Neighbours closed off rear lane

RMG

A friend lives in a terrace of victorian houses with rear gardens. Two houses down, there is a lane from the road, between the houses, to the end of the back gardens. The lanes then splits left and right and runs behind the gardens to provide rear access.

My friends house is at the end of the row, so the lane ends at her house and so, her garden is slightly longer (the width of the lane) than the neighbours.

The problem is that the people next door and the house after that have gradually taken over the lane and incorporated it into their gardens, more or less cutting off my friend's rear access. The walls between their gardens and the lane have 'fallen down' and garden rubbish etc have been piled up in what used to be the lane. There are locked gates between each section and getting them opened once in a blue moon for builders or whatever is almost impossible.

My friends are a young family with kids, bikes etc and need rear access for loads of reasons.

The people living there before them used to insist on access at least once a year so as not to loose any access rights.

Any advice on what to do, the legal status etc? The obvious thing is just to talk to the neighbours but they've tried that and the neighbours don't want to know, obviously hoping that the access claims will eventually be abandoned completely and they will be left with a bigger garden and more privacy.

I imagine this problem has come up before as there are loads of lanes like this in Dublin.

R

BluePlanet

These rights-of-way issues get awful sticky in court.
Sometimes the court won't even intervene authoritively and will just tell the parties to figure out a solution amongst themselves.

I would tell your friend to keep pestering the neighbour for access. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Afterall, they may be afraid to be seen to deny access as that could land them in court.
(And maybe your friend has to drop that hint at some point).

Your friend could start thinking up reasons to use the rear access and don't take no for an answer.
Take up a hobby (building?) that requires moving stuff in and out that must be done via the rear access.

The reality is, the less these access ways get used, the more likely they are to be lost. Use it or loose it.
Those walls should have been tended to as well.

T.J

Stand up for your rights, if they win on this one what will they do next, nip it in the bud now, get nasty if you have and don't let them walk all over you.

antoinolachtnai

What does it say on the maps and on the deeds? Unfortunately a visit to the solicitors is going to be required. That does not mean that there needs to be any sort of legal action. Just that your friend will need to find out where he stands.

If he does in fact have a right to use the lane and he somehow gives up the right, it could actually be an issue for his lender, because it will effect the value of the property.

Victor

Potentially a complaint can be made to the council that the neighbours are trying to obtain adverse possession of the laneway.

antoinolachtnai

It really depends Victor. If it is a public RoW, then yes, but if it is a private RoW, no. It sounds like a private RoW but it might not be.

The council might not necessarily action the public RoW. They probably would, but they might not. It is really a matter between neighbours in this case. The council would rather be shut of it.

Fire access could be an issue. It really depends. There used to be strict requirements for fire access but this seems to be less of an issue these days.

However, if a fireman sees access on the map, comes to use it and finds it blocked, he is liable to get (justifiably) emotional about the whole thing. A relation had an encounter with an emotional fireman a few years ago (blockage wasn't her fault). It wasn't a pretty sight.

The main thing here is to manage the relationship with neighbours delicately. Getting the council involved might help, or it might not. The big practical thing is access to keys. If it helps, I'd offer to change all the locks and supply copies of keys to everyone involved.

But you need to know where you stand first.