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.

So if you really feel that strongly, I’d suggest taking the lease to a solicitor who specialises in this area and asking them to write a formal offer to the housing association with an offer to move the right of way and pay a sensible amount of compensation to do so (not just moving at your expense). I’d also suggest mentioning that the level of use of the path is causing you problems with the peaceful enjoyment of the house but I’d probably not mention the other issues to the housing association at the moment to keep the issue simple. See what they say and if they won’t agree, why not. If the harassment continues into the future (and I don’t mean just asking you to move stuff, that seems fair), then report that to the HA yourself every time.

It is the registered proprietor, ie the housing association.

In my friend's case she found the HA very very hard to deal with. ( And she was a direct tenant. ) I don't think ( if I am honest ) - you have a hope in hell of making them use their front door when you are depriving them of something they have by right at the moment - no matter how sensible you think the plan is. I agree with @Heronwatcher you probably need a very specialised solicitor ( which will cost money ) but might be worth it in the long run. Also I would check if previous owners made any complaints about the neighbours officially they did not declare - that might get your solicitors batting on your side a bit more If they did not uncover it. Unfortunately I think if was in the documentation - yes the solicitors should / could have been more explicit but ultimately that is the contract you signed. - but other than that I would say get a solicitor who knows about these things and see if you can come up with a plan which gives them access to their back door but not directly round your house / back door etc . If you were to offer to do this at your expense and ( if I understand correctly I agree with @Heronwatcher ) offer to pay a sum to the HA for the change & also I would offer to pay for all LR updates. I suspect if a plan is reasonable the HA will be much more amenable to a plan where they get some money into their coffers.

It's a shame , and an expensive mistake - the only thing I would say is that would your house have been more expensive had it not had the easement. - Who knows , but if it would ( & I suspect it would ) you are only paying out money you would have had to do in the first place for a house without all this hassle. That does not help I understand if you didn't / don't have the money.

Oh I do not mean to be depressing but with property - there are rules etc and things like rights of way / shared drives / easements etc are not lightly got rid of. Which is why houses / property which such are often a bit cheaper than without . But ideally if the property has this you go in with your eyes open . So either decide it is something you can live with or put whatever you can into finding someone competent in these areas to advise you. Also I do sympathise if the neighbours are not nice but try not to wind yourself up by thinking of them as vulgar etc. They are presumably legitimate tenants . If they are doing something positively anti social then you could report them to the HA but then - I assume you would have to report that if you chose to sell.

It's rubbish I know. But try to think - we are where we are - and think of what steps you want to go through to take this forward / trying to fix the easement thing or selling and just taking that on the chin / whatever.

Whichever way I wish you the best - I had to sell a house under less than ideal circumstances at a loss 30 years ago - got through it and All forgotten. That won't be of great comfort to you today - but just to say

The OP may need a solicitor's help as social landlords have a tendency not to respond to complaints of harassment from their tenants to neighbours.

It also helps if any of the members of the OP are considered vulnerable e.g. children under 5, elderly and fragile, and are present when the harassment occurs.

In the past myself and other members of my family have had to report neighbours that were social tenants, who were causing noise disturbances but actually harassing other neighbours. The social landlords were only interested once they realised we were witnesses to harassment of other neighbours and these other neighbours were also vulnerable.

So, to add... say we want to lock the place up for security, but give them a key to the gate (where it autolocks so they cannot leave it open) would this be deemed as substantial interferance with the use of the access - bear in mind we would give them a key. We have already looked into this, as the back door is not the only access, and we own the land... it is not a public right of way - it is our land, we own it.

I think again you’d need to check whether the HA are prepared to agree to your key idea as even if you do give them a key it’s not quite the same as a free right of access droid multiple people use the access- you could install a gate and leave it unlocked I would think (if there’s not one already). Also if they are as awkward/ petty as they sound what’s to stop them just leaving it unlocked/ open constantly?

You have two issues. One is unpleasant neighbours and the other is a legal easement across your property. If the neighbours were more to your liking would you be as concerned? Yes you own the land but the easement means you can't do what you like with it. As I posted before, I've been on the recieving end of this, where a neighbour insisted she could do what she liked with her land. This resulted in her being as obstructive as possible in an attempt to prevent me and another neighbour accessing our houses. OP be very careful what you do because the police took a very dim view of what my neighbour did and she was threatened with prosecution under the protection from harassment act. She had lots of family members egging her on with similar things I've seen posted on here (gates, blocking the path etc). I'm sure you are much nicer than my old neighbour and I'm sorry the people using the easement are unpleasant but unless you pay a lot of money to sort this out you are going to have to live with it and hope they move or move yourself. If the police are already involved you may have to declare this when selling your house. This was why we were unable to move when we had this problem. Thankfully my situation was resolved because I got new neighbours.

@MyneighbourisTotoro so the reason in every house we've only used the back door is because all of the houses I’ve lived in I go through the back garden gate into the car park / parking spaces and we drive everywhere living quite rurally

I'm pretty sure it would count as blocking access, yes.

Generally you can't block a right of way.

I am afraid that this is likely to amount to a breach of the easement. They are meant to be able to come and go as they please, not faff around with keys or gates that autolock. The burden is not on them to remember to bring the key every day.

Also, the way you put this suggestion tends to suggest that this isn’t really about security. The more you say things like “we’ve looked into this because they have another means of access” the more obvious it will be to the HA that locking the gate is about you wanting them to use their front door instead.

When you were buying the house your solicitors should have sent a letter or an email or sometimes a separate document telling you about what the land registry plans show. It often has a name like “title report”. It will usually refer to the plans and tell you to check things like whether the fences at the property are where the plans show, just in case someone has moved them. That would be where I would expect your solicitors to have drawn the easement to your attention in that document. Do you still have it? If so have a look at it and see what they say. If they don’t mention the easement you should take it up with them. Solicitors don’t usually just send the plans and say “here have a read of this.” They point out relevant features. They would not however point out relevant features and then also say “because there is an easement you cannot build a garage over it.” They expect you to be able to join the dots to that extent. But if they haven’t mentioned it at all, then you really should complain to them - and ask them what they are going to do to make it right (try to help you to negotiate a change, pay compensation etc).

Get a solicitor to write to the housing association offering money to change the location of the easement so they still have it but it’s routed to the back of the garden. Then fence it in too.

otherwise you mention dropping the path. You could do that and then a low 2/3ft fence to make a view for them harder into your garden and make the space feel enclosed. Might make them less likely to actually use it, if it’s just like a tight ally way.

Op I think one of the difficulties here is you're conflating the issue of these specific neighbours with the neighbouring property in general. You want your neighbours to use their front door, you wanted to petition to get them to move, you think they're taking the piss with the access and how they behave generally.

A HA could take action against your neighbours if their actions went so far as to constitute abuse or harassment, although what you've described so far sounds a bit tit for tat. However any action the HA takes would not be about the easement. The easement is attached to the property, not the specific neighbours. If that easement is in place, it is a big deal to change that permanently. It exists for a reason (however spurious you may think it is) and as far as the HA are concerned, it is a condition of the property and something you agreed to when buying the neighbouring property.

You can't block/lock/put barriers in to the access. It doesn't matter that you own the land. You purchased it with a specific condition attached to it.

I'm sorry to be blunt and I know how stressful it can feel (having lived in multiple places with various easement/access arrangements) but I think you're tying yourself up in knots trying to find a way of getting around the legalities. You really have two choices - accept it and find a way to live with it, or decide you can't accept it, chalk it up to experience and look for a property that better suits your needs. I know neither are easy, but there aren't any alternatives.

You can still build a garage to the side but not attach it to your house. That way you create a narrow alley for them to use at the side but you can then fence off to the far boundary, for security.

If they had to go down a narrow alley each time they might reconsider using the front door.

It does baffle me when people go out of their way to do something even though it would be easier for everyone, including them, for them to not do it. Bizarre for them to walk so far when their car is just there!

OP I feel for you. We moved from a similar situation. Not so much because people were using it but becuase we had a neighbor on the other side of the shared driveway to 6 houses who was obsessed with access. Deeds stated it was our land but we should give right of way to neighbours. Most people only used it for bins but if I parked my car there for 1 mins to unload shopping that one Neighbour would run out of his house and complain that access must be clear at all times. It got annoying. I pervious owners always parked their car there as none of the neigbours minded as it wasn't next to their land but he was ensuring he could reset protocol with us. When we were trying to sell - he ran out of the house accussing the estate agent and viewers of trespassing. They ran for the hills of course! On the same day we had feedback from viewers of fly tipping and sure enough other neigbours doing building work had chosen the day of our open house day to fill the access road with a load of junk.

We had a gate for security but it was worse as especially during lockdown with people meeting in gardens there was a lot of traffic and the noise of the opening/closing got annoying. People would slam it, often waking the baby. The access felt like a ticking timebomb. It was livable, even with a neighbor policing it but felt it could become an annoyance if the situation changed.

We felt this would make our house sale challenging so it was the first thing we disclosed. We did loose a sale the day before exchange partly due to this as the original buyers wrongly believed until the 11th hour that they could stop people accessing 'their' land. We found another buyer with full disclosure quickly. A lot of people are used to this arrangement and don't seem to mind.

@Chesure the whole point of an easement is access. If the OP does things to make access more difficult (especially narrowing the access, when one of the reasons for it usually includes to move big items to the garden that wouldnt fit through the house) then the HA could legally challenge the OP and would very likely win.

Neighbours have a right of access to their back door, you should not try to impede them. They can come and go as much as they like. Try to live and let live or you will struggle to sell the house when the time comes because you will have to mention the neighbour dispute.

@DelurkingLawyer - I don't know why but this made me laugh out loud - Thank you "Solicitors don’t usually just send the plans and say “here have a read of this.”

we once went to buy what I thought was a lovely ground floor flat , enclosed front garden with a gate to the path up to the block and patio garden at the back V small block - two owners had dogs . Solicitor talked us through it

1. the gardens not demised ( is that the right term ? ie we did not own them they were public areas for all residents in the block. ) so although the front garden the current owners had made lovely with pots etc - Anyone could have bought another flat and decided they could eg park their bicycles there and not one thing we could have done about it. The patio at the back was much less accessible but common property so they were allowed to access it ( even if abseiling :) )
2. No dogs allowed unless by consent of the management committee - they could have said no if they thought two dogs in the block was enough
3. no wooden floors which I know the flat above had and should not have been a problem on the ground floor but officially - no wooden floors.

So I said to the solicitor but no 6 has wooden floors and a dog and no 9 has a dog. & the other ground floor flat has blocked up their gate to the path To which she replied - They may well do or have done so I am simply telling you the restrictions on the property - what you choose to do is up to you.

We left it. Now having bought and sold before I think we sort of knew better what questions to ask - but she went through the shared freehold rules and made sure we knew what was not technically allowed. Bought somewhere else and v happy that any compromises have not come as a surprise.

Anyway 💐to you @DelurkingLawyer for making me laugh - I don't know why but you have afforded me a giggle. Just the phrasing I think.

@BasiliskStare - no worries! Your description of what your solicitor told you is a good example of best practice - sitting you down and going through it line by line. It sounds as though OP didn’t get that kind of service. Unfortunately if they sent a letter or report saying “please be aware the next door neighbours have an easement round the side of your property” that is probably enough not to have been negligent, even if OP didn’t appreciate what that meant. Only OP will know what she was told.

The irony of all this is that I own a house with precisely this arrangement. It’s very common in villages in East Anglia because rows of houses often had a well or pump at the back in one of the gardens, which had to be accessed by trooping through everybody’s gardens as there was no common passageway running along the back. My neighbours with the right of access (who by the way can get in through their front door!) absolutely hated the previous owners of my house because they had tried all the tricks that people have recommended to OP: locking the gate, leaving their huge dog running free in the garden etc. We never restricted the access in any way and have always got on with the neighbours. It sounds like OP’s neighbours are antisocial in other ways, but don’t underestimate how much bad feeling you can create by being seen as preventing a right of access.

I live in a house with a shared drive, which never bothered me particularly and has been ok with two sets of neighbours. Then the current lot felt it would be nicer to have a fence down the middle and suggested we mutually agreed to this. I was happy to do this, until it transpired they didn't want to divide the drive equally and in line with our dividing wall between the houses, which marks the boundary. They wanted to draw the line diagonally, taking up about 3 metres of my garden, so that they would have more room on their side of drive. I said I didn't want to give up any land to do it, which I thought was reasonable, but they've been huffy ever since. They've now taken to passive aggressive fucking about with stuff whenever I'm not in - nothing terrible, but irksome. They're due to sell soon, as they're building a house in their large back garden. I'm feeling anxious about how the new lot might be now!

It depends on the wording. We have an easement that just says passage on foot, nothing about width or height. We use it for our wheelie bins. So if our neighbour decided to build over it there's nothing on the wording to stop that.

I've seen the diagram and google map and that is so unreasonable. They've basically got access all around your property. I was thinking it was just an 'across the back of the garden' type access, which is fairly normal and can be easily sorted by fencing it off. It's so close to your property and is an invasion of privacy. I'd hate it. All you can do is bide your time and hope they move or you move.

@DelurkingLawyer - I agree , our solicitor was great . I did look at the deeds & ask her about front garden , I did ask her about a dog ( we had one ) and she read through The truth is others in the block had got away with things but she told us the rules and where if a couple or 3 flats changes hands the whole thing could change. She was great. ( Did I say she was great. ) If you are buying somewhere ( which is usually a significant investment ) - I would spend a few ££ extra to get a decent conveyancing solicitor to sit down for an hour and explain what restrictions / considerations you may have - They may be restrictions you are prepared to live with - but better to know . It might just save a lot of money in the long run

So, it could also be due to that we bought the house at the height of covid, where everything was done non contact, over the phone, and internet.
It states right of way on foot only, so, we can do anything up to the 90cm 'Marker'. We are learning to live with it, its mainly the 22yr old Daughter and her mates that use it, (we also found out one of her mates dad was in the news about hiding from the police, for domestic abuse etc) hopefully she will move out at some point. Good news though, the HA have assigned a new Housing officer to them, and we got a letter stating they have requested the neighbours only use it if they REALLY need to, we are fencing it off... and living with it. Thankyou all for your comments I really appreciate your input. FYI no communication about the property was had verbally from the solicitors. we had like one 5 min phonecall...

Apologies, I have not read the entire thread so forgive me if this has been said. There is a sellers questionnaire that everyone completes when selling a property and they have to tick a box to ascertain whether there are any disputes with any neighbours. Undoubtedly, your sellers would’ve ticked no. You will have this questionnaire amongst the paperwork you receive from the solicitor early in the purchase process. This does give you a claim potentially with both the sellers and the solicitors for not pointing out the issue. I wouldn’t put your heart and soul into it, but I would launch a claim against both the solicitor and the previous owners as a side project, while you crack on with what other solutions you have decided. Get in the right mindset that it doesn’t matter the outcome and that you’re not going to get emotionally invested in it, you will simply make the applications and let it progress in the background. If you get a result, it is a bonus, but no drama if you do not as it could take a long time anyway. There will also be a legal claim to dispute the tenants with the housing association and have them removed and replaced with more compliant tenants. You can speak with the local council too and report any antisocial behaviour, including smoking drugs to the police. Say to the police that they seem to be dealing from the property and they should get raided and you never know what they will find. This adds weight to applying to the housing association for removal of the tenants if they’re caught out. I have known quite a few occasions where unruly and unsociable tenants have been removed due to much less than what’s going on here. So you have three avenues to follow as a side project and you never know, you may get a solution from one of them. Alternatively, you can do what your sellers did and sell up and tick ‘no’ in the box that asks whether there are any disputes with neighbours. Good luck!