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i need help!! i have a shared driveway with my neighbor he wants to put a porch up and the side of it will be in the driveway. the problem with this is it will be difficult to get in the driveway because it is narrow already. what can i do?
Pay him not to
Speak to a lawyer, and if there’s an easement, tell your neighbor. If he doesn’t listen, you can go to a dayan. If he’s allowed to build, you can take a tip from popa.
Yes, good point. If there is an easement, then you can sue his head off. Which will not help your relationship, but ha ha ha
If you have an easement, tell him you wont stop him from building his porch but he has to build it on hinges so that every time you need the area he would have to fold it up.
Yah yah, and trade in your car for a bulldozer
Invite him to have a bar-b-que with you, get to know him and then bring up the topic of that porch he wanted to make… then tell him how it’ll inconvenience you and make him feel sorry for you. Or just tell him straight out NO! DO IT IN THE BACKYARD!
If you share the driveway then you have the right of easement. What that means is that you are entitled to have access to your back yard by driving there and neither party can block this access. If he tries, you can certainly stop him from doing so, or even get an order for him to dismantle his structure if he puts it up before you can fully act. Speak to a lawyer, and fast. You may have a problem if you don’t do anything until after he builds (I don’t know for a fact but it sounds like a very plausible thing to happen)
park a car in YOUR side of the driveway and leave it there.
He wont touch your car and will be forced to negotiate
Put land mines in the driveway
When he files the plans with DOB he’ll be denied because of the shared driveway.
Is it an illegal driveway?
Also, nu, what did your lawyer say?
If you share the driveway then you have the right of easement. What that means is that you are entitled to have access to your back yard by driving there and neither party can block this access. If he tries, you can certainly stop him from doing so, or even get an order for him to dismantle his structure if he puts it up before you can fully act. Speak to a lawyer, and fast. You may have a problem if you don’t do anything until after he builds (I don’t know for a fact but it sounds like a very plausible thing to happen)
Does he even use the driveway? When popa is in town, Im betting he can’t access it anyway because of the car blocking it. So it makes sense to build over it.
A neighborhood lawyer. Don’t need anyone fancy for this; just the local dude with a general practice. Even better if his specialty is real estate closings, cause then he’ll be familiar with title searches etc. I’ll be surprised if this costs more than a couple-few hundred buck.
He would want to first see if there is an easement recorded in the deeds. If there is, then you’re done. Even if there isn’t, the right might be created by the long term usage you both have done.
Personally, I find it highly unlikely that the houses and driveway would be built in such a way if there wasn’t an easement.
Then, during the trial, tell him he can’t handle the truth.
Does he even use the driveway? When popa is in town, Im betting he can’t access it anyway because of the car blocking it. So it makes sense to build over it.
I was going to get to that!
The easement should be recorded on the deed, viewable on your county clerk’s website, or on acris in nyc. Very easy to lookup yourself. If it’s nit on the deed it would have been filed with the clerk so you still can lookup online.
Cool, is it that easy to look up deeds? Nice. Then do it yourself.
But don’t give up if you don’t find one. It may be that the easement is created just by the common usage.
Right, if you don’t find it, then consult a lawyer. Also, if he decides to do it anyway, make sure he doesn’t trespass on your property, including the shared driveway. Once he builds on the property his easement on your property is gone.
It’s very easy to lookup, even in person. I once traced my house all the way back to the mid 1800’s
Maybe you have an easement by prescription.
Have you been using the driveway openly and notoriously, continually, and uninterruptedly, and adversely?
For 10 years?
popa you should know better. there’s no way it would be considered adverse if it’s shared.
brony: I don’t know better; is that so? I mean, if he is using it, then the neighbor can’t leave stuff there
tbh, its hard to say without knowing the contours of this driveway. if they share it in some way, then as long as he didn’t park their during his neighbor’s time there is no adversity (and, incidentally, no notice either – they often go hand in hand). this is all baba basra stuff: if you have some kind of permission (an umon or aris) such that the owner doesnt have reason for alarm, you can’t adversely possess.
also, I think ny has some weird color of title laws. watch out.
I don’t know what you mean by adversity. The elements of prescription are:
Continuous (no breaks)
Open and notorious (not hiding use)
Actual (actually entering and using)
Hostile (without permission)
It sounds like you think there is an element that it needs to also hurt the owner, but that isn’t so.
popa you should know better. there’s no way it would be considered adverse if it’s shared.
It’s still adverse but it isn’t hostile.
since i’m doing this pro bono, i’m gonna have to give you the lazy man’s answer:
See: Northtown, Inc. v. Vivacqua, 272 A.D.2d 917 (N.Y. App. Div. 4th Dep’t 2000); Lyon v. Melino, 214 A.D.2d 992 (N.Y. App. Div. 4th Dep’t 1995).
try to distinguish.
I read those cases to stand for the principle that if the use is originally permissive, there must be “some distinctive and decisive act on [plaintiffs’] or [their] predecessors’ part indicating an exercise of exclusive right sufficient to notify the owner of the user and of the claim of right”.
So if the use here was permissive originally, you’d need that, sure. But if it wasn’t permissive, then you wouldn’t.
maybe we have different ideas about the contours of the driveway, but if it’s shared in the sense that both have full right of use at any time, the assumption (as seen in the cases above and the cases they cite in turn) is that sharing=permission.
My friend has a driveway that is literally shared with his neighbor (only one way in or out, and then branches into separate parking areas). When we come to visit, we do not pull into his driveway unless we know for a fact that the neighbor is ok with that. When the driveways are two discrete areas side by side, then it is a major chutzpah for someone to encroach on a side that belongs to someone else, just because he “used to be able to do it.”
Our neighbor built an elaborate ramp to his front door that started at the thin sidewalk between our houses. Because the narrow walk was not big enough for orienting a wheelchair, they literally sliced out a 3×3 chunk of our lawn and poured cement! We reported him and the city made him remove the cement but he didn’t have to replace the lawn. They also said that the ramp was illegal but because it was already up they wouldn’t make him take it down.
Make sure you get whatever info you need before he builds.
You can sue him to replace the lawn if you wish.
Why didn’t you offer him to rent a portion of your lawn for x per month? I’d assume he’s disabled if he needs a wheelchair. He might be able to get his insurance to pay for it. It also might be worth a certain amount of money to you to give up a bit of your lawn and have peace with your neighbor.
He’s not disabled, he’s just an idiot. He said he put it up so his mother could visit but his mother never visits as she was critically ill and, in fact, passed away very shortly after the ramp was built. This is not an isolated incident, tho, this is pretty much how he does things. And no, he did not take it down, nor does he use it.
Before you hurt yourself by bumping into that encroachment, find out if homeowner’s insurance will cover an illegally built structure.
Maybe one day this house will be bought by a nice Jewish family with little kids and they’ll enjoy the ramp for a baby carriage. Difficult neighbors can really make life tough.
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