AIBU to object to neighbour using my garden as their main access?

[Deepblueokay]

Fully expecting to be told this is my own fault for not looking into it properly but need a vent all the same!

A year ago I moved into an end of terrace house. There is the usual easement arrangement with the adjoining neighbour that they can get access to their back garden via my back garden. I know that is pretty standard and I was obviously aware of it when I purchased. Since moving in however it's become clear that they use it as their primary entrance. They never use their front door. They have a sign on the front door telling post man/ couriers etc to go round the back. Again, wouldn't necessarily be a big issue except that there seems to CONSTANTLY be someone walking through! It's an older lady living there with her grandson. He is late teens/ early 20s maybe and in and out like a yo-yo, no exaggeration. Ditto her boyfriend, her dog walker, her cleaner, her food shop, couriers (she gets at least two packages a day!) .... The latter particularly pisses me off because they often don't close my gate behind them. I have an OAP dog and 4 children, the youngest of whom is 4. It'd take literal seconds to slip out of the garden without anyone noticing 😠 And frankly, now that its summer time it just feels quite intrusive. Strangers walking in and out while my children are playing. I stupidly feel awkward sitting outside to read a book even though it's my fucking garden!

Is it even a legal thing to say that they are over using their access?!

Should also add that I would probably mind all this less except that at the end of last year the handle of my gate broke. It was the week before Christmas and I didn't have time or money to fix it and it wasn't particularly a priority for me, but I told the neighbour I would sort it after Christmas, quite reasonably I thought. (I have a side door so actually rarely use the gate). Neighbour told me I had to fix it because it is "YOUR gate" and "a public right of way" (it isn't 🤣).Then proceeded to tell all the other neighbours that I was "refusing" to fix it because I didn't use it and that she "couldn't even get her food delivered" and would "rather die than use the front door"... After a week of hassle and harassment I ended up getting a friend's husband to fix it for free and neighbour has since apologised but... I don't know, it just left a sour taste.

Is there anything I can do? Do I just have to wait for her to move/die?? 🙈

Look, you know what you have to do here. See a solicitor. But at the end of it all, you have to either put up with it or face the confrontation. I know that's what you're worried about as it's what I'd be worried about too. You never said why she won't use her front door? Go see the solicitor, get a letter and tell her straight on that she's taking the piss. Whether she's lived there all her life or not, you own the garden not her, remember that.

My first house had this arrangement and elderly neighbours who’d lived there for years along with their milkman, postman and 4x daily carers used it as their main access. We were burgled with the intruders accessing through the kitchen window at the back - at the time, the access passage from the front had no gate on it, although the houses either side of us that shared that passage had gates at their boundaries, so they’d walk through the passageway and across our garden then go through a gate to get to theirs. We wanted to install a locked gate at the front of the passageway and provide a key to the neighbours either side to improve security but the elderly neighbours were really stroppy about it, banging on about their rights and the fact they’d have to provide keys for carers etc, and wouldn’t even consider a key safe. We were renovating the house and we also saw a few of their visitors peering in through the kitchen window, presumably look at what we’d done. I never felt comfortable there after the burglary and the lack of privacy and we moved. Wouldn’t have a shared access again, people can be weird, sadly.

but its possble that she is allowed to allow the random people

won't help I am afraid.

You are totally wrong. An easement means that there is unlimited right of way across it. Unless it specified what it is for anyone can use it to access the property, as many times as they want and whenever they want. As long as they don't loiter on it. An easement cannot be varied without both sides agreeing and huge legal fees.

We need OP to get the deeds for her neighbours house as has already been stayed. There may well be covenants attached which advise on its use.

For example with ours, we can drive or walk over it for access but can't park on it. We also have a covenant explicitly stating we cannot use our backdoor as our front door. I assume to prevent the issue the OP has. It's odd, as we are the end terrace and the entry and easement is from the other end terrace, we have reason to use it!

Do you have legal cover through your home insurance? Maybe that would help with potential costs involved if getting professional advice?

Im sorry I may be being very thick, but can someone explain why a person wouldn't use their front door? It seems insane to me that she might have any rights to walk through your garden?.....

Ok, so she’s a cheeky fucker. I would 100% see a lawyer to confirm the limits of her access, but also put a camera up and teh self closing yale lock others mention, phrase it as security for your children and dog, not to mention house, and then even if she’s allowed to let everyone and their dog use it she will find it too inconvenient to carry on like she has when she has a fuctioning door. There is no way you are not allowed to secure your own property and say calmly I checked my deeds and you’re required to contribute to the upkeep but I haven’t asked this time. Break my gate again and you’ll be paying in full for replacing it though. Right of access is not right to destroy my property and if you go badmouthing me happy to share the legal view and requirement for you to pay to upkeep.

It's a very common arrangement where there are terraced houses.

Your screen shot of the deeds shows your neighbour has a right of access. But no-one else does, not the couriers or cleaners or supermarket delivery folk.

If I were you I'd have a half hour free consult with a solicitor and get advice to see if there's anything you can do. It may or may not be worth spending a couple of hundred quid to get a letter written to stop them using it.

Also, check your home insurance to see if you have the legal add-on

a) op didn't screen shot the deeds its a screen shot of the report on title - a much reduced (and in this case fairly poorly written) summary of what is in the deeds
b) you cannot conclude from what we have seen that the right doesn't extend to delivery people and guests
c) I don't know where this myth has arisen that all lawyers will give you a free half hour

She wouldn't be blocking an exit, she'd be blocking an easement.

There may be a good reason why she won't use her front door, but it seems more likely that it's because she's just a pain in the arse.

As to the 'rights to walk through your garden' bit: easements - essentially a right enjoyed by one property over another such as a right of way - have been a feature of English land law for well over 500 years, and are really quite common. The problem the OP might have is that if her neighbour's easement is a general, unfettered right of way over the OP's land (and not some weird old easement just for the delivery of coal or the removal of animal effluent or something like that), then the neighbours and anybody that needs access to the house can walk across the OP's land perfectly legally. Plus sticking a lock on the gate is very likely to amount to a 'substantial interference' with the neighbour's right and (and this is the bit that people are struggling with), it won't make any difference that the OP has kids, or dogs, or anything else. It won't matter if God himself pops his beardy face out of a cloud and says it's OK for the OP to lock the gate, the law says otherwise. The stuff that's been said on here about 'rights to privacy', 'right to security, or human rights is - to use a legal term - total shite.

Of course the OP could just stick a lock on the gate and see what happens, but from what she's said about the neighbour I strongly suspect it will end up with a load of aggro and a lock going to waste. So fingers crossed the deeds of her house (or those of her neighbours), do place restrictions on the neighbour's use. But even then the neighbour could be a bloody-minded twat and carry on anyway.

Yes, because YOURS says how it can be used. Most in fact don't and the OP has shown a screenshot that implies hers doesn't either. It would probably say if it was only for bins. In any case the neighbour has been using it this way for many years and so there is possibly ( depending on how many years) a prescribed easement.

As long as she gives the neighbour a key why would she need their agreement? It’s still her property, right of access doesn’t change that.

I don’t think the op has the deeds yet as she mentions needing to get them later than that screenshot?

Because the neighbour is allowed it to be used by delivery drivers etc and OP isn’t allowed to interfere with this - from what AI states.

but I don’t know as I’m not legally minded.

my understanding is that all of these people should have free access to this right of way - even though it is very annoying that the neighbour is taking the piss.

No l was talking about the neighbours front door,they do not use it and it is blocked,an easement has to be complied with but there is no reason to accept couriers and post around the back of the house,using an easement for main access is not what the Op signed up to,the fact the neighbour doesn't want to use the he front door is irrelevant, the access is for the neighbour,not all and sundry.

@Laurmolonlabe , It still wouldn't be a council matter. The front door has been blocked by the owner and the back door is not blocked, the easement would be blocked, which would be a civil matter. Councils don't deal with neighbour disputes.
If you want to check, ask your council.

I think it's quite a common practice to use the back door in some parts of the country.

A former colleague of mine came from a Yorkshire mining community and when he moved south he found it quite strange that here (Sussex) it's the norm to use the front door, even in roads like mine where the back door is actually on the side of the house and in many cases can be accessed by just walking up the drive.

Yes exactly. Mine didn’t discover this until they actually tried to resite the gate further up my garden. I had great pleasure explaining it to them.

@CotswoldIdyll , mine put in a new fence and told me where the gate was going, telling me where they were going to put their path.
I told them that would not be happening.
It didn't.

Ah, you must have seen the deeds we've all been banging on about in order to say this with such certainty - could you do us a favour and post them on here so we can all have a look?

Yeah that's just a screenshot of the report on title, it's not the deeds