Shared access

[Ranger18]

Hi, so my dilemma is 2 houses each have access over a drive to the houses . Our neighbour has to drive past our house to get to their drive and they like to drive up to our drive and reverse their car back in their drive even though they have a large drive . . We always park our cars on our drive however when we have visitors / trades they park right outside our gates or next to our garage door which is right on the access road on the shared access road (not blocking their drive at all ) . Maximum 2 , more like 1 and visitors only stay a very short time. Most busy birthdays , xmas and bbqs . Majority of the time it’s clear . There is a covenant on the drive that says we shouldn’t park on there and we don’t and the times our visitors park is so far and few between
There isn’t really anywhere else to park close by and we feel they are being so petty . What do you all think ?

Diagram! How are they being petty? Are you regularly blocking their access, whether it is your car, a visitors' or a trade van? If they can't get on their drive then they face the same parking issue, unnecessarily.

Hi , no we aren’t blocking their access at all . There’s enough room on the shared access road that goes down to their drive that could park 3 cars . They are saying that we shouldn’t park any cars at all in the shared road that leads down to their driveway . We have our drive , they have theirs . It’s the shared private road that does down to their drive . We aren’t blocking just parking on the edge . They like to reverse their car back onto their drive from the shared road. Difficult to explain really

I get it. I’ve seen a few houses like this. They are a pain - move and avoid this arrangement in future. In the meantime, your neighbours are right, aren’t they? What space you leave is immaterial. There shouldn’t be cars/vans there. Move yours somewhere else when visitors are coming. If someone wants to reverse down their drive, they can!

Problem is there is no parking nearby 😞 else we would plus also it’s been 3 years it’s been like this and nothing has changed . There is plenty of room . They’re even being funny with my son playing on the private shared road too

And yes they are quite within their rights to reverse in their drive although they have loads of drive space to turn round in too . 97 % of the time it’s left empty . We are happy for them to park temporarily as long as we have access to our drive we haven’t a problem with it at all l we are very flexible l it works both ways in our minds . We don’t leave our home a mess or leave rubbish outside. We are decent people and no I won’t move

Come on OP - you're only happy for them to park there temporarily because it justifies you using the shared access which no one should park on for parking! The reason your neighbours have complained is because your allowing parking there is the thin end of the wedge - if they don't flag up their concerns, what will you do next? Is your drive big enough for visitors to park on? If so, make sure they park there. If that means there isn't enough space for your car then move your car and park elsewhere. You have a garage so you could put a car in there.