and always telling various neighbours who lived next door that 'they hoped it was ok, just tell us if it's in the way and we'll move them ' - making the poor neighbour feel like an arse for asking, so they never did. Until the latest neighbour moved in and installed an electric charging point outside their garage, meaning they need to park there every day. This has absolutely outraged the CF couple who see this as their own private driveway...it's been fun watching it unfold...

I imagine that's what's happened with you, no doubt they've done this shit for years!

i live in a similar setup only its 3 houses who share the access....luckily my neighbours are lovely and if we do need to block the access, we just say so BUT given that the narrow part of the drive is access only, its seems likely that your neighbour is within his rights to say no to the rubbish man pulling up the drive unless he was only going to use it for access and would fit at the front of your garage to load his van/lorry. Not saying he should have done it, only that he might be entitled to...sorry.

It can be stressful. Both my neighbours are lovely now but a previous neighbour was unwell and her older teenage children used to run riot with their friends. It wasn't unusual to wake up in the morning to find the whole area in front of all the house blocked with cars and have to knock the door and require them to be moved so we could get out to go to work. While my current neighbours are lovely, I don't think I'd ever have a shared access again...which is no help to you of course.

OP I have voted you are not unreasonable, but wonder whether a chat beforehand with neighbours to let them know what you were planning would have been advisable. I get on well with my neighbours but always let them know if I am planning something on my side e.g. resurface of drive this year and cutting down tree branches by their fence. Also, you should perhaps have arranged the removal when someone was at home. Sadly, you will have to talk to them now.

What a nightmare situation, totally understand wanting to play nice and not fan any flames.

However you are dealing with loons so quite frankly so needs must.

Firstly, CHECK THE DEEDS. Get a printed copy with clear markings showing your property boundaries and shared areas. Photocopy it.

Pop over with said deeds in nice file. Big, winning, slightly patronising smile. Speak as though addressing a toddler; nice, clear, simple words. Slightly louder than necessary if possible.

“Hi Derek, thought I’d pop over to see you to clear things up after the rubbish man debacle. Here are a copy of our deeds, which is like an official legal drawing of our houses and land. Can you see those lines marked on it? Those lines show where YOUR house is, and where MY house is. So those lines mean that we can put things on our side of the lines, and you can put things on your side. Do you see? So, if I were to put my car on your bit, that would be really NOT allowed, and against the law. So that’s why we don’t do it isn’t it? Because it’s not allowed. And then some bits we SHARE. Like the driveway up. Cos otherwise we’d have to fly our cars OVER the top if it was yours or mine which would be ridiculous. So to make it easier, and not have to fly, we can BOTH use those shared bits. Is all this making sense now? I do hope so, isn’t it all so much clearer when there’s a nice drawing to look at? No no no, I made THIS copy for you to keep at your house Derek, just in case anyone forgets where those lines are. And on the back is the email address of our solicitor in case you need any more information. He knows A LOT about this sort of thing"

Regarding the camera, forget a Ring doorbell as it will point at their house. Get a regular motion sensor security camera that records, and mount it on the far corner of your house (nearest the garage) half way up, sticking out into the drive enough to angle at 90 degrees so that it records across the front of your house and down the drive, but not their house.

Good luck!

THIS

With bells on.

How on earth have you managed to make this the OP’s fault.