Trespassing?

[Jayne4]

Hi, hope someone can help!
We bought our property in September 2018 and the property has an area in front of the house which our next door neighbours pass across to get to their house. This area of land is registered under our property deeds to our house. The deeds state that it is to being used for access to their property by only. Our neighbours park on this part of our property. We have asked them to stop and, having shown them the deeds, initially agreed to stop. They are still parking on it although we have taken legal advise and have been told it is our property and they shouldn’t be parking on it. One of their sons has told us that the deeds are not worth anything and that they can be interpreted differently. We intend to go to litigation to get them to stop although it could cost between £5,000-£15,000. (We will be asking for costs)
My question is: Although the solicitor/litigator seems quite confident about our claim - can a Judge rule in favour of the neighbours?

The whole situation has ruined any joy of moving into our new home and my nerves are shattered.. Can someone help?

Thread, no one can answer this without having

1. Relevant legal expertise

and 2.'carefully examined the deeds.

If you believe them to have pedestrian access, but not vehicular, is there any way , by bollards or fences, you can leave them pedestrian access, but make vehicular impossible?

If you believe they have the right to use the land for vehicular access, but only in the sense of ' passing and repassing' , as it is often put in the deeds, that's harder to regulate on the ground.

They have right to pass and repass by foot or vehicle but not to park and it states this in the deeds. The previous owner stated they park there occasionally, this is obviously not the case. The neighbour think because the previous owner didn’t have a problem then they can still park there. If this goes to court, and its looking quite likely, I need to know if the Judge would rule in their favour?

You need this advice from your solicitor, surely? They have access to the documents and should have researched case law. You could try and do this too. It is time consuming. If you don’t have a solicitor, get one that understands the law as it applies to
Land use.

we have a similar right of access across a peice of land.

They have no right to park on it. If they are allowed to drive over it, you are allowed ot put up a gate, as long as you give them a key.

You need an official latter, telling them they are breaking the law and to cease and desist.
They of course can still go on, and then you are in to litigation etc. Which will cost you and arm and a leg.
Even if the judge rules in your favour, it is hard to get them to stop doing it again.

(So, I would put up a gate with a lock, or even just a linked chain with a lock, and give them one key. You are allowed to put up gate etc over access as long as you give them a key.
They will have to go in and out to find key and unlock every time and that will be a massive pain for them.)

actually, the easiest way to stop it, is to redesign your front area.

Make a 'road' or route that goes through to their house. If they park on it they block access to their own house. Put some fencing even simple wire fencing along it, so that they are restricted to the route they are allowed to drive on.
They redesign the rest, plant trees, shrubs, dig flower beds etc

Nobody can advise you on this apart from your solicitor, who has seen all the documents and knows all the facts. No solicitor will tell you a claim is 100% likely to succeed because sometimes judges do make unexpected rulings. If they are wrong in law the ruling can be appealed, but that of course costs extra. And sometimes a point of law is very finely balanced and the court’s interpretation just goes a different way than your solicitor’s.

However if your solicitor has not even sent them a legal letter yet, you have a long way to go before it gets to court. The usual approach is to write to say that they are acting unlawfully and ask them to stop, possibly to sign an agreement in writing that they will stop. They will get their own legal advice, the two solicitors will debate the point in correspondence and only if that results in nothing will court proceedings be issued. Your solicitor should have explained all this.

Be aware that if you go down your proposed route you risk rendering your property unsaleable as you are required to declare any neighbour disputes.

No doubt this is why The previous owner stated they park there occasionally, this is obviously not the case.

There are other threads on this matter such as:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_matters/1130372-Declaring-neighbour-disputes-when-selling-What-do-I-have-to-declare

Google declaring neighbour disputes when selling house - it self completes after just a few letters showing how often this issue is searched for.

Cheapest way would be to buy a car off Gumtree and park it there. Problem solved.

Also does it really do any harm? Falling out with neighbour's can make life pretty miserable and difficult and can make selling your home more difficult.

Many thanks for all your messages. One of the reasons we are going down the litigation route is because we were misinformed about the situation and in all honesty I would not do this to anyone. I know about declaring neighbour disputes and tried to talk to him (the owner) only to be threatened and intimidated by one of the sons. It’s intolerable and they seem intent on keeping on parking on my property.
The garden/gate idea wouldn’t work unfortunately but thank you.
It’s going to be costly and lengthy.
Thanks for listening.

If you were misinformed you can sue the sellers, has your solicitor advised in that?

We did ask and they said it would be hard to prove.

So why are you so sure that you were misinformed then?

You wouldn't be able to park there yourself because you'd block their access.

I'm assuming the fact they have RoW means they cannot claim any more than that over a period of time ( so they cannot claim it as theirs)

Are they stopping you from accessing?
What exactly is the issue with them parking there? Does it block light? Increased noise?

Are there trees overhanging? Can you 'suggest' they move because you plan to lop the trees?

Or , do the Bird Seed on the Roof After a couple of days of having to hose the car they might shift .
(Do the bird seed under the cover of darkness)

Because it was not written down. It was a comment that the seller made to us, therefore not something we could prove.
We also did not make a big deal of it, just took his word. We should have made more enquires but who does? In the end, culpa mea.

cat footprints (cuts footprint shapes) which unfortunately seems to have stepped on something nasty& sticky all over the front of car & window....