Neighbour refuses to use front door

[Quellyza]

Hi, I was researching online, and came across this thread (first time poster here)www.mumsnet.com/talk/property/2993195-Neighbour-Dispute-re-Right-of-Access. I really do sympathise with the OP, is it really that unreasonable to ask the neighbours to use the front door where possible?.

Every person I have spoken to about this has agreed, this access is so close to our house and so intrusive, that it should only be used for things such as wheelie bins, lawnmowers, garbage bags, etc... which is fine, but not for constant foot traffic all day every day.

If I didn't know any better I would say the house in the above link IS my house, we bought this property not knowing about the right of access, - yes, it is written in the deed 'right of use of the marked path by way of foot only', we missed it, we had no idea about it, had we of known we would not of bought the house, we even mentioned to the previous owners that we would be blocking up the back gate and they didn't tell us anything - we later found out they had moved because of this access (according to hearsay)

The first time we were made aware of anything like it, was when the neighbour screamed at my Nephew to move his motorbike as it was blocking their path. in our minds we felt that our neighbour shouldn't be asking us to move our things on our property, but ok, this time, trying to be nice, we will move it, but please use your front door from now on... (they ignored that)
We spoke to solicitors, paid another solicitor to try and see if we could do something as this wasn't made clear to us, apparently there isn't. It is stated - we should have seen it, in the masses of paperwork we were sent.

That was 18 months ago, since then, there has been a lot going on, including police visits, verbal abuse (from them to us) They have had a warning, we have always kept the pathway clear and moved out of their way even if hubby was up a ladder fixing something he would have to climb down, move the ladder, let them pass and climb up (we are renovating the house) even though they can use their front door. The stupid and frustrating thing is, they literally have to walk past their own front door to get to the path that leads to their driveway!

Now they DO use their front door if and when its very bad weather or to take in a grocery delivery or something, so they have no reason to not use it.

I once managed to ask why they wont use the front door, they said it was because they were Irish, and its disrespectful to use it. (I responded by saying this is England and its disrespectful to walk around our house 20 times a day)

We are in a group of 4 houses so lets say no1 and no4 are end terraces, no2 and 3 have rights of access around the one directly connected. If we are 1 - and no.2 uses it... then 3 can use no. 4's right?,,, but they don't, they wouldn't dream of it... they think its impolite. we have erected a second gate, will be erecting a 3rd and if that doesn't slow them down, possibly a 4th. (these are NOT locked and are just there as a small sort of warning for us that the neighbours are coming) I have personal anxiety because of the verbal abuse and the police have managed to talk them out of attempt of communication towards us.(honestly I think they are all deaf as all they do is scream at each other)

Honestly the other neighbours are fed up with them too, 22yr old and her boyfriend, other rather vulgar dosser types hanging out round front and every time they want a drink or the loo or whatever they walk around our house into theirs, they litter on the bank, (we are not in a town, we are in a rural area). I have been quite surprised by them popping up around the corner, almost bumped into them while walking out my back door, once they were walking past and the gobby 22yr old started screaming at me, I couldn't even continue doing what I was doing as she was blocking my path. (I just kept saying please go home please go home)

Anyway, leaving this here, I will keep an eye I'm just, I have had enough, I'm stressed and I'm done with these vulgar immoral people being allowed to be like this.

Time to move away from these vulgar people op. I hear Scotland is rather nice and could be rural enough for your liking.

they have right of access, solicitors have told you there’s nothing you can do and you are still making things unpleasant for them? Errr yes you are being unreasonable.

they might have a utility area or tiles in the back room and want to protect carpets from muddy footwear or pop wet coats straight away. They might not want to disturb someone working at the front of their house. They might just want to keep using the back gate regularly because they don’t trust you not to bolt it.

you need to let this go, otherwise you will end up with a dispute that you need to declare when you sell.

next time read the deeds more carefully

Every house I’ve lived in I’ve never used the front door

I need a diagram to understand why this would be such a cause for concern.

TAAT @Augend23 - reported

They have right of access.
My mother-in-law doesn’t use her front door. The only time I ever saw it open was when father-in-law was leaving feet first.
My parents don’t use theirs. In fact they had it blocked up.
Both white English.

Do your conveyancing properly. If I had a right of way on a neighbouring property I’d be using it too - as is my right. I wouldn’t care if you don’t like it. I spend a lot of time using publics rights of way on country walks and am frankly sick to death of having to report people who think that just because they don’t like having a right of way on their property they can block it up or tell people not to use it.

😂 😂 Can’t help but sniggering at that thread title

Irish people use their front doors....

Yes. Irish front door user here 😂

I have access through my neighbours garden, although they've now put the gate at the bottom and put up another fence so it's more an alley way

Never use it though unless I'm having to bring something in that doesn't fit through the from door

I don't know anyone who uses the back door when it means walking through the neighbours gardens and we have a lot of terrace houses around here with that set up

Who is it disrespectful to by using the front door then ?

How on earth can using the front door be disrespectful? To whom?

I bought a house once - not sure if the set up was similar without a diagram ) , but we had an alleyway down the side of our house ( technically ours ie the alleyway ) the previous owners had blocked off the end of our garden so the neighbours could go down the alley way and reach their back gardens and therefore to their back door. It cost some space on the already small garden but it did mean people weren't walking through the garden but still had their right of access. In truth people only used it for bins and mainly used their front doors ( 3 houses in a terrace )

Of course they did.

ChinnyReckonGif.

I visited my in-laws for 35 years and never once saw the front door open. So there's no reason to disbelieve posters who describe the same.

Having said that, I think it's unreasonable to only used the back door when you're a mid terrace that has to access neighbours' gardens. Especially if they're going to demand that things are moved for them. My dd lives in a fairly long terrace and she and her neighbours only use their rights of access to put bins out etc.

Why wasn't this picked up by your lawyer when you bought the house?

Sorry @Orchidflower1 I definitely haven't meant to break any rules, but this isn't my thread so I am not sure why you have reported me?

@Proteinpudding I agree you would have to wait a little while so it wasn't directly after you've discussed it, but I certainly don't have those rules in my deeds, and I don't think making something that feels like pretty bad manners (crossing someone's land when you have a perfectly good front door) more difficult is an unreasonable thing to do, any more than its unreasonable to walk back and forth across the OPs garden all the time.

I guess it depends where you are, but it's absolutely not the norm round here - people have that access but it's (generally used) for bikes/bringing the brown bin through. It was something that worried me when I moved in. If I wanted a house where the door didn't open into the sitting room, I would have had to not buy a victorian terraced house. Or buy a terraced house with a porch, or a hall. Or buy an end terrace. Or buy a terraced house where there is a passageway at the end of the gardens rather than next to the house. The latter two of which would be circumstances in which using your back door as often as you could desire would be reasonable.

I can see this is area dependent though - if I had moved to an area where this was the norm I would have to suck it up, but it's definitely not the norm round here.

I remember the other post. This sounds the exact same. Yanbu it sounded awful.

The other post had a diagram if i remember correctly?

Diagram please! Can you make the path undesirable to walk on (muddy or long grass? Or fence off the path from your garden

From the other post it's literally just a gate opening directly in to your back garden isn't it? They walk right through your garden to get to their back garden so come in your back gate to your kids, dog and you stood there then walk past, leaving the gate open and your dogs then lost if your not watching. If you dare have a wee your kids lost too as they've wondered out on their own as the gates open and you wrongly thought they'd be safe in their own garden. That kind of situation. You can never leave your back door open in case random neighbour man comes in. I'd be fuming at whoever sold me that without warning.

My dgps tended to rarely use their front door neither did dhs dgps.

Mind you they sound a pita

Presumably the gate existed and was visible when they viewed & bought the house?

Yea it looks like it's just access to their own garden so OP wasn't aware. She knew she had a back gate not the whole road could use it.