Last year I purchased a large neglected town centre backstreet workshop with a long driveway that had become overgrown over many years with sycamore. It had been filled with sand, rubble and bits of architectural stonework. Next to my driveway is a large raised concrete area which is used for parking by several shop owners. This parking area must have been created decades ago, by removal of the brick boundary walls, and my deed plan shows that I have an established access for deliveries to my premises over this area.
However, one shop owner has been bullying the others, asserting that he owns the entire concrete area. He is just a little squirt with no charm at all, so I don't know how he gets away with it, unless he has lawyers to back him up. Being a newcomer he was friendly in a slightly creepy way at first, then told me one day that I had no right to park on his land.
I decided not to get into an idiotic argument, but I checked that my insurance would cover me if I had to put up a legal fight when it suited me.
Last summer I hired a couple of guys to remove the material from my overgrown driveway, so I didn't have to park on the squirt's land, which is shared with several other freehold shops anyway.
I have a local farmer friend who has used this material to fill potholes in his rough tracks, and he brought his trailer to take it out on a regular basis, so the disposal only cost me the labour costs. I was pleased to discover that there was a sound concrete base underneath all of the dumped materials and sycamore. And I found some interesting 19th century stonework buried there, old fireplaces etc.
Along the line of the former boundary wall my clean and sound driveway is now 2ft below the level of the raised concrete area, which was laid on top of a rough base of loose bricks and sand.
To the consternation of the squirt the raised area is cracking up and collapsing, with the sand base migrating across my driveway. The extensive sycamore that I had cut down had put roots deep into the concrete area, and these are now beginning to visibly rot after I poisoned the roots.
Mr squirt can no longer safely park on his side, because the material and sycamore I removed had been supporting his driveway.
The raised concrete is two foot above my gable wall, breaching the damp course, so I think I probably have a right to insist on the squirt having to take his side down to the original level to give me access to my gable wall to repoint the lower tiers.
If I was really evil I could throw buckets of water into the base of the concrete and wash it out.
But I won't need to. Heavy rain will gradually undermine his parking area, and he will have to pay a fortune to have the concrete broken up and taken away.
If he had been a good sort I would have suggested that he could rebuild the boundary wall up to 2 or 3 ft, to hold his concrete in place, after I removed all of the loose material and sycamore.
But he stopped me parking for deliveries, where I had every right to, and now he is wondering why his driveway is collapsing.
Is this a funny story or just a sad reflection on the selfish way that some neighbours behave when they have a bit of land, and want to steal the next door's?
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