Shared Driveways

[charleycupca]

Help! My hubby and I share a driveway with our neighbours. In the 2 years that we have lived here, we have rarely used the driveway as they park their car there at odd points during the day. Whilst a pain, we have tried to be amenable. However, recently their daughter has taken to parking outside our property and my hubby cannot park his van when he gets home ( we run our own landscaping business.) Today, we wanted to do a tip run ( our own household waste - having had a clear out) Neighbour came out as we had reversed the van up the drive and went potty saying its a commercial vehicle etc etc. No amount of reassurance would appease her. Just 20 mins we were loading up! When they had their conservatory built, the contractors van was in the driveway for 8 WEEKS! Please tell me - are we reasonably allowed to load up our van in the driveway???

[southerngirl]

I think your neigh bour is being unreasonable. If the driveway is shared then you both should have access to it. I would wait until she has calmed down a bit and explain the situation from your point of view and say that you don't normally use it because they use it more often, but that does not mean that they have first refusal on the driveway. She obviously thinks she owns the driveway so I would disabuse her of this idea and inform her that although you don't wish to make an issue of it, it may come to that if you both can't come to some sort of agreement.

Perhaps you could arrange for you both to tell each other in advance if you need the driveway for a particular purpose and adivse of times, date etc. This may make life easier.

[charleycupca]

thanks southern girl, but unfortunately when they were handing out the reasonable bones - she was way down at the back of the queue. I tried to explain that it was only because her daughter's car was parked out front and then she proceeded to lecture me in that it was not my personal property & I didnt own the road! Give me strength! They phoned our local council when we'd lived here for 3 days because I had some fence panels delivered for my garden and they presumed we were working from home. Im sorry, but Im HONESTLY not going to bring client's gardens back here to fence, then drop them off later....... xx

[buildersmate]

You are allowed to deliver / load-up a commercial van at a property, irrespective of the ownership of the driveway or any other constraint on commercial vehicles. Parking a commercial vehicle overnight might cause a problem - depends on what is written in the restrictions section of your land title (running abusiness from home etc.) Also look there to see what the actual ownership of the driveway is. It may be legally partitioned down the middle but with rights of access and obligations for maintenance costs (on both neighbours).

[awaw]

i think you should buy a old banger and permantly excercise your right to use your shared drive if they argue tell them that they have used it for the last 2 yrs now your gonna use it for the next 2 yrs!

[andy-hughes]

In view of your neighbour's unreasonable attitude, I think buildersmate's suggestion is the right course of action.

If you find out that you have equal legal rights to the drive, then pop round to your neighbour for a chat, and inform them that you are both equally entitled to use the drive, but that a war of attrition is not going to help anyone to live peacefully, and enjoy their home.

Suggest that you will be happy to advise of any times when you will be loading or unloading, and assume they will extend the same courtesy to you. Stress that you do not want to have to use legal action to obtain your rights to use your property, which the shared drive is.

If this fails to sort the situation, pop round again, and confirm that you don;t want to use legal means to secure your rights - you don't want to, but if you are forced to, you will.

[charleycupca]

Thanks to those of you whove taken the trouble to answer, sensible and funny - its great to have some support!