I have good neighbours in that they keep themselves to themselves, they tell me when they are not happy about something and they help me out when asked as I live on my own.
Basically we help each other out but are not in each other's faces.
I have never complained to my neighbours about anything as I am a great believer in compromise and tolerance and I don't like to make waves.
I was hoping someone to could help me decide whether this little problem I have is worth raising or letting it go.
There's just the two houses down a drive. I've lived there the longest, from the time the house was built and my neighbours are the 3rd occupiers.
When I first moved in the two houses were built on one piece of land which was divided. My neighbour's house is land locked and their only way out is over my land which creates the driveway. I understood from my deeds that I owned the land which is the driveway and my neighbours have an easement (right of way) over my land to gain access to my house. My deeds say that my neighbours should pay me 2/3 of the cost of maintenance of the drive but the cost is split down the middle. My neighbour's deeds say the same thing as I have a copy of them, if i'm right of course.
So far so good. We manage the drive situation pretty well and I have make sure that my neighbours and their visitors have access 24 hours. So it usually stays clear all of the time and no one parks on it.
As I said, I go out of my way to be reasonable. I maintain the hedges along the driveway and make sure the vision is not obscured going out onto the main road.
I use the same gardener as my neighbours and he had been working for me for several months. He did the hedges and lawns for me. He came on Monday (when it was incredibly hot) to carry out some maintenance to the edge of the drive for me. He normally parks in front of my house but, for some reason, he parked on the drive (he has a big 4x4) and he stayed parked there all day. I didn't say anything as it was hot and he was working on the drive, my neighbours were out all day and there was access to squeeze past his car/truck.
Around lunchtime I saw a black car parked next to the gardeners 4 x 4 so the access was blocked and a woman chatting to the gardener. I went over to find who this lady was and it turned out to be the gardener's girlfriend bringing gardener lunch. They stayed for about half hour after I approached them a second time saying that the drive should be clear and could she reverse into the front of my house. I was a bit surprised as they both became very aggressive at this point and the girlfriend drove off. The gardener accused me of being rude to his girlfriend, apparently I had told her 'to get off my land', which I most certainly had not! I put the incident down to the hot weather, stress and stuff not do with me. Although I was a bit upset about it.
I spoke the gardener that evening to clear the air as he'd finished the job and just left, sending me a text telling me how much I owed him. He seemed very angry and stressed. I explained to him about the drive being open all of the time and that I owned it.
He told me that my neighbour had told him that the driveway is a shared driveway thus he was allowed to park on the drive and not in front of my house. I have paid him and sacked him because I can't have irate girlfriends turning up unannounced and he was very rude to me.
This is probably a storm in a teacup and one off incident to be forgotten. I was just a bit surprised how quickly it kicked off though and I did feel a bit frightened when this woman bore down on me.
Would you speak to the neighbours about the drive and their view that it is a shared drive or leave it? I must admit they have referred to it as a shared drive before and now I'm wondering do they understand what an easement (right of way ) is? If they think it's shared driveway and their deeds say so then my deeds are wrong...
I don't know whether to leave things or speak to them about it...