Shared driveways cause more neighbour disputes than almost any other feature of a property. The problem is that most people do not know what their rights actually are until something goes wrong, and by then positions have hardened and nobody is in the mood to be reasonable.
Check Your Title Deeds
The starting point is always your title deeds. These will show who owns the driveway and what rights of access exist. There are several common arrangements. You might own your half and your neighbour owns theirs. Or one of you might own the whole thing with the other having a right of way over it. Or a third party, a freeholder or a management company, might own it. Each arrangement comes with different rules about maintenance, parking, and what you can and cannot do.
You can download your title register and title plan from the Land Registry for £3 each, which is money well spent before you start arguing with anyone. The title plan shows the boundaries and the register lists any rights of way, easements, or covenants that apply. If the driveway was part of a development, there may also be a transfer deed that sets out exactly what each owner can and cannot do.
Who Pays for Maintenance?
This depends on the ownership. If you each own half, you are each responsible for your half. If one person owns the whole driveway and the other has a right of way, the person with the right of way is generally not obliged to contribute to maintenance unless there is a specific covenant requiring it. If nobody maintains it and it deteriorates, that is nobody's legal problem except that you are both living with a potholed driveway.
Where there is a shared obligation, the usual approach is to split the cost equally. Get quotes, share them with your neighbour, and agree in writing before any work starts. If your neighbour refuses to pay their share, you can pay for the work yourself and recover their contribution through the small claims court, provided you can show there was an obligation to contribute.
Blocking the Driveway
If your neighbour parks in a way that blocks your access, your options depend on whether you have a legal right of way. If you do, blocking it is actionable. You can get a court order requiring them to stop, and in urgent cases you can apply for an interim injunction. Before going to court, write to them setting out your right of way and asking them to stop blocking it. Keep copies of everything.
If you do not have a formal right of way but have been using the driveway for years, you may have acquired rights through long use, a prescriptive easement. The threshold is 20 years of continuous, open use without permission. If you think this applies, get legal advice before picking a fight, because prescriptive easements are complicated and the burden of proof is on you.
Building on or Altering a Shared Driveway
If your neighbour wants to put up a gate, lay new surfacing, or extend their property over part of the driveway, they need to consider your rights. If you have a right of way, they cannot do anything that substantially interferes with it. A gate that you can open is probably fine. A locked gate that you do not have a key for is not.
Similarly, if you want to make changes to your side of a shared driveway, check whether there are any restrictive covenants in the deeds that prevent it. And talk to your neighbour first. Many driveway disputes start because someone did something without asking, and the other person took it as a provocation.
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