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.

I completely understand why you are fed up, I would hate that, but I don’t understand why you didn’t know before hand.
Did you not see the plan that you posted? Were you not told? I would be furious.

Your neighbours shouldn’t be verbally abusing you but you have zero right to expect them not to use their right of way through your garden.

Their reason for not using their front door is none of your business. Your response about this being England is both disgusting and meaningless… plenty of people in England use their back doors and right of ways through private property are relatively common.

What your family and friends think doesn’t matter. Unfortunately you missed that a right of way existed when you checked the paperwork for the property. That’s understandably frustrating for you, but it’s your mistake (and I’d be far more sympathetic if it weren’t for your comment regarding England).

They are.rude and doing it to annoy you. It makes no sense to go out of their way to the back of the house. The only option is to move you can't do your extension anyway. Just feel sorry for whoever moves in.

Your solicitors should have picked this up and I'm amazed you didn't see the easement on the plans. We have a shared drive with two other houses. We were informed of this when we bought the house and it wasn't a problem initially. Unfortunately we had a new neighbour move into the house that owns the land that the easement goes across who claimed we could no longer use the easement as it was her drive. Two years of hell ensued eventually involving the police because she was adamant us and the house next door could not cross her drive to access our drives and houses. This went as far as her trying to plant trees across our access. After the police started action to prosecute them for harassment they moved. The new neighbours are fine thank goodness, but I would never buy a house with a shared anything again. Having been on the recieving end of somebody who didn't know what an easement was and then thought they could just get rid of it my sympathy is limited. The only thing you can do is see if there are any restrictions on what the easement is for e.g. bringing bins in and out. But if there is no restriction there is nothing you can do.

Never heard it is disrespectful for irish people to use the front door, i would have told her that is a load of bollox

Yes it's the sort of thing I'd think a solicitor would point out. I bought an old house once, it must have been countrified when it was built but the city had grown and it was in a built up area, the solicitor said he needed to point out there was a clause that means we couldn't keep pigs. The thought had never entered my mind.

I think a right of way would be a bit more relevant than keeping pigs in a small city garden.

Op, honestly it sounds '...wrong' to you because

1. You feel your neighbours are taking advantage
2. You feel your neighbours are inferior (otherwise why the comments about them being Irish, not owning the house, having visitors etc)

It is beyond belief that you bought a property with a plan to extend without asking your solicitor about the feasibility of doing so. If they have hidden the information at every stage then you should be making a claim against your solicitor, not your neighbour. The neighbour hasn't taken anything away from you and isn't doing anything wrong by using their existing access. It was never yours for them to take off you - it was only yours in your idea/imagination of what your new home would be like.
Re the back window - put a blind up! Having a bathroom window doesn't mean your neighbours access isn't justified. It being inconvenient doesn't mean the access isn't justified.
You sound like you feel really hard done to with this, but honestly if the property didn't have the easement it would have been a lot more expensive to buy in the first place.

I can understand your disappointment, especially if your neighbours are unpleasant, but ultimately you frustrations are directed at the wrong people.

Yes we would block the path if we could, but we dont, we want to be on the right side of the law at all times, the fact is, I dont know why anyone would want to walk all the way around 2 houses to get to thier car when they can literally get straight to it, and stop annoying people in the meantime... also that 'get a grip' comment, we had told our solicitors about our plans, so thats what I meant with someone should of piped up.

We have CCTV and I have a recording of the womanchild screaming abuse at me. That 'this is England' comment really has been blown out of proportion, the fact that he said he was Irish didnt make me think of being racist, I thought it was a silly excuse, I have had worse from them... a lot worse, which I dont want to repeat on here.

Your conveyancer must have seen this on the title deed and were possibly negligent by not flagging it.

On the estate agent particulars did it say scope to extend?

I'd sell up if I was in your shoes, if money allows. That would really spoil any enjoyment of the house for me.

Also I wanna say im really grateful to those saying they sympathise, it does help with the blows of people telling me we are stupid, hard enough finding the money to purchase our own house as it is, we work very hard to have the things we have, and I guess, I was just looking for a bit of humanity, yes I do sound like we have been hard done by, I wish I got on with the neighbours, so I could be like heya morning etc when I see them... if only

the way mortgages are atm we are stuck, we are continuing to fix it up, and we are blocking off the view to the garden from the house, so we can have privacy, I cant wait till its done... We have talked about selling or renting (with full transparency to any tenant about the easement) But we couldnt sell without mentioning the easement, I would find it immoral to hide it.

I don't think you've been stupid. I suspect quite a few people don't read all the paperwork/deeds when they buy a house. Most will get away with it. You've been unlucky. All you can do is learn from it and put it behind you.

I feel for you. We didn’t have a path around our house but lived in a terrace once with a communal path. It drove us mad, neighbours staring in, one trying to get us all to fix it when his wall fell down (not communal one), and then same neighbour wanted us to pay towards a gardener to weed it and plant a few plants! It got very annoying

If they have a right of access that’s it. There’s not a set amount of times they get to use it. Obviously it doesn’t allow them to harass you or anyone else but that’s a separate issue.

I’m really baffled at why they walk all the way around your house and not just through their front door? It looks like a much longer trip and completely unnecessary!

Out of pure curiosity can I ask why? Is it straight onto a road?

OP: you are a normal person, everyone is being c*nty to you because you dared to wander in from Google (FFS everyone is new once!).
The 'only be carried through the front door' thing isn't Irish. Or Scottish. Or English. It's a RURAL detached farmhouse thing. Not a license to inconvenience neighbours in a terrace.
So my condolences, you had a shit solicitor and accidentallymoved in next to this shite, but apparently theres a dozen self righteous PPS who would be delighted to swap with you shrugface?

It isn't about anyone being delighted. The neighbours sound horrible, and living in a property where neighbours have access is a PITA.
That doesn't change the fact that the neighbours are not unreasonable using their access, and that the OP is unreasonable for wanting to make them out as being stupid for doing so.

There's loads of reasons why people may prefer the back door. In small terraces, often the only way to get two sofas in a front room involves a very small gap for the front door. Other terraces have a small utility at the back, so better to enter with muddy shoes. In shared housing, the front room is often repurposed as a bedroom and so inappropriate for everyone to traipse through.

But ultimately if a house has right of access, it doesn't matter. Unless specified in the deeds, they can use it for whatever reason they feel like.

Can you put a fence around with no gate or a locked gate whist still allowing access around the outer perimeter of your garden. So neighbour still has a path but would have to walk around. (Black line is fence and green line is new path)

To be fair, from those pictures, as a buyer it wouldn't occur to me that there might be an easement. Most of the ones I've come across are just paths along the back of a terrace of cottages. So my daughter's is just a narrow path the width of her garden, next to her house. And everyone has their own latched gate between their gardens. The path is really only used by neighbours once a week to put bins out.

The OP's is very weird, and yes, I wouldn't blame her for not guessing it existed, but I would absolutely blame the conveyancing solicitor. It really is negligence.

I don't understand how you can specify which door your neighbour should enter their own house by.

There are many valid reasons for preferring the back door.

I think if they have a right of way, they can use it whenever they like and you should not block the route.

Obviously they shouldn't be shouting at you, but I can understand why they wouldn't like being told not to do something they have a legal right to do.

sell up and move somewhere else

no need to disclose anything to would be buyers. They will see that exact diagram and the legal docs behind it when their solicitors do searches and advise them.