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?

I love this idea 😂

When I moved into a property that had been empty for 7 years it took me at least a year to push back on everyone who had been taking advantage in various ways. Same thing, they were outraged that they had to give something up that had never been legally theirs. The cheek of some people is astonishing. The main thing here is that he didn’t even say hello while he took advantage of his neighbour.
The biggest offender insisted that he hadn’t stolen part of my garden even though it was clear from the land registry plans that he had. I told him that I was taking down his fence and putting a new one up about 4 foot onto his legitimate land, he suddenly remembered exactly where the boundary was and I moved the fence to the boundary with no more nonsense from him 😂
I had so many people come and tell me that they had been given fishing and dog walking ‘rights’ by the previous owner, I began by explaining things politely and by the end just answered everyone with ‘ god loves a trier, you must be golden’ .
Stand your ground, if he had politely mentioned it to you, you may have felt differently, he didn’t.

that barrier is probably not identifiable to parking sensors or visible on many reversing cameras.

What kind of parking camera wouldn't pick up stones like the ones OP has shown? My bog standard camera picks up smaller detail than that. If it won't show those, what chance is there of it showing a small animal or child?

Unless you have ordered an actual cannon to aim the rocks at his house yanbu- it really isn't you being a twat here..
Maybe some mners could club together and get the poor bloke a smaller car so he can manage to park on his own drive easier?

Exactly. It works BOTH ways. At home, we have a couple of brilliant neighbours both sides, we're not "over friendly" but we chat a lot, deal with issues sensibly like agreeing and sharing costs for fence replacements, no problems asking in advance for scaffolding slightly over the shared fence (both them and us), or workmen having access through gardens to access the back gardens of others, etc - all agreed IN ADVANCE with no arrogance or entitlement. We always park our cars in our own drives or outside our own houses, even if it means playing musical cars in the morning, and all three of us pre-warn each other for family gatherings or tradesmen etc where more cars/vans are expected so we can offer driveway spaces to neighbours etc

Neighbour opposite is the opposite. She parks her car where she likes, as does her family and friends - happy to leave her drive empty and park partially blocking our drives if she can't be arsed to park in her drive and reverse out later, all for HER convenience. Same with her tradesmen, family, friends, etc - she never parks her car in her drive to allow room for her visitors, never asks them to park more considerately etc.

Same at my office. Unfortunately, although I have a driveway, it's also a right of way to the neighbour's back garden, which legally means about a 1 metre width (or historically width of a horse's arse!). He has no right to park a vehicle on it, nor store anything on it, etc. When I first moved there, I tried my utmost to be a friendly/helpful neighbour, but soon realised he was an entitled arsehole. Got to work one morning to drive into the drive only to find he'd park a large trailer blocking MY drive. "It'll only be there a few hours" he said - basically told me it was my problem as to where I could park. Next thing was a huge delivery of slabs for his back garden - I was already parked and working, but he told me I "had to" move my car as the delivery wagon needed to reverse down to unload the slabs. Stupidly I did. The slabs remained at the bottom of MY drive for several weeks until he finally got around to moving them though his garden gate! It just went on and on. I finally snapped at him and told him in no uncertain terms he had a 1 metre width of "right of access" and that no I wouldn't be moving my car for him, and he had no permission to leave stuff on my drive! He still didn't stop being an arse about it, but at least got the message to some extent. Still I'd arrive at work and find his car in MY drive, or a pallet of grass or once a little mini digger - at least he started moving them immediately when I told him to! Now, though, I have the answer. My son has moved away and didn't want to take his car, so we've parked it up to store in my office driveway, effectively blocking it from the fuckwit neighbour - leaving only the same 1 metre width of access which is the same as his garden gate opening - so basically anything he can get through his garden gate can get past my son's car! Neighbour can't say a word and obviously can no longer bully his way to using MY drive. Serves the idiot right!

Going onto someone else's land without permission isn't an act of war?

No, because that would inconvenience me. Someone going partly on to your drive to be able to get off theirs is neither an inconvenience or a danger.
You do seem to bear a grudge with anyone here who doesn't agree with you so I think you're showing why you put the rocks there!

Going up to someone's door and being aggressive and threatening is quite war like too.

No. HTH.

No, and it isn't a criminal offence either. What kind of society do you want to live in?

I don’t hold any grudges. You have every right to your own opinion. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t expect everyone on Mumsnet to agree with me, and I was expecting a variety of opinions. Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me if it causes me any inconvenience or poses a risk (actually, it was a danger, because he drove over my lovely new rocks 😔). The bottom line is, it’s my property, my land, and if I don’t want strangers using it, that’s my choice 😊

Of course it is up to you who can and cannot use your driveway.

But did you intend the rocks to deter your neighbour from using your drive, or punish him for doing so? For them to be a deterrent, he would have had to have known they were there. You didn't tell him, and having left his home the same way (however entitledly) for years, he is unlikely to have scanned the area for low level obstacles. If he did not know they were there, they could not be a deterrent.

From his perspective (however unjustified) he did what he did with the previous owners' apparent knowledge. In three months you have not raised the issue with him. Of course he has no right to use your drive, but from his point of view, this looks like a passive aggressive act which could have been avoided if you had spoken with him. You suggest you were unsure how he would react if you spoke to him. What did you think was going to happen when you put a pile of rocks down? Whether he hit them or not, you were still telling him not to use your drive.

This isn't a debate about whether you can put what you like on your drive, or whether he can use your drive without asking. Of course you can, and of course he can't. Technically you are 100% in the right. But pragmatically there would have been a better way to handle this.

He will get nowhere with police or solicitors. But you have escalated the situation when you could have spoken to him. If he ignored your request, that would have been the time for blocking your driveway.

You need to read this in the context of the thread it was on.

It's an inconvenience and expense when OP has to repair her driveway sooner than would otherwise have been the case because of the extra wear and tear. And it's a danger if they cannot see rocks behind their car, because one day that could be a small visiting child.

What an idiot. The man. If he wasn’t driving on your land he would have a problem.

As if op should have to ask or tell him she’s adding stuff to her own drive rather than this man use his own actual eyes.

Something very similar happened to me, but it was an adjacent neighbour using part of my drive because they were being lazy.

l had a brick wall built.....i'm petty like that.

Imagine the conversation

Me: hi, I’m putting a fence up on my property, just so you’re aware

neighbour: ok ??? Thanks for letting me know

Lmao

Did he know that you are the new owner? Continuing to use the drive without asking is quite aggressive. Having said that, we are on a narrow street and it’s inevitable that the corner of our drive is used for turning. I use a bit of a neighbour’s drive for turning too. (Sometimes I avoid it). It is ridiculously narrow in our case. So it’s a difficult question to answer. On the one hand - of course others can’t use your drive. On the other hand - sometimes one must use another person’s drive. Having said that, I wouldn’t aggressively knock on a person’s door to blame them for damage to me that occurred when I was trespassing. This really says who your neighbour is and I hope you will have no further contact from him ever. Some people are just mad. At least - has he now found a way to drive that lets him avoid your drive?

No, the entitled twat has created conflict,

every
single
day

Nail on the head.

It's your drive, your property! No of course YNBU to put something on your own drive/garden. And of course you don't have to tell the whole street 😂

Some people are crazy 😆

Apart from anything else OP has every right to protect her property from illegal use by other people. It IS private property, she does own it and if she has said nothing and allowed this Pr**k to carry on regardless without challenge, is she allowing him to set up a ROW onto her property.

I imagine that re sale of property with some entitled jerk possibly claiming he has established a legal ROW onto her property through X number of years use could make her house pretty near to unsaleable.

I hope he now keeps his entitled CF's car off your property for good. Love your new garden ornaments OP, I imagine they will look glorious in this years summer sunshine. 😂Good luck.

Then why the post????

I have to be honest @lghtnght I have no sympathy whatsoever with your neighbour. What you do in or on your garden or drive is none of his business.

When I moved into my current flat, the next door neighbour's cats had been in the habit of coming through the windows to check their territory. First few times I chucked them out after 10:00pm but I stopped and the next time I saw him, I explained that if they were missing, they were likely asleep on my bed or my kitchen table and if he wanted me to stop them coming in, I would try. He was just grateful they had found another person to fuss them... although I am aware that they share their favours around the neighbourhood.

So think no more of it, you have done nothing wrong.

Cars were smaller back in the day.. or non existent... Very few people would have parked a horse outside their house.