Shared driveway

[GARYF123]

Hi,
Hope someone can advise.
I live in a semi detached house. It had no driveway. Back in 1986, we created a single driveway to the front of the house with a pair of gates. Our neighbour did the same ( they were not attached to our house). In approx 1997, due to children growing up and getting cars, we needed more parking space. We agreed with neighbour to knock down separating wall between the houses right to the back garden and create 1 big driveway that sweeps under both our front windows (1 space each there) and goes between both houses (2 more spaces) then ends at 2 single garages at the end. The 2 sets of gates have been removed and 1 big pair put in. This arrangement as worked brilliantly for the last 26 years but my neighbour has now sold there house(part exchanged it to a building company) and we have no paperwork or agreement in place. In the worst case, somebody could possibly buy the house and put a wall right up the centre which would make no sense as no cars would be able to get in as the gates would have to be removed, walls knocked down and rebuilt to take repositioned gates which would then only take one car. I assume somebody would only buy it if the thought of being able to park multiple cars appealed but…
Where do I stand legally, even if I wanted (I don’t!) to split the driveway back to original?
Thank you.

[a311]

INAL so I'd seek some legal advice, might be too late and you'll have to negotiate with the new buyer. It sounds like it would possibly a case of the new owners cutting of their nose to spite their face to change the arrangement.

Some sort of easement or indemnity may be a route. Not the same however a previous owner of our house claimed an extra couple of meters of land that was once as far as we could tell a footpath or public right away. Our sellers had to take out an indemnity in the case that someone tried to reinstate this although it was 80 years ago and a housing estate has been built since.

Goes without saying it's best to get this sorted out at the time as its all well and good until circumstances change.

[hidetheelephants]

Has the exchange happened yet? If it hasn't a rapid negotiation with your neighbour to get a formal agreement in place would be a plan.

[Evanivitch]

Anything you do now will probably be registered as a dispute and put your old neighbours in a really tight position! You nay want to ask them what they out on the questionnaire first and ask if they want to revise their answers first. That is if you care for their opinion.

[119]

If a building company has bought it, i doubt they would even bother with a questionnaire.

The OP appears to be more concerned that he might be losing access/parking than anything else.

[Billy_Rosewood]

To be fair, first thing I'd want is a wall or fence for privacy and security.

[The Three D Mucketeer]

I don't believe there is such a thing as a "SHARED DRIVE" .... A piece of land is "owned" by one set of Deeds , the Deeds will state if there is a "right of access" across a piece of land.and probably that "it's not to be obstructed".. Since it appears the original deeds have never been altered , I would have thought you just revert to what the Deeds say.. I don't believe new owner has any right to claim adverse possession or anything like. I'm not a lawyer , but experienced years if hassle with a drive my conveyancing solicitor told me was "shared" which turned out to be nonsense.

[Billy_Rosewood]

In most cases they aren't technically "shared" driveways on paper, just in practice. In most deeds there will be a boundary smack bang in the middle of the driveway making it more of a "walkway".

It's in the same book as "you own the fence to your left/right" and throwing your neighbours branches over the fence.

In this case it sounds like OP wants to keep the agreement he's historically had with the previous owner. This is fair enough, but there will always be the risk of what's happening now. However, putting any type of legal agreement in place will probably devalue both properties imo.