Shared driveway problems

[Angihay]

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!

Flumpy bear,

This is very useful information, thank you very much! That is exactly the way i see things too, the problem we have is:
Our driveway is wide enough for the neighbour to park in the middle of their driveway too (that we have right of way over it) because they are not blocking us, they are just making it awkward for us to get into our driveway spaces. Although it says on the deeds that they can't make it difficult for us to use it, it also says in the deeds the whole of that area is not to be used to leave a car parked in it, it's the wording of the deeds that is in their favour, reason why it needs changing. I believe everyone that has a shared driveway here has the same wording on their deeds because this is a standard document for everyone that purchased a property within this development, but there should be an individual situation for every driveway, as it is in our case. We will get a solicitor. This is going beyond the joke now and it is a matter of honour. We cannot allow them to make our lived miserable over something so silly. Thanks for your input too!

How long have you both lived there? Honestly it sounds as though you want to exclusively use an area which you know full well the neighbour has access rights to and I can understand they are hacked off. They have been parking on the road, not the drive until recently.

Can you not see that just because you want something that benefits you doesn't mean that they are willing to give up their rights? In this case it sounds as though things have escalated and you are in danger of losing a lot of money fighting on. Did you talk to your neighbours before you parked on the drive or just go ahead?

Eurochick,

Thank you for commenting. They don't use the bit of the shared driveway because they don't need to, if they tried to use it just to prove a point, it would make it more awkward for them to park in their driveway because it's a longer distance to reverse, so another person living in that house would also not need to use that bit.
And it is that we own the driveway with them having right of way over it.

It might be a "mistake" OP but it's on your deeds, so you have to obey it.

Wowfudge,

We have lived in here for 4years only having a problem in the past 6 months.
We are not trouble makers and we do not wish to use that space as a permanent parking space, we would just like to use it for convenience, since the street parking is such a long way from our front door. We use the two spaces inside our garage and we have one car parked in our driveway (and one space) - this is how we permanently park our cars. Very occasionally when visitors come around, they use that place to park and it does not affect our neighbour in any way, it is not a accessway, it is just a space in front of our house used by only us to reverse into our driveway.

Minniemountain,

I would like to take my chances trying to change the deeds if it comes to it, unless we can do something else. But I don't see us reaching any agreements in this. I need more legal advice on it. Thank for sharing your opinion though.

this is the Garden Law website but it is best to upload a pic/diagram/section of google maps/your title deed diagram so the layout can be seen.

This is the reason I will never buy a house with a shared drive, I have spent far too long on Garden Law a decade ago and saw that you cannot reason with crazy.

From your explanation I can see that they do not need to ever use the turning point at the bottom of the drive having an area for themselves to use further up, but this does come down to them not planning for how many cars they ended up having and now wishing they too could park outside their own house.

Post on Garden Law, see what they suggest but remember, all of us here posting online do not have to live with your neighbours and it could get worse.

But depending where they park on the drive you could just threaten to drive over their lawn if you cannot get past their car. I would install CCTV - even have a camera inside the house pointing at the drive to record any ridiculous behaviour from them for evidence.

I can't seem to be able to post the picture of our driveway in here because i am a new user. Not sure how long i need ti be a user for to be able to do so... (weird)!

Why should there be an individual situation for each driveway? The developer's solicitors would have put standard wording for shared driveway/not shared driveway in the Transfer when you bought. It's only little developments that get individual solutions as it costs more in legal fees to do.

Presumably the set up was explained to you by your conveyancer when you bought.

OP - name change fail? Just letting you know in case you want to do it again

SoupOnMyTableNowSir,

Yes, you understood correctly. I will speak to the garden law people. Thanks for your advice.

The reason why we bought a house in a shared driveway is because we wanted more security for our kids to play in front of our house. But it is a lesson learned after this. And yes, you cannot reason with crazy!!!

I don't see it getting any worse than what it is now, to be honest, and i know they will just find something else to bicker about after this is resolved, but we cannot let them make our lives miserable! They have fallen out with every single person living here in this estate already! I promise we are not the bad guys in this...

If we drove over their lawn, they would just do the same to ours (purposely) just as a revanche thing, because that is who they are. We need to do this the right way. And we do have CCTV. We record it all! We turned one of our cameras their way recently to record any silliness on their side now.

From what you’ve said the driveway will never be just yours, you’ve signed the contracts and agreed to the deeds years ago, your neighbours probably won’t budge so you’ll have to think of another option.
If I were you I would create two extra parking spaces in my front garden along side the driveway. That way you have your extra space but you’re not breaking the rules.

My personal opinion is they’re being a bit petty about it but at the same time you’re both breaking the same rule and getting angry with each other, this is pointless and won’t end well.
Over the years it will cost you a lot less money and stress to pay for the extra parking spaces than it would to let this escalate further with solicitors fees etc.

BalthazarsAThirstyBitch,

Thank you. I have thought of this option too but my husband doesn't want to destroy our landscaping over a parking space that we don't need. Also, knowing them, they would also find a way to loan about it and have solicitors involved, trying to make us "revert" to what it was before, and it would be a waste of money for us.
They are being Petty about it but we are not breaking the same rule, they are obstructing us on purpose, while we are looking for convenience without causing problems to anyone.

Legally you haven't really got a leg to stand on, that's extremely clear.
If you want an ad hoc more reasonable to benefit both, you'd have to be on good terms, but that could only be a bonus. You can't expect everyone else to see things from your point of view, however reasonable you think you are. You certainly appear to feel you are entitled to do this on your own assumptions about the legal deeds being a mistake.
Also you contradicted yourself with "doesn't want to destroy our landscaping over a parking space that we don't need." which makes no sense because clearly the fact that you feel you need the space caused this whole issue.

Yes I'm fully aware that you have no intention of buying their rights or their share of this bit of land. But I can't see any reason why a court would take away rights or land that they bought as part of their property and just award them to you for free. It just doesn't make any sense. Our neighbours has historic rights to drive geese or pigs up a part of our land. They don't lose that right if they choose not to drive pigs on it, or if they don't own pigs to drive. That bit of shared access is part of what they paid for when they bought the property, whether they use it or not, and however much they annoy you in other ways.

I know you're already in a bit of an adversarial place with these neighbours, but I do think pursuing this could make things a whole lot worse and you've be unlikely to win if you refuse to acknowledge that the access rights are theirs, because they bought them as part of their property.

Thanks everyone,

It is a but hard to fully understand all that is happening without the full picture. I also appreciate everyone's comments even if you disagree with my point of view. This is what i am actually looking for here and i do think every comment is valid. There is a lot more behind all of this, I would never be so eager to get something if they haven't been so awful to us. I didn't contradict myself when i said we don't need that space, we don't! I want to have the rights over it, it is different than needing it. I just don't want our neighbors dictating what we can or cannot do in our own property specially if it doesn't affect them.

I can see from the majority point of view here that we do not have a case legally speaking because the wording of the deeds is in their favour, so I appreciate everyone's comments in this, we will have to find other ways to get what we want.
Thanks

If that's what you want, you should have spoken to them prior to sometimes parking on an area they have a right of access over and agreed what would happen first. Parking there before they moved in didn't trump their rights. But just because you think it's reasonable doesn't mean they would have agreed to what you wanted.