Neighbours walking past our front door to leave the house

[Bluesea14]

our new neighbours keep walking past our front door and squeezing past our cars when they go out. We have checked our deeds and title and this is part of our property, not a public footpath. We would never dream of walking past their house when we go out so we can't understand why they think it's acceptable to do it. They recently had furniture delivered and this was also carried down the path past our front door instead of going in between their cars.
I have attached a image which is similar to the layout of our house and the blue line is where they keep walking. Any advice on how to deal with this please? We haven't properly met them yet so we don't want to come across confrontational but we also want to make it clear that we don't want people regularly walking on our property and setting our ring doorbell off.

Would you still walk over it if it was grass? And create a track? You should be going round, sorry you don’t like it. It’s no different. You don’t walk right across people’s windows unless you’re on a public street/footpath.

Where has the OP confirmed there is no right of way for the neighbours?

The Op has been asked several times but all I've seen her say is that the path is their (the OP's) property and that it is not a public path.

That does not confirm that there is no right of way for the neighbours

The people trying to tell OP off for being annoyed seem really annoyed. 🤣 Not sure why so many people seem to have their hands up their arses. It would annoy me too. It's not unreasonable to want quiet enjoyment of their property which presumably doesn't happen if they are right up against your living room window. The image shows they have no reasonable need to use your path. We own a driveway that our neighbours need to use to get out but this was made clear to us before we bought the property.

Ours is rhe same layout ours never do this its unnecessary

after i have experience in this, based on the ops design

you have to go past the original persons window to begin with how ever way round you do it, if you followed the path as you think we should you go down the path past the window, deliever then rewalk back past the same window to then go round to the next house so in that sense how is going past the same window twice better than once ?

@Bluesea14 - So assuming the layout of your actual property is the same as the pics you posted - Your property and the property to the Left of the picture as I am looking at it, share that pathway? Or do the deeds show you own half that space and your other neighbour the half nearest them?

The exact same scenario happened in our previous house. Neighbours just couldn't understand why it used to annoy us that they would treat our gravel path which was in our boundary as some sort of shared path. I wouldn't quite have minded if it was pavement but as it was gravel stones they used to mess it up all the time and we were always having to fix it. No amount of having words with them helped at all.

The issue largely stemmed from having super small driveways in a small new build 2 bed terrace (in fact your photo is almost identical to our old house set up except the middle path on our boundary was gravel not pavement). I don't think these driveways are big enough so inevitably people will end up encroaching on the neighbouring space. Most will be reasonable about it though.

In the end we ended up moving house as we needed more space due to having a baby, so the situation resolved itself in a way. We are now in a bigger house with a more spacious and more defined front garden/driveway so we don't have the same issue anymore thankfully.

Surely the shortest route for postal deliveries would be between the two parking spaces towards both front doors. I can't see a lot of delivery drivers bothering to take the detour via the OP's path.

There's a difference between posties taking a short cut and the OP's neighbours asserting a right of way over her property. They have their own access, they don't need to use hers.

it would be but if your doing them in order then you would approach from the left, then walk all the way along before coming out at the end (assuming on some streets theres a row of more)

If it is narrow enough, I step over the grass onto the next path. If it isn't, I tend to go back to the road, but would go down the parking area, not back to the path. If I am trying to deliver to hundreds if not thousands of doors in a morning, in my spare time, I am trying to go as quickly as I can. And I am certainly not hanging about having a nosey.

Your preferred route takes me past every window twice. Mine reduces it to once. 🤷‍♀️

And should definitely not be doing so unless delivering to every house on the row, and even then it’s somewhat taking the piss as it’s not a public ROW. Depending on local covenants, owners may well be within their rights to put up fences, plant climbers, place planters on the frontage etc. and they don’t want their property damaged by some delivery person trampling across their property because they’re too idle to walk a few metres.

So do you share a path with the neighbours on the other side? Or is the set up different?

based on the photo, i have indeed done each house, the slabs are joined together so theres no damage, yes some areas people have put up dividers so you do have to walk round then walk back around but based on the design itself i would presume as there has been no gaps then its one continous path. so then how is that the fault of the delivery person ?

according to the op its basically one contionus path that runs along only that rather than walk to their right side path they use the ops left side path

Anyone doing door to door deliveries on foot is about as far from idle as you can get. I am doing every single door.
The hyperbole around paths being damaged by people walking over them is unreal. I am not dragging heavy equipment behind me. Nor am I scraping cars or any other imagined crime.

Had a walk on new build estate near us at lunchtime.

If Op is sure it’s her property and the neighbour doesn’t have a right of way over it then I’d speak to them but also so it’s clear to people

Either take a paving flag or two out on the boundary and fill with gravel and a plant clearing showing it’s not a footpath (where green circle is)

or swap the builders cheap buff pavers (where red is) to show it’s not same as communal access path to back of properties

thats the thing, it all adds up time wise, its never been which method is easier its what saves time vs numbers etc, thats how it was for me

I think it's likely that it hasn't really occurred to them that it's your property, the appearance could be a bit misleading.

I would take them a welcome gift and say something like, "I hope this doesn't come across badly but I have noticed you are using the path in front of our house to get to the street but that's actually our property, so not general access. We really value our privacy so can you use your path in future? We'd really appreciate it."

Don't write a letter!

Don't say anything could be a right of way just put a plant pot there nothing too obvious

Politely saying something - a potential mistake

If you are doing every door and that includes the OP, then that wouldn't be an issue because she would also be getting a leaflet. If you were just delivering to the OP's neighbour, but not the OP, then you wouldn't go via her path, would you? You'd go back to the road and walk along, just as you would if there were fences or hedges separating the properties.

I've done deliveries (magazines) and I wouldn't have trampled over other people's paths and gardens to save myself time. I just did it quicker.

i understand your point but in my experience the way these paths are designed is that there is no gap to separate the path, and because of it it is implyed based on the design that you can use the left path or the right path.

Check their deeds.

Then buy a big plant pot with a lovely fruit bush in it.

There is no value in checking their deeds (even if OP can access them) because that land is hers and they can't access it without her permission.

It doesn’t matter if there isn’t a gap!!! Your own common sense and manners should be enough for you to know that you don’t just walk along private paths in front of people’s windows if you have no business at their property. If you can do it with the post, what about shopping deliveries, everyone’s kids on scooters, dog walkers?

This is an example of a gap and gravel. Visually people realise it isn’t a continuous path.