Neighbour using my drive, landlord won’t help. What can I do?

[9champions]

I’ve lived in my house for almost 4 years now, and I had a new drive put in last year, which cost a fair bit. Parking on my street isn’t great anyway, but I’ve recently noticed that my neighbour is using my drive to get to hers. I’m not sure if she’s always done this as I’ve only just noticed. Last week, I caught her in the act while I was outside sorting the bins, and I think she was surprised to see me. I talked to her on Sunday and politely asked if she could stop, but she said it’s difficult for her because her neighbours car sticks out into the space in front of her house, which makes her partners van hang over their drive, so she can’t get in and out without driving over mine.

They can’t park the van on the drive and the car on the street because there’s a fence between our driveways, and the van is too big to fit with the fence there. It’s their fence, on their boundary line btw. I suggested they take it down, but they’re tenants and don’t want to pay for it, which is understandable. Apparently, they asked the landlord a few months back if he would remove it, and he said he was fine with it being taken down, but he wouldn’t cover the cost.

I was thinking about putting up my own fence to stop them, but my drive is already pretty narrow, and then there's the cost involved. I know I could just pay to have theirs taken down, but should I really have to fork out money just to make them stop using my drive? I know it’s a hassle for them, but they should either talk to their neighbours to see if they can leave them more space on the road or have another chat with the landlord about the fence. They’re making this my problem, and I don’t think it’s fair for them to just assume they can use my drive forever. It’s not a shared drive btw. They’re just next to each other, similar to new build estates.

Am I being unreasonable / petty, or are they taking the piss? I’ve attached a diagram. The black squiggles are cars, and the red one is my neighbours car crossing over my drive to get to hers.

I agree with this so much!

We had a similar problem with a neighbour of ours, with similar drives. They would go over ours a little bit and there was a slight drop and one of the edging bricks that they drove over started to come loose. They technically only had footpath access to their house and relied on goodwill of us and their other next door not fencing to the end of our drives. They overheard me and DH arguing about if we should fence it I think, and stopped doing it. I think all the people minimising it haven’t had anything similar, it was so stressful, a little annoyance that has the potential to be a big problem (cost) just because of someone else’s laziness.

I think it is extremely obvious that she took to parking on the street because she couldn't access her own drive while yours was being done.

I'd be pissed off with it too, but the only way to stop it is if you put the extremely heavy planter at the very corner of your boundary. Be careful what you wish for though, as people who would cut across someones drive, is also someone who would park her car outside your house and be an arsehole to make a point.

I'm really surprised that this bothers you.
It seems so unimportant.

She’s effectively borrowing something of yours without asking first. And you don’t even get on with her.

I wouldn’t like it.

Park your car right up to tve front border so s/he can't park on your drive

Has anyone suggested a penguin bollard?

I do think you need to take the Right of Way issue seriously. If you were okay with her using it but didn't want to risk the right of way you could set up a contract for a nominal sum. However, given her behaviour when you had the drive installed, and the way she has totally ignored your request to stop, I would be getting plant pots or something between the driveways ASAP.

The OP views the situation differently from you so you imply she is demented. Demented, really?

The dog situation I would personally find intolerable and disrespectful. I would put some nice sausage down. I think dog owners would suddenly find a way to keep Fido off my private property since the next piece of sausage he eats may not agree with him.

Sounds like it’s their problem then. He needs to park somewhere else. If they can’t get their own car on their driveway because he’s blocking his own wife from getting in.

Bloody hell you should meet my neighbours, we have a separate shared drive in between our houses which can access the back gardens, neither of us use it or park on it, but if anyone parks outside our house and is even an inch across the entrance to the shared drive they come out all guns blazing.

The kicker is, they don't ever use it! They park their only car in front of their house with loads of room in front and behind, but they go apeshit if anyone goes anywhere near it.. it's crazy to me why they would even care.

Get a few slim planters and park your car on your drive

Dear Neighbour
I refer to our conversation of 25 January 2026 in which I informed you that our drive at [ ] (hereunder known as the Toll Crossing) is private property.
If you wish to drive a motor vehicle over the Toll Crossing, then this is available to you subject to payment of a Toll Charge of £10 per crossing, payable by midnight on the date of crossing.
Use of the Toll Crossing without payment of the Toll Charge by the due time will incur an Administration Charge of £150 per crossing.
Use of the Toll Crossing by you in future will be deemed acceptance of these terms.

—
Put up a camera if you don’t already have one and enforce this.

Thanks! I know I asked if I was being unreasonable, and I get that everyone is different - some things bother some people more than others. But honestly, I find it hard to believe all those people saying it wouldn’t bother them at all, especially if their neighbours haven’t been helpful or accommodating in the past.

Anyway, the bins are sitting at the top of the drive, and she’s not home right now. There’s no way she can squeeze through that gap without shifting them, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens!

Possession is 9/10ths of the law. Nobody; absolutely nobody and their dog had the right to drive over your driveway. I’d definitely go all out to obstruct them. The staggering sense of entitlement amongst the general population nowadays is absolutely enraging. Ergo, you either get mad, or you join (and beat) them at their own game!

But, coincidentally, they've chosen the solution with zero effort or inconvenience for them, just for you

How does it inconvenience the OP?

Maybe OP should discuss the problem with ndn’s landlord?
Or;
If it were me, I’d hammer some tall slim cast iron poles into the fence line with each pole woven into (& thus supporting) some lightweight chicken wire.

You think! 😂😂😂 did you not read the post?

How petty. Aside from that, it's short sighted to go overly out of your way to make their life harder when you share a boundary. Inevitably something will come up that you will need to work with them with. Even if it's dealt with by the landlord they can be just as petty if you're needing access etc.

In the day to day it obviously doesn't inconvenience OP at all, as she hasn't even noticed up to this point. But there will be wear and tear and eventually damage to the corner of the drive that is being used all the time.. which IS an inconvenience to fix, and it will be OP who has to pay for it or live with a damaged driveway.

Lets look at it a different way, if you had a huge driveway for 5 cars and only had two, would you be okay with your neighbour taking upon themselves to park their car on it every day? It's not an inconvenience as it wouldn't impact your ability to use your driveway, but I'm not sure you'd find anyone who would be happy with that?

OPs situation is the same, the driveway is being used every day by people who don't own it or pay towards it's upkeep.

What’s confusing?

It begins to develop a legal right of way that, should it succeed, OP will be required to continue to provide even if her own needs for a drive change and which will make it harder to sell her property. It may also wear her drive, though that will depend on the way it's been laid.

I think this would annoy me too, and I'd just put something at the end to stop them from doing it. Plants/ my car/ a massive fat off boulder

Ignore the twats. Put a camera up and block access is your best bet.

The OP asked for opinions, if you bother to actually read her whole post.