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Hello, I'm new to the forum and I had a question about an express grant easement that we have at the back of our house. The easement is to access the back of our property via the back garden and has been in existence (and on our title deeds) since the 1950s. The easement goes from the end of our garden, over the neighbours' land (and is fenced off from the rest of their garden) and around the back of their garage to emerge on a shared driveway belonging to our neighbours and the people next door to them on the other side. We bought our house 20 years ago and we got on really well with the neighbours that lived there at the time. Unfortunately, our lovely neighbours have now passed away and the house was sold on.
The new neighbours have moved in and have decided that they want to take down the fence that makes our path private and extend their garden over the path. They asked us if we would be willing to move the path to the back of the patch of land which forms part of the easement. We told them that we would only agree to do so if it was done in the proper legal manner ie. we would want a like-for-like path to be built and to update the title deeds to reflect the new location of the path. We said to them that it would be a good idea to get searches done through our solicitors to understand more about the rights and responsibilities on each of us. They weren't happy about it but they did agree to do the searches with their solicitor and inform us of the outcome.
Six weeks went by and they said nothing about the outcome of the searches so we messaged to ask. After that, they became cagey with us saying that they would talk to us about it but not yet, they were busy. So we waited longer, still they were too busy to talk to us. They did say in messages to us that they would discuss with us before starting any work. Eventually we had to insist on a meeting with them as we could see that they had started to clear the patch of land without any discussion. They eventually agreed to put in a meeting for 2 weeks later. They were clearly angry with us for insisting on talking about it as they then stepped up the pace of their clearing work and it became obvious to us that they were carving out what they thought would be a suitable alternative path for us, without any discussion. The alternative path is completely unsuitable as it's not even level with our garden (there would be a half foot drop to get into the garden from the path), it's just a dirt track made of soil (our existing path is concrete albeit 70 years old now and quite cracked), it's not an even width all the way along and none of this was ever agreed with us before they started work. Now they have taken down the fence around their garden so our path is no longer private and, after all the moving of soil they've done, they've left the path covered in broken glass so that I can no longer take my dog up and down it for fear of injuring her paws. They've also left a humungous building sack of soil where the path exits onto the shared driveway so I can no longer get round with my wheelbarrow or brown bin.
They are aggressive people who have become impossible to communicate with so we have now said that we no longer agree to moving the path. We have no confidence that they will listen to anything we say when it comes to negotiating for our needs and access.
We intend to deal with this through our solicitors and we are prepared to go to court to ask for an injunction to prevent them doing any more work in that area and, hopefully, to have them reinstate the fence that separated the path from their garden.
We are classed as the dominant party in the easement and we feel that their behaviour towards us has been non-communicative and non-transparent at best, and at worst it has been aggressive and unsettling.
My question is can my neighbours, or the court for that matter, force us to negotiate with these neighbours to move the path? And are we within our rights to expect that the neighbours should reinstate the fence that previously made the path private?
Many thanks in advance for any advice offered.
The new neighbours have moved in and have decided that they want to take down the fence that makes our path private and extend their garden over the path. They asked us if we would be willing to move the path to the back of the patch of land which forms part of the easement. We told them that we would only agree to do so if it was done in the proper legal manner ie. we would want a like-for-like path to be built and to update the title deeds to reflect the new location of the path. We said to them that it would be a good idea to get searches done through our solicitors to understand more about the rights and responsibilities on each of us. They weren't happy about it but they did agree to do the searches with their solicitor and inform us of the outcome.
Six weeks went by and they said nothing about the outcome of the searches so we messaged to ask. After that, they became cagey with us saying that they would talk to us about it but not yet, they were busy. So we waited longer, still they were too busy to talk to us. They did say in messages to us that they would discuss with us before starting any work. Eventually we had to insist on a meeting with them as we could see that they had started to clear the patch of land without any discussion. They eventually agreed to put in a meeting for 2 weeks later. They were clearly angry with us for insisting on talking about it as they then stepped up the pace of their clearing work and it became obvious to us that they were carving out what they thought would be a suitable alternative path for us, without any discussion. The alternative path is completely unsuitable as it's not even level with our garden (there would be a half foot drop to get into the garden from the path), it's just a dirt track made of soil (our existing path is concrete albeit 70 years old now and quite cracked), it's not an even width all the way along and none of this was ever agreed with us before they started work. Now they have taken down the fence around their garden so our path is no longer private and, after all the moving of soil they've done, they've left the path covered in broken glass so that I can no longer take my dog up and down it for fear of injuring her paws. They've also left a humungous building sack of soil where the path exits onto the shared driveway so I can no longer get round with my wheelbarrow or brown bin.
They are aggressive people who have become impossible to communicate with so we have now said that we no longer agree to moving the path. We have no confidence that they will listen to anything we say when it comes to negotiating for our needs and access.
We intend to deal with this through our solicitors and we are prepared to go to court to ask for an injunction to prevent them doing any more work in that area and, hopefully, to have them reinstate the fence that separated the path from their garden.
We are classed as the dominant party in the easement and we feel that their behaviour towards us has been non-communicative and non-transparent at best, and at worst it has been aggressive and unsettling.
My question is can my neighbours, or the court for that matter, force us to negotiate with these neighbours to move the path? And are we within our rights to expect that the neighbours should reinstate the fence that previously made the path private?
Many thanks in advance for any advice offered.
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