My neighbour reckons he has right of access (with a car) over my property

[BasinHaircut]

Between my back garden and the one over the back is an alleyway/road. It’s pretty wide at the start and then narrows (at the point of my garden) to where you could just about drive a car down there if it wasn’t completely overgrown.

Our garden stops about 6-7ft short of next doors garden, but the land registry plan clearly shows that our boundary is in line with next door. Therefore we plan to extend the garden and wanted to stick a garden room up there.

The bit of next door’s garden that is currently longer than ours houses a shed that has been there for as long as we have lived there and clearly much longer. There is ivy with a stump thicker than my leg all over it and running down the very very old gates that serve as a fence there. Once upon a time my neighbour apparently had a driveway there and parked his car accessing through the bit of our houses land that isn’t currently incorporated into the garden.

He says that it states on his deeds that he has access. We don’t have deeds as only lived here 5 years so just got the land registry print out. He said that he isn’t bothered if we extend the garden and build a room there but he is selling up after the pandemic ends and so wanted to warn us that it could be an issue if the new owners wanted to put a driveway or garage up the end of their garden.

Fair enough for him to tell us this but I’m not sure I believe him. He is a bit of a know-all and likes to tell us how things are. The land in the alley/road (outside of all of the boundaries) is unclaimed land and is used from the point it narrows (our garden) as a dumping ground for all of the houses garden waste (I hate this and is one of the reasons I want to claim our bit back, it’s basically been used as a massive compost heap for 20 years by the looks of it). Because ours is as far as you can walk up before it gets narrower and completely overgrown, outside our house is the worst bit.

My question is how do I find out if he really does have access? And if it’s in his deeds then is there any cause for saying it’s now void as it hasn’t been used for 20+ years?

MrAlyhakinsMassiveYacht That's interesting. I'm not sure adverse possession works in the same way now, or at all, but my first stage needs to be to find out who it belongs to.

How do I look up woodland and their boundaries?

Sorry, *BasinHaircut8 I've totally hijacked your thread!

Oh wait... I think I've found something!

My boundary is in red, and the strip I'm talking about is in green. This is from our regional Forestry website. Now to work out what all these bits mean...

Looks like the green strip used to be a track leading to the shaft. It might have even been a factory railway. The hint might be if it is unusually level despite surrounding changes in ground topography

is the land beyond your garden, that I have shaded green here, the shared alleyway? if so then surely his access to his carport area is via that (and clearing the weeds to enable that is his problem not yours)?

we had access over a neighbouring garden in a previous house because we were mid-terrace and there was literally no other way to get to and from our back garden without tracking mud through the house - deeds generally don't allow neighbours access over private property if there's a sensible alternative route over communal or public land.

Just in case anyone in Scotland is reading this,in Scotland you can obtain a prescriptive right of access without it being on the deeds

in scotland if you have used land without interference for 12 years you have some claim
you don't have a claim if it is plain your access if by permission, the fact that they continue to give permission is noyt a prescriptive right but something like Miss Squiss neighbours greenhouse on the land for over 12 years when the greenhouse is locked, in Scotland they could claim prescriptive rights provided no-one has made a counter claim or in anyway interfered with this it would have been even easier for him if he had fenced it off as part of his garden for 12 years without hindrance.
To stop claims like this when access is generally permitted they normally close access for 1 day a year, a non public road by us which public actually use all the time ( owned by military is closed once a year for several hours.) a friend who allows a neighbour to drive over her land to access his sheds closes access formally every year for aweek or two while he is away on holiday everyones happy, he gets access without her losing her and through prescriptive rights

Same in England and Wales. Procedure for making a claim may be different. OP's neighbour cannot prove the existence of a prescriptive easement because there is no evidence of long use of that access to the shed without permission.

@YinuCeatleAyru yes that’s right. He couldn’t get a car into his garden (as it currently stands) via the alleyway as there isn’t enough room to turn in. My garden starts back a bit, presumably for that reason - that the carport could only be accessed if there was the width to turn in. He says once upon a time he accessed via the side (only accessible as my garden stops short of the boundary) rather than the back and reckons that access is in his deeds. Given the amount of time that has passed since I asked him to produce his apparently easily accessible deeds, I suspect he is talking bollocks.

I’ve taken the advice in this thread to go out and photograph the area to demonstrate that it’s clearly not been used for access for many many years so that when we do clear it and fence it off no one can claim otherwise.

Excellent advice to photograph but please put something in the photo to prove date of photographs- like a newspaper- the metadata saying what date the photo has been taken can be removed too easily while faking a newspaper placed on foliage etc is a lot more difficult- just from experience 🙂

Quick update!

Neighbour knocked earlier and confirmed that it doesn’t say anything in the deeds about this access. He maintains that it used to say it somewhere but acknowledged that it doesn’t say it in the land registry either and as there is no current or recent use of this access that there is no issue from his side with us taking our fences back to the boundary.

Thanks for update, great result!

Good for him accepting that, hope it was with good grace!

@OpthalmosVerde well not really as he is a natural mansplainer. But I’m not fussed as long as I know that he was wrong and we don’t have to leave access!

@MissSquiss ours is similar. In our case the land marked was originally owned by the council but incorporated into the gardens on the understanding that if it was needed for an access road later they could claim it back. Houses were built late 30s.