Common drive separation

Hello

My neighbour and I share a common drive off the street. The drive is 4-5 meters long and then it spits into a Y. On both sides of the drive facing the street both plots have enough land to have completely separate driveways, but the original builder 40 years ago decided to build decorative, raised shrub and flower beds instead, making the drive very narrow.

On the land registry plans the common drive is not shown; rather it appears as if the "fence" / borders continues all the way down to the street.

If I were to install a fence, exactly where the land registry plans indicate, I would separate the common driveway in half, and no car would fit on either side. Myself and my neighbour would then need to break down the flower beds on either side so as to create further space for a separate driveways on both sides of this imaginary fence.

Before I approach the neighbour with my idea of separating the drives, would anyone please advise me, what is possible and what is not ? For example could the neighbour simply say " no " and that would be the end of that? Based on the land registry plans, do I have any rights to implement exactly what is shown on the plans?

Many thanks

You need to check the Land Title Register Entry as well as the Land Registry Plan (both are available from landregistry.gov for about £3 each). You may find that the common drive is described with right of access (by foot and by vehicle) across the common drive. This would mean implementing what you suggest slightly more difficult as you will need to have the Title Registry changed.

You would need to get your neighbours' agreement for this- if the existing arrangement has been in use for that long then they will almost certainly have acquired a right of way through the shared section over long use. If you just went ahead and a stuck a fence up they could go scampering to the land tribunal & get that shared right of way embedded in the title deeds at the Land Registry.

There is nothing in the deeds regarding this common drive section (about 4 meters long) and there is nothing in the deeds about party walls on all the boundaries of the properties. Because this situation has been since the beginning (1980s) you are saying that both I, and the neighbours have acquired right of way over that common driveway, which means that neither is allowed to obstruct it, temporarily or permanently?

Am I understanding this correctly?

Considering that the land registry plans clearly differ from reality by showing a separation (fence, wall, chain - any) shouldn't this discrepancy been picked up by someone when we and the neighbours were buying our houses? I cannot remember how we bought our houses and whether anyone came over to measure the land to make sure it is as in the land registry's title plans.

andy44g said:

There is nothing in the deeds regarding this common drive section (about 4 meters long) and there is nothing in the deeds about party walls on all the boundaries of the properties. Because this situation has been since the beginning (1980s) you are saying that both I, and the neighbours have acquired right of way over that common driveway, which means that neither is allowed to obstruct it, temporarily or permanently?

Am I understanding this correctly?

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That's about the size of it. If you want to throw a lot of money at solicitors you could try and claim exclusive rights over your half of the shared bit but if there's evidence (from neighbours/current and previous occupants of next door) that they've been driving in and out over that shared bit since the place was built then you'll lose. If you are wanting to split the drive because your neighbour is regularly blocking your half then you'd be on firmer ground but if that's the case you need to have a few polite conversations with them first and if that doesn't work start building some evidence.

andy44g said:

Considering that the land registry plans clearly differ from reality by showing a separation (fence, wall, chain - any) shouldn't this discrepancy been picked up by someone when we and the neighbours were buying our houses? I cannot remember how we bought our houses and whether anyone came over to measure the land to make sure it is as in the land registry's title plans.

Click to expand...

A clued-up surveyor should have spotted the discrepancy, you should have noticed it when you bought the place (unless you bought it ages ago when Land Registry was a bit slow off the mark), conveyancer probably would only see the paperwork and not the site. If you bought within the last few years then you could chase your surveyor and/or conveyancer, if you bought 40 years ago (which I suspect you did since you are very certain that it was the original builder who did the driveway rather than previous owners) then you're stuck with it.

Thank you for your reply. We bought in 1999, but I know the history of the street quite well. The drives have been this way since the beginning.

The neighbour has not ever caused any problems at all, since we have been here, however when we come to sell the house, and most importantly when he sells his house, and when builders came to see it to examine the possibility of splitting the garden in two and building two large houses here, they instantly were concerned about the "bottleneck" common drive. That means if you are paying a lot of money to buy a house you'd expect you get your own drive especially if you are any fussy at all.

The panic started when they said they were selling their house. I thought, we have been OK through the years, but imagine we get a large family next door with ten 4x4s all parked on the drive and blocking and having to ask them to move their cars so we can drive in or out, if you see what I mean.

But your point is a good one: should problems arise with a future neighbour, we can collect evidence and then push for separation (lol sounds like a bad marriage)... The bad thing is I can not just call the builders in and ask them to start building a wall!

Boundary issues- all good clean fun, would be very unwise to do a unilateral land grab like that.
If your neighbours are amenable to the idea then I'd suggest you get together, rent the necessary kit (minidigger and some skips) or book someone to do the work for you, dig out the flower beds, widen the 'shared' bit of the drive and put a post and chain 'fence' down the centreline. If/when your neighbours sell, the layout will match the Land registry docs, future owners and future inhabitants of speculative backfilling houses won't have any right to do anything on your side of the chain and they'll be none the wiser. Of course if either of you ever need to get something wide up the drive (providing war hasn't broken out) then a quick trip next door 'OK if I lift the fence to get xyz through' and away you go.
(My mother did something similar years ago- same sort of deal except the driveway was marked on the plans as a driveway with a centre divide between her side and neighbours side and it was a new build, only about 4 years old. Neighbours started taking a lend with cars strewn everywhere, mother put fence in, neighbours ran to solicitors, spent a load of cash and eventually got told to do one by Land tribunal. )