Hi
I live 1/4 mile down a rural track from a neighbour who moved in about 3 years ago. Legally, the track has to be maintained by each of us at an agricultural standard which has been; there is also a farmer who uses it seldom, so he won't contribute anything, and we don't blame him. Our neighbour renovated his place and there was constant construction up and down the track for 2.5 years, and this churned the track up. We paid him £300 for materials to get the road back to passable. In the interim, he has put in two holiday lets, and he now has a third party business in his outbuildings (probably not strictly adhering to planning permission, but we have let it go as they are quiet), and he has about 12 cars a day up and down the road. We have one car. He wrote us and asked if we would contribute £800 to get the road in better shape (I suspect his holiday guests were complaining, as it is not a regular road), we said OK, fine...the price then changed to £4000 as he said he underestimated, and then he got an even more expensive quote. This price would only fix from the entrance to the track to his place...our part of the road to our place would not be improved because it wasn't damaged. We asked how long this fix would last and is their any sort of guarantee by the firm doing it, no answer. So, we said, well, without a guarantee, that is too expensive, and we don't need the track to be so fancy and said we were happy to pay him £800 towards the track, but that had to be the end of it for a while. In the five years previous to when he moved in, we put about £100 to get some gravel, and it was perfectly fine with a regular car, and our part is in good shape. Are we jerks for not paying the £4000? I'm feeling like he churned it up, we paid to help fix it once so he could get his place done, and we'll contribute once more, but really, we've done our bit.