How do you share a driveway?

The disputed shared driveway. Photo / Nick Reed

Shared driveways can create rifts between neighbours. They precipitate disagreements about access, parking and maintenance. There's the recent case in Auckland where the occupants of two homes cannot reach an amicable agreement about a Remuera driveway.

It was supposed to be a common driveway with one property owning one long half of it and the other property owning the other strip. It was intended that both parties would have mutual rights to use the full driveway.

But "an accidental omission from the subdivision plan meant while the [people in the back house] can use both strips, [the person in the front house] can only use her one". This is problematic for her because, thanks to the awkward angle of her garage, she needs to swing out across both strips in order to access it.

The case went to a four-day High Court hearing in December. It ended in a stalemate; the judge "determined there is no jurisdiction to make an order". The parties were back in court last month to argue about legal costs. Just this week it was reported that the occupant of the front house "continues to drive her car over part of a driveway she has no legal right to and the [back people] shut their security gate over a section of the driveway the [front resident] should be able to access".

In short, it's a dog's breakfast. It's one of those situations where the lawyers just might be the only true winners. But, in all of this, there's one party who appears to have escaped scrutiny. The judge wrote in his decision: "I am satisfied that an error was made by the surveyors and those responsible for registering the easements." Surely the professionals concerned ought to have been held accountable for the original mistake.

Anyway, there must be more to the story than meets the eye. It's apparent that both parties are being as stubborn as each other. There is tension aplenty. According to the judge, they displayed "intransigence". He added that: "Negotiations between the parties do not appear to have been cordial." Is this sentence laced with understatement or what?

These people might be giving residents of Remuera a bad name but they're just a small part of a global trend. All over the world, shared driveways have been the source of intense animosity between neighbours.

In Toronto it was reported that a "[d]riveway dispute divides neighbours". This is a story in which cars are blocked in, couples are so stressed they have stopped sitting on their front porch and a 72-year-old man can't access his garage following the assertion he has no right to use the driveway he's been using for 33 years.

Meanwhile in New York neighbours who shared a driveway stopped talking to each other. From then on the driveway became increasingly difficult to negotiate for one of the parties - thanks mainly to the way the neighbour's vehicle was parked.

In Surrey a "feud between neighbours over [a] driveway ... ended with ... armed officers swooping to make an arrest". The feud "arose from a disagreement over who has right of way on the driveway that leads to their neighbouring cottages". Most shockingly, in north west London a woman "was stabbed to death in [an] alleged parking row over [a] shared driveway".

So what's the best way of avoiding arguments over communal driveways? I think the answer lies in maintaining good communication channels and an open mind. Try to get to know your neighbours in order to understand their perspective on the situation. No, I'm just kidding. I'm not into neighbours.

My real advice is to avoid shared driveways in the first place.

Having said that, I reckon a driveway shared between multiple properties might just work. If there are six or ten or twenty households to consider, it's difficult for one of the parties to hold the others to ransom with unreasonable behaviour. Judging from the newspaper reports, it's shared driveway situations between just two sets of property owners/inhabitants that can become especially toxic.