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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Shared Driveway AIBU

109 replies

PerryCombover · 10/11/2011 15:10

Don't wanna drip so here is the saga

Neighbour whom I share a driveway with told me to use the driveway and keep my car beside the house when I moved in.
Her reasons were that she lived on her own and didn't have a car and at the time I had two toddlers and was heavily preggo. We also live on a main road.
I was very grateful.

We are v good to live next door to wrt noise, cleanliness etc..there have been no complaints. Except.. that the neighbours daughter decided to have a series of rants at me about abusing her mother and the driveway being shared etc.
I was clear that her mother had made the suggestion and I was very grateful.

Wind on a year and the neighbour has asked that I park my car on the footpath outside the house. She has examined the deeds and would like the driveway to be empty. I think but agree to do so as long as I can offload the kids and then move the car.
She then comes back to me and suggests that I simply move the car to the bottom of the driveway as it will be safer for us all.
Lovely, everyone is happy or so I think.

Today neighbour has come back and said although she understands it will be difficult she doesn't want me to offload children in driveway or park at the bottom of driveway

Better that we agree simply to use the driveway to walk up.

Even though I know I will prevent my neighbour from parking her non existent car in our shared driveway I think I'm gonna park at the bottom on my half, AIBU

OP posts:
MackerelOfFact · 10/11/2011 16:08

Agree that sounds like she needs to use your half to get onto the drive because she's built a wall on her side. She's not entitled to use your half, only hers.

If you built a theoretical wall between the two halves, you would be able to get onto the drive because you would have the garden on one side, but she wouldn't because of the wall. Therefore she needs to remove her wall if the access is a problem!

OneHandFlapping · 10/11/2011 16:08

Surely if she has built a wall enclosing a part of the shared driveway, then she is at fault?

Don't you both have the right to access the whole of the driveway?

valiumredhead · 10/11/2011 16:09

What do the deeds say?

catawampus · 10/11/2011 16:09

Honestly the way shared drives work IME is you cooperate. Ie, you use the drive as you need it, so YANBU, but you shift your car pronto whenever she asks you to.

Does the daughter know you devalue a property by having a dispute with neighbours? If it goes beyond discussion AFAIK a dispute has to be declared when selling a property and is a red flag.

MackerelOfFact · 10/11/2011 16:10

Oh, sorry. She has a garden but you don't. But even so, it's an obstruction on her land that's blocking her access, rather than your car.

Original poster
PerryCombover · 10/11/2011 16:11

Her daughter has in a previous hairdryering told me that she has told her mother to just seal the driveway up and I never realised at the time but she often parks over half the opening to the driveway.
Naively I thought it was because she was a very poor driver.

After each of her daughter's rants the mother apologises and says I have told you to park there etc etc and she knows that.
I feel as though I am in a very poor neighbours from not hell but maybe purgatory episode

Now I'm one too

OP posts:
quietlyafraid · 10/11/2011 16:12

Not being funny, but even if she hasn't got a car and you are still blocking access should she have a visitor who has every right to park there. Just cos she doesn't use it all the time, doesn't mean you have the right to block it or do what you like.

I've had disputes with our neighbours over parking and it drives me round the bend, as we paid for two spaces in a shared carpark with allocated bays - it was one of the reasons we wanted this property.

For the first two years we lived here, the neighbours and their friends consistantly parked in our spaces or blocked access to them. In the end we just ended up parking them in. It caused so much stress. No one would park on someone else's drive so why park in their allocated spaces? We didn't have anywhere else to park them. Nothing worse than coming home, not being able to park on your own property and knowing you can't relax until someone has shifted their car.

Another neighbour kept parking on the road outside the property - the estate is a square and there is strictly no parking on the square for safety and access reasons (there is a playground in the middle of the square and ambulances and bin lorries have had problems due to parking there). It was on the plans for the estate and terms of the estate management. You can not see round the car exiting the car park and it is dangerous with all the kids running about. In the snow a couple of years ago, they insisted on parking right on the corner of the access road to the carpark - its on a slop and in the icy weather was in a really dangerous position. Not knowing whose car it was, I put a note saying "please do not park here its dangerous" on the windscreen. Twenty mins later Mrs comes round screaming her head of at me going "its icy and my dad just had an operation, rah rah rah" The carpark is less than 10ft away, he couldn't drive anyway so someone else could have moved the car, not to mention if it was that much of an issue, why was he out in the snow at all? It just sheer laziness on their part, and even worse as they would rather empty the baby out into the road, rather than go round the corner into the carpark. Its 10 steps ffs.

This morning two mins after my DH left, I had Mr come round abusing me for DH driving which apparently wasn't to his taste, knowing full well my husband had gone. I told Mr if he had a problem to speak to DH not me - DH is away for 3 days with business. Given they had no respect for when we had issues about dangerous parking, I'm less than impressed and in serious danger of telling him to eff off if he comes round again tonight looking for DH.

Moral of the story. If you want to cause a full scale neighbourly war, carry on. Otherwise stick to whats in the terms and deeds of your property or come to an arranged agreement with your neighbour. Even if she is being a pain and moving the goalposts. Don't just do whatever you feel like - its not worth the hassle. Parking is just about the biggest source of neighbourly despite apart from trees.

andthisisme · 10/11/2011 16:13

I am confused and need to see a picture. But, if you are parked on your side, and not blocking in a car, I can't really see what her problem is.

NhameCage · 10/11/2011 16:15

You can't park two cars on your half of the driveway? Is that the problem?

thefurryone · 10/11/2011 16:15

So if you both had cars would you both be able to park, or would she just have to knock down her wall?

Original poster
PerryCombover · 10/11/2011 16:17

She said, when telling me that she felt it best that I park on the road and walk the children in, that I shouldn't have moved here with three young children.
She said in her opinion the road is far too dangerous to off load them and therefore I should have taken that into consideration.
I agree with her
However I always imagined that at worst I could offload them and then park up

Arggh

OP posts:
ENormaSnob · 10/11/2011 16:17

Can't you paint a line down the exact middle?

Tough shit if she has a wall that occludes her 50%, she sounds like a pita.

Tbh I would seek legal advice to sort this once and for all because seriously, I wouldn't be told where and when I can park on my own property.

valiumredhead · 10/11/2011 16:18

What do the deeds say?

mumofthreekids · 10/11/2011 16:18

If the shared driveway is for access only, ie no carport and you are parking on (your half of) the driveway, I'm guessing that legally she is entitled to make you park on the road.

However it sounds like she is a reasonable woman and it is her daughter who is being a PITA. How about if you agree and start parking on the road for a bit, then invite her over for xmas drinks and mince pies and ask nicely if in the spirit of seasonal goodwill you can return to previous informal arrangement for the safety of your DCs?

GalaxyWeaver · 10/11/2011 16:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
PerryCombover · 10/11/2011 16:20

quietly
Her guest would have the same right to park as I would.
Her guest would be able to access the front of the neighbour's property had she not build a wall around her garden

OP posts:
andthisisme · 10/11/2011 16:21

Good grief how rude, now we know where her daughter got it from Grin

Surely you assumed you would be allowed to, y'know, use the shared driveway that I imagine would have put a premium on the price of the house, as off road parking on a busy road tends to?

Agree with Enorma, get some legal advice before this gets out of hand.

ENormaSnob · 10/11/2011 16:22

So its her wall that stops her using her 50% of the driveway?

Thats her problem then imo and I would park on my side regardless.

Its her own wall not your car preventing her guests parking.

GalaxyWeaver · 10/11/2011 16:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ENormaSnob · 10/11/2011 16:24

Definately get some legal advice because I think she's taking the piss.

diddl · 10/11/2011 16:24

But surely if it´s a shared driveway, you don´t have a half to park on?

If it´s an access, it´s surely not for parking on either?

Original poster
PerryCombover · 10/11/2011 16:25

Because I don't have a garden I can park on my half
Because she does she couldn't.
If she didn't have a walled garden she could not only park at the bottom of the driveway but also then access the top of the driveway in front of her house at any point she required

OP posts:
valiumredhead · 10/11/2011 16:27

What do the deeds say?

GalaxyWeaver · 10/11/2011 16:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Floggingmolly · 10/11/2011 16:28

Then the wall is the problem, and she's the one in the wrong. Can you not make her see that, instead of agreeing with her that it's unfair?