Talk to me about shared driveways

[MrMenAndLittleMiss]

The house we are considering buying shares a drive with the next door neighbour. Each property has space for two/three cars on the parts of the drive that more obviously belong to just one or the other house (ie immediately in front of, or next to, that particular house.)
Does anyone have any experience (good or bad!), or advice re the practicalities of sharing a drive?

I should add that the house next door is currently sstc so we have no idea at this point is who our new neighbours might be.
Thank you.

It would be a massive no from me. I have shared land with a neighbour before and we had all sorts of issues so would never buy a house with shared land ever again.

dream house on one estate was at end of shared drive. exact same house on a different estate within half a mile with no shared drive cost 70k more but had no shared drive (slightly more desirable estate too, not by an awful lot though).

i just couldnt in the end!!!!

i had images of a tesco van doing a delivery at 7.30 am having to wait for that to move when i'm desperate to get to work or the three houses at the start of the drive having visitors who didnt realise they couldn't park on drive.

its 50/50 really as to how sensible the neighbours could be and i just didt want extra hassle or potential of in my life

We own the driveway but theneighbour has a right of way over it. I have had to train each set of neighbours that when they pay the mortgage on it, they can park on it. Until then drive over it and in through your gates please.

Have shared a drive with a legal document that says I must have access to my garage with no problems whatsoever for the past 35+ years until new owners moved in who object to the fact that I need access! Avoid like the plague as some people think they are above the law when it comes to their neighbours access. Not pleasant when you have to live next door.

We haven't had any issues. Its only the middle part to the garage that is shared.

On Location x3 the other week Phil implied that objecting to shared drive was being picky!
He obviously hasn't read the many MN threads about just how bad it can be.

Massive no from me. Even if you don’t have any problems with your neighbour, it will affect re-sale.

I guess maybe not so bad if you’re talking about cheaper, first time buyer properties where buyers are having to make a number of compromises. But when we last bought we saw a number of lovely period detached properties which had a shared drive and i imagine it must put a lot of people off. If you can afford to be picky and are looking at a long term home then no way

Ive just ruled out a lovely house partly due to a shared drive. The house owns the drive but others have drive over access. Too many unknowns - who maintains it, what if someone blocks it etc etc

Shared driveway problems...

We have lived in our house for just over 4y with no problems but recently our neighbors decided to make a big deal about how the driveway gets used on our side.

There are 2 houses sharing the driveway and ours is the last one in the end. Basically we have a turning point at the end of our driveway, directly in front of our house that it only exists to make it easier for us to park into our garage spaces. This turning point is only used by us and my neighbor’s turning point is directly in front of our garage, making that turning point too far away to be used by them. Occasionally, out of convenience reasons, we park our car at the end of the driveway, without affecting our neighbors parking in any ways but they have decided that we cannot park in there after 3 years of doing so, just because they don’t like it.
However, they happen to have 6 cars between them and use up all of the spaces on the road next to the shared driveway. We are reasonable people and if this was affecting them in any way, we would have no problems in stopping doing so, but it seriously doesn’t and i have small children, and friends with small children and a disabled grandma that should be able to park near us when they come to visit but purely for their own satisfaction, they want to make my visitors walk a big distance and struggle just to be annoying.

Because we have ignored them and constinued to live our lives normally as we did before, they started parking in the middle of the shared driveway purposely making it difficult for us to get in and out of our driveway.
We tried talking to the police, we tried a mediation service, we sent letters to them but they ignored it all and they are just living to make our lives hell at the minute, they have nothing better to do.
Our deeds state that no one should put any obstruction to block or make it difficult for the accessees (us) to access their property, which is what they are doing. Although it also says (very distorsively) that parking on the “brown area” (which is the whole of the shared driveway) is not allowed.

I would like some advice on how can i change the deeds of our property to make that end turning space not a “shared turning space” because we do not “share” that turning space, therefore, it would be our space to use as we wish so we can use it as we please and have at least one extra space for visitors to park near our house.

Any help on this is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Sorry may have posted this jn the wrong place but dont know how to delete/change it!

I personally would not even view let alone buy a place with a shared drive. I had one once and had a neighbour who took exception to someone who parked there not realising. They were parked for all of 10 minutes but this neighbour turned it into a feud for ever after.

A relative has a shared drive. All was ok until he went self employed, and added a van to the family car. Then the son bought a car...so 3 vehicles to park up every evening. The previous neighbour who didn't have a car then moved and people with a car moved in...tense scenes!

It just isn't worth it, too many unknowns and variables.

Ime it depends entirely on the set up, provision of parking areas, etc. Anyone who buys a property with a shared driveway or shared access should be sensible enough to realise that breaching someone else's rights or acting inconsiderately is likely to backfire.

Interesting to read other people's experiences with shared drives. I grew up in a small detached house with a mirrored house on one side. The access to the road and the drive running straight down the middle between the houses is shared, with two large non-shared parking spaces in front of each house and two non shared plus a garage to the rear of each house.

In over 40 years my parents have had only two sets neighbours, so perhaps they've been lucky, but so far its never been a problem - at least to my knowledge. Re-surfacing every 10 years or so has been a joint venture of course, so that has involved a bit of co-ordination and co-operation, but nothing crazy. If anything, its been a positive thing because both neighbours have a vested interest in keeping an eye on who comes and goes.

Occasionally one side will have several visitors, so they will need a bit more space, but a quick word to ask if its ok and give some notice that visitors might block the central drive between the houses for a few hours.. its all fine. Give and take. All it means in my parents case is parking at the front for a few hours. In fact, combining forces like this means we have access to the shared drive between the houses for a couple of extra cars.

Having said all of that I currently live next door to a couple of complete nut jobs.. so I wouldn't want to share a drive with them. In fact we currently live in a town house with narrow individual drives and a couple of times their visitors parked on our drive and blocked our car in overnight (!). We had words after this happened the second time and its not been a issue since. Some people eh..

I have a shared drive in our current rental and hate it! Neighbour is self employed working from home (beautician) and has clients coming and going all day. They often block out drive, park in front of our window or even park in our space on the drive! We each have room for 2 cars but the neighbour has 2 so all visitors etc park in ours which is directly in front of our house.

My in laws have an ongoing legal battle regarding their drive. They are in their 80’s and have never had an issue in 30 years until new neighbour moved in two years ago. He’s put up cctv and will complain about anyone that accidentally steps on the driveway, even children. It’s cost them thousands so far.

DO NOT DO IT. We lived in a semi-detached property with a shared driveway. It was shared with the neighbour whose property wasn't attached to ours. From the very day we moved in until the day we left, 13 years later, we had nothing but grief from the neighbour about the shared driveway. Seriously, think twice, it's really not worth buying any property where you have to share anything with neighbours. You might get lucky and end up with lovely neighbours but then there's always the risk they'll either die or move away and that's when the problems will begin.