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?? 🙈

Don’t they just go out the back door into their garden/yard from inside the house, then come back in through the same door? Why do they need another access to their garden/yard than the one in their own home? Why do they need to use someone else’s property to access their property if they have their own door? Isn’t that what a door is for? For entering/exiting a space? I ask as someone who’s only ever lived in apartments!

That sounds an absolute nightmare OP.

I think I'd get some legal advice on this rather than start a war you can't win, but I'd be buggered if I'd make their access easy. Can your kids start leaving bikes/big toys out and your wheelie bins or stop picking up your dog poo.... or pile it on the path. Make it as awkward as bloody possible, just as she's being awkward.

When I lived in Sheffield no one used the front door if they lived in a terrace. Many people put furniture in front of the door. My letterbox was on the back door.

My neighbours had access across my garden next to the house on the deeds however the whole terrace blocked off a path at the end of the gardens with fences and gates so that was a general access point. It worked well.

To have coal delivered or to put the bins on the street, or deliveries of things like huge fridge freezers or garden sheds.

You're right, but some posters seemed to think that OP could prevent the neighbour accessing the path by locking the gate

Can you lock it but give her a key? That way she has a right of access so her household can use it but deliveries etc can't.

I'd speak to your solicitor.

It's usually to allow people to take their dustbins from their back gardens round to the street, rather then have to wheel the bins through their house.

Someone mentioned earlier doing the same with children's bikes that are kept in a garden shed.

Dominant tenement never, ever refers to people, it is the piece of land that benefits from an easement. The piece of land that is burdened by the easement being the servient tenement. It may be that only certain people can make use of the easement (such as the occupier of the dominant tenement), but that's a different thing.

Check the actual DEEDS, @Deepblueokay .

Get information about property and land: Get a copy of the deeds - GOV.UK

We looked at an ex council house that had this arrangement, it was a no from us. The estate agent showing us round said it was for dustbins, but obviously we didn’t take it any further to actually check that out. We found another house with no such easement, still a mid terrace, but nobody walking up by the windows!

OP you should have had a report from
your solicitor when you bought the house, and they should have explained in that exactly what the easement allows. If you’ve kept all your paperwork try and find that as it’ll be in layman’s terms rather than the title document which is the legal wording.

It reads as if they should contributing to the maintenance of the access - possibly financially

there’s several house next to each other, so wouldn’t that mean someone is walking through several gardens to get to theirs?

Potentially yes @amraa . My daughter's house is the middle one of a terrace of nine (not the terrace in the photo in my other post). No-one needs to use part of the path in her garden as obviously they have shorter routes, which is great for her. But she has to use the path the length of four houses to put her bin at the end of the terrace (which is the designated bin collection space for those five houses).

I can't quite read that properly on my phone but it looks like it's referring to a specific plan. Is there anything else that refers to that plan? You could phone land registry and ask them how to get a copy of it.

It is possible to agree to move rights if you and the neighbours could agree. No idea how expensive that would be to do.

All a solicitor will do is get official copies from the land registry for £7, say what they say, and then charge OP much more than £7 for saying it. The OP may as well have a look herself first.

I've never heard of this. I live mid-terrace and it would never even occur to me to go through the neighbour's garden to get to my back garden. The only way to get to it is through the house. I suppose if there was a big emergency or I had a really big bit of furniture that would only fit through the patio doors I could ask.

I think you should check your neighbour's deeds as well as your own. Then consult the solicitor who handled your house purchase because they should have highlighted this. It may be that your neighbour is misusing her right of access.

This mentions reciprocal rights, which means you have some kind of easement or something over your neighbour's property. What is that? It could be useful if it's an access too, but it sounds like something else, I can't guess what.

Don't feel silly about buying the place - well done getting away from the ex.

Your neighbour may be using her front room or hall as a private space - it's a bit extreme of her to say she'd "rather die than use her front door", but there may be something (literally) behind it.

She should have contributed to fixing the gate - her right to use the access is subject to her contribution. But these situations are much better resolved softly than with legal action. If she believes it's a public right of way, that contributes to her acting like she can come and go when she pleases.

The previous occupants of your house may not have minded, or they may have done and this may be new behaviour by your neighbour. Either way, is there anyone who knows the neighbour well and can help agree a good way to resolve the situation?

With our access path, we all had it fenced off the end of the gardens, and gated, but we got together to prevent it becoming a public right of way - we had to get legal advice, put up signs, and restrict access once a year or something like that.

Can you set up a sprinkler for your kids to cool off in, which might nudge visitors to return to the front door?

@Deepblueokay consult a solicitor. Continued use can create a right of way! https://www.stephensons.co.uk/site/blog/consumer-law-blog/twenty-year-right-of-way-rule-explained

The right of way is for the neighbours... not their visitors/postal deliveries etc. Also it is subject to maintenance so if they break your gate they should repair it!

They really aren't 🤣
Property lawyer.

Check your deeds. The snip you posted is from your conveyancing solicitor's report. You need to see the actual title deeds available from HMLR.

So if it were me, I'd check my deeds AND then send a legal letter requesting their deeds. Because most of these things have an additional covenant stating you can't use the back door as a front door precisely because of what you have described. Now, only the person/ company who got the covenant in place can officially object BUT it can be used as a reasonable cause of objection.

If you go down the legal route you'd need to declare it at sale, but I think it'd be worth it for this reason.

Other alternative is you lock the gate and give them a key - they can leave by it but would need to allow anyone else in by going out the house, to your gate. Might just upset them enough to make them use the front door.

How weird I’ve never heard of people accessing their garden through someone else’s!
We used to live a terrace, my nan lives in an end one, and we had ones in our old street. They all had an alley way going down the back of the gardens and there would be a gate to each one. No one needed to go over anyone else’s grass etc.

It sounds like she should be paying for maintenance of the area or it doesn’t apply?!

Ok.

@Deepblueokay it says ‘subject to their contributing’ to the maintenance doesn’t it?