Neighbour damaged his car on my drive

[lghtnght]

I moved into my new house 3 months ago and after a few weeks, I noticed that the neighbours across the street were reversing onto my property when they left their house. The road is pretty narrow, so they can't really turn around without reversing onto my drive. Plus, another neighbour parks his car (in blue) on the pavement by their house, which makes it harder for them to pull forward and turn around.

It would be much easier if they just reversed onto their own drive and drove out from there. I don't know why they haven't done that yet. I didn't want to start any drama or fall out with them. I had never talked to them before today and wasn't sure how they'd react if I brought it up, so last weekend I decided to put some garden rocks in the corner instead. Just to clarify, they're on my drive, not on the pavement, in case anyone wonders. So, the neighbour knocked on my door earlier and said that his car got damaged because of the rocks. He insists that they were half on the pavement (not true) and half on my drive.

He asked why I didn't tell him I was putting them there so he could avoid driving over them. He said if there was a problem, I should have just talked to him. I told him it's my drive, on my property. Why would I need to inform him? His car wouldn't have been damaged if he wasn't using my drive… He got really aggressive with me, saying that the previous owners never had any issues and that he's going to call the police and a solicitor about the damage to his car. I haven’t heard anything since. I can't believe I'm even writing this. I’m not sure what to do now! I do feel a bit intimidated by him. Am I being unreasonable?

In 'older days' streets weren't like car parks.

OP, how do you get in and out of your drive, if there are rocks in it?

If the neighbour reversed onto his own property, as is the safest way, he wouldn't have developed the bad habit of encroaching on the OP's drive and none of this would have happened. Silly cunt.

YANBU, OP.

Barrister here. This is a civil matter, the police won't be in the slightest bit interested. No solicitor is going to advise him that he has any sort of claim against you when he was trespassing on your land.

She uses her eyes so she doesn't drive over them

YANBU

Looks and avoids them of course 😂😂

I dont understand why so many are saying the OP should have warned him....its her drive! She could have a statue of a naked Idris Elba ................................................................................................ sorry, was lost in a dream for a second, on there if she wanted and it would be no ones business but hers!

I had a similar incident once, took a wrong turn and ended up in a cul de sac full of cars, ended up doing a 1089 point turn to get out. I used the end of one of the residents drive and clipped their fence. So I got out, left a note (no answer to my knock) with my number to pay for any damage I had done, took photos obv. I did scrape my car slightly but it was my fault so ya know....tough shit! Never heard a peep.

Agreed. Not every household had a car, and of those that did it was one car not one per resident as seems to be the case now.

My NDN have three vehicles and only two of them live there, not working vehicles or anything, they own them all.

Me neither. Not worth falling out over.

No one has she she needed to ASK permission to put rocks on her driveway..

SeveraL of us have said she should have asked him not to use her driveway if she felt so strongly (about something so minor) or warned him she'd put rocks there when she knew it would damage his car.

it's just the decent thing to do.

You were absolutely not unreasonable to put decorative rocks on your own property.

neighbour is a CF

A previous owner removed the gate from our back garden and trained hawthorn bushes over the gap.

I kept it like that for years to deter trespassers, since I didn't need access to the rear. That changed when my elderly mother moved in and I needed wheelchair access.

The OT told us we couldn't have a ramp at the front, so the back it was. As soon as I had a back gate installed, I'd get tradesmen, etc using our garden as a shortcut. (Our house is at the end of a terrace.) I also started finding dog mess in the back garden.

When Mum died, I padlocked the gate.

My husband was very disabled following a stroke and I was at work the day the neighbour's middle-aged son decided to climb over our gate (presumably to retrieve a football).

DH had a cataract, macular degeneration and stroke neglect in one eye and the back garden is quite big. So far as he was concerned, a strange man was trying to enter our property. (Our living room has a large window that looks into the back garden.)

DH opened the window and roared at the intruder to get to...

Shortly thereafter, the neighbour's son pounded on our front door and berated my husband for daring to swear at him when their were children around. (Presumably his kids visiting granny?)

He then proceeded to mock my husband's infirmity. DH kept his head and said "Oh, it's you. So where are you working these days?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" replied the neighbour's son and left.

I had a look at the gate and concluded that the problem was that there was a nice flat surface for anyone strong enough to hang onto and then to balance on before jumping off.

I found some scrap wood, used my multi-tool and cut the wood into little pyramid shapes which I screwed onto the top of the gate in intervals tight enough to stop a grown man from being able to place his feet between them. (I wasn't strong enough to hammer in nails.)

I then painted the gate and pyramids with some paint that DH had left in the garage. Looked rather lovely, I thought.

After DH died, I was in the house on my own when I saw someone trying to climb the gate by balancing on top of the pyramids on top. I yelled, startling the intruder.

He flailed about, grabbed a dead hawthorn bush and landed on his arse as the bush snapped.

I turned out that it was the neighbour's other middle-aged son, looking for a football. The funny thing is that I'd forgotten to lock the gate that day.

Presumably, I should have discussed it all with the neighbour in case her idiot middle-aged sons hurt themselves.

Honestly @lghtnght I probably woild have turned on the waterworks crying and ran down the drive to check if he had damaged my lovely new decorative rocks 🪨 😪

Also... they may well be on the pavement now, because he probably dragged them off your driveway... that'd be theft I'd say 😂

As for people saying to spray the rocks white.... they'd be ugly then, not decorative. Why would you want ugly rocks?

Why would she need to warn him when he had business being on her property? Why should he have to speak to an aggressive man? Are posters not able to work out who is in the wrong here?

The sad thing is with clear and honest communication this could all have been avoided. Yes, it is annoying that he does that and I can understand you being irritated. but let’s be honest here putting the rocks down was a little bit passive aggressive wasn’t it?

And the decent thing for him to do was to pop over when they moved in (which would be obvious by the sound of it, due to the layout of the road) and say "The people who used to live here didnt mind me using the bottom of the drive to get out as its a bit tight with that blue car parked there. Is it ok with you if I keep doing that?" but he didnt.

So at worst, by your rules, its a case of "six of one, half a dozen of the other". But as PP have pointed out, If he was reversing with such a lack of care because he has always just pulled onto the drive without thinking, what is to stop him hitting a child next time? Ime a hell of a lot of people drive on auto pilot.

Sorry people are giving you a hard time OP
I totally agree that its your drive and you can do what you like with it. You shouldn't need to run by any alterations to your property with your neighbours first ffs.
Your neighbour hasn't even bothered to communicate with you in any way shape or form until now, not even a nicety in passing by the sounds of it. He could have at least politely established if it was ok to encroach slightly on your property occasionally when reversing off his drive but he was too arrogant to do even that! Fuck him!

The neighbour is not doing the decent thing! The neighbour is intimidating, she shouldn’t have to approach him

Yes I think thats the crux. The vast majority don't think that OP is bad for putting the rocks there but think that the issue comes from not warning. If OP asked him not to use the drive and he still did then OP put the rocks there and the man damaged his car = fair enough. OP putting rocks there intentionally with no warning when she knows there is a chance that he will hit them = possible ah move.

oh yes it definitely was, I don’t dispute that

The OP comes across as petty. Let’s hope she doesn’t ever need a favour from her neighbour.

Write a letter of complaint that he drove onto your property; damaging and moving your rocks. Then leave it.
It sounds petty.

That is brilliant!

What I dont get is, if he could knock on the door to have a go at your DH, why the hell couldnt he have just knocked on the door to say "Please can I have my ball back Mister?"?!! Same with the second one, wtf?!

Time and time again it’s been said that the neighbour isn’t someone she could have a clear and honest conversation with, that’s the point, and if OP had politely asked him not to use her drive he may well have kept on doing it.