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Original poster

Neighbour Dispute re Right of Access

96 replies

Neenpeensupreme · 30/07/2017 20:45

First time poster at my wits end!
Hi, I was hoping someone could advise me. We live in an end terraced house. Our elderly neighbour next door has a right of access to the path round the side of our house. She never uses her front door. Her family never use the front door either and all traipse round the back. We hate it as we have no privacy as they are literally walking past our back door. It wouldn't be the first time I've had to duck in my own kitchen as I've only got a towel wrapped round me and her son has walked passed. Also in the winter, they walk round in the dark giving me a real fright when I see a face at the window! In the summer when we're eating dinner outside the pass within 3 feet of our table! We have never said anything but things have gotten worse in the last year as sadly her husband passed away so her family visit more regularly. This is completely understandable but they still use the back door so on average they pass half a dozen times each day and more at the weekends.

We are in the middle of putting a six foot fence up which I had permission for (even though I didn't need to) but we know how difficult she can be. (It also has slip bolt lock). There are numerous reasons why we're putting it up. I.e. First and foremost, privacy, as where the neighbours sit in the garden they can look straight into the house. We have had people use our garden as a shortcut to get to the canal, we are planning on getting a dog in the near future. I inherited a lot of expensive garden ornaments when my dad passed away a few months ago.
Anyway, we thought this was the ideal time to ask her if the family could start using the front door. She has point blank refused. Now as far as I'm aware she should only be using the path for taking bins out and for workman etc. The issue I have I can't find any literature stating this.
Things have gotten out of hand a few days ago when we locked the gate and her son tried to get round. He banged our front door and started shouting abuse at us, he then threatened my husband to the extent we had to call the police.

Since then I have been to Citizens Advice Bureau who agreed with me it was unacceptable and they wrote a letter on our behalf to ask them to stop them using the path. I have phoned the council who again agreed this shouldn't be happening and suggested a mediation meeting. Over the last few days they have continued to ignore our pleas and defiantly walk past out back door. I suffer from anxiety and panic attacks and my husband had a TIA a few months ago and this is completely stressing us out. We just don't know where to go from here, short of seeing a lawyer

OP posts:
steppemum · 30/07/2017 23:12

Teastory
I lived in a terrace in London with no back alley ways and no right of access, the only way to get into your garden was through the house

SavoyCabbage · 30/07/2017 23:24

Shock Outstanding diagram! Star

The second diagram is how our garden is. Although our neighbours snuck a gate on to the end of the path even though it is a part of our garden which is now an issue.

namechangedtoday15 · 30/07/2017 23:31

The diagram solution can only usually work where the ROW is not defined on a plan registered at the land registry - it usually is so you wouldn't be entitled to move it to the end of your garden.

wowfudge · 30/07/2017 23:33

What happened to the OP?

Venusflytwat · 30/07/2017 23:38

OP I think they are being unreasonable but legally I don't think you can stop them.

I would put net curtains, cage curtains or sheer blinds up at your kitchen window.

I would also install a lock on the gate BUT give the neighbour a key. You are therefore still preserving her access but making it much harder for her to allow others to use it willy nilly. I guess she could in theory get more cut, if TT became a problem you could just get the lock changed and again give her one key; she's unlikely to go to the expense more than once I'd have thought.

Lastly if you haven't already, try telling her, without anger, how it's affecting you emotionally. Ask if there is any compromise you can both reach.

You have my sympathies.

Venusflytwat · 30/07/2017 23:38

Cafe curtains!!

youarenotkiddingme · 31/07/2017 06:11

What I don't get is why some people would insist on walking right through someone's gardens and past their windows if an access path is created that prevents this - just because you have ROA.

It screams of sense of entitlement to some above what's comfortable living for everyone involved.

RatRolyPoly · 31/07/2017 07:38

Hmm, I think in this case it's the opposite that could be seen as entitled (not saying the OP is being in these circumstances!). But in areas of these terraces things have often carried on happily like this for generations, and if someone suddenly moved in and said, "actually, it makes me a bit comfortable you all traipsing past my window (even though you've done it for years, as have all the neighbours because we're all in the same boat here and it's not like I didn't know the score when I moved in...). Anyway, I don't like it, time to start using your front doors folks!", I'd probably raise an eyebrow at the entitlement of that expectation.

Repeat: not saying this is the case for the OP!

KatyBerry · 31/07/2017 07:42

As usual, there are a lot of opinions that mean little without seeing the land register. What does it actually say on your property's deeds? Post it here and you can get a definitive answer- it's not at all unusual for these rights to be qualified for use for a specific purpose

PiratePanda · 31/07/2017 07:46

I do feel for you, as I used to own a house that had right of access for our neighbours across our front garden.

Legally if they have right of access, they have right of access - you can't restrict it in any way, and you certainly can't put a locked gate across it, unless you give them a key.

In fact, you will be on dodgy ground even having built a fence - our solicitors told us that we couldn't even do that.

PiratePanda · 31/07/2017 07:50

Also - it's quite likely that right of access is actually specifically for the paths, including the one in front of your windows. Ours was, but as our neighbours also had right of access across the middle path they always used that instead of the one past our sitting room!

MrsExpo · 31/07/2017 07:56

I used to live in an end terrace too, which was the end of a row of four. Neighbour's had pedestrian access to their back doors which wasn't a problem till one house was rented to a guy who had a motorbike and started riding it up the side of my house and round the back to park it outside his back door. The problem was, there was a brick archway at the end of my house which wasn't a problem for anyone walking through, but made getting his bike through very difficult, so he just knocked it down one day. The ensuing arguments were epic to say the least. He moved in the end, thank goodness.

RubyMyrtle · 31/07/2017 08:23

I live in a terrace in Sheffield. It's completely normal for people to use the back door as their main entrance. It would be considered weird not to. Our front door is blocked up with a bookcase. I couldn't change it without a lot of hassle and I'd have to put in a new front door as mine has been painted in for at least 40 years. I'd be seriously annoyed if I was asked to make a change. My neighbour walks past the rear of my house several times a day. Doesn't bother me at all. He's perfected the art of not peering in.

SilverBirchTree · 31/07/2017 08:26

I'd be interested to hear what a lawyer had to say. If you can put up a gate which needs someone inside to open it, then presumably her family would start using the front door to save an elderly woman from walking through the garden

PiratePanda · 31/07/2017 08:32

@SilverBirchTree - I posted above what our lawyers told us, in what appears to be an identical situation (if indeed it says on OP's deeds that the neighbours have legal right of access).

They have the right to use that path to access their back door at any time, and the OP has no right to put a locked gate across it, unless she gives them the key. In fact our solicitors told us we would be on dodgy ground putting a fence up at all.

Yorkshire, old terraced housing, right of access in place for 100 years on the deeds.

sixinthebedandthelittleonesaid · 31/07/2017 08:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

titchy · 31/07/2017 08:42

Big fence, gate with a lock and GIVE HER A KEY, sounds the ideal solution to me. You're not restricting HER access, but will effectively restrict her families'.
Unless they want to drag an old dear round the back to unlock the gate every time they visit, I reckon they'll start using the front door soon enough...

MaryPoppinsPenguins · 31/07/2017 08:46

I don't think the OP is coming back... Hmm

HipsterHunter · 31/07/2017 08:48

I live in a terrace in Sheffield. It's completely normal for people to use the back door as their main entrance

Is this a sheffield thing? I lived in sheff for many years and consider using the back door totally normal! Especially where the front door opens straight into the sitting room.

youarenotkiddingme · 31/07/2017 08:56

I thinking more about the PP who drew the diagram with the access path that was created around the back of their garden. People were saying why should they accept that if the have ROA. To me it makes sense for the comfort of everyone involved.
I'd feel uncomfortable walking in on my neighbours eating dinner in their back garden and would prefer the privacy a created access pathway creates.

DumbledoresApprentice · 31/07/2017 09:01

I live in a tunnel terraced house and live in the house with the tunnel through it. We have a locked gate at each end of the tunnel and all of the neighbours who share the tunnel and alleyway access have a key. If they gave copies of the key to all their guests and relatives and had them traipse through the tunnel rather than just going to the front door I'd be a bit annoyed but there isn't really anything I can do to stop them. Putting up gates with key locks that you share the key for might just make it enough of an inconvenience for them to go round the front and it doesn't count as blocking access if she has a key.

AnnieOH · 31/07/2017 09:04

Access rights don't just apply to the owner of the dominant property, putting in a locked gate would be curtailing the access rights of the dominant property even if you provide a key to the occupant of the same.

WeAreEternal · 31/07/2017 09:23

She was able to do it because her deeds only specified that they had access to their back door across her back garden, there wasn't a specific 'path' on the deeds, so she simply moved the existing path of access.

They tried for about two years to argue that the access was specifically meant to be a path directly connected to the building but apparently that's just where people commonly place the access paths, the location of the path is rarely actually specified in the right of access on deeds.

So all she had to do was provide them with access to their back garden across her land, she did so in a way that both ensured she had as much privacy as possible and was the most awkward for the neighbours.

DumbledoresApprentice · 31/07/2017 09:31

I think the gates on my house were probably agreed by all the neighbours (they were in before we bought the place). We don't actually own that strip of land, outer freehold

DumbledoresApprentice · 31/07/2017 09:33

Sorry, posted too soon. Our freehold 'floats' above it. But the gates make the backs of all our properties more secure and reduce the likelihood of break ins to sheds and houses. Why would the neighbours object?

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