shared driveway

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have experience with sharing a driveway? I'm not comfortable with it and view it as a major negative but DH disagrees and thinks it's no big deal. I'm worried about possible issues or disputes with the neighbor and things like that. Anyone have positive or negative experiences?

[Anonymous]

Our driveway is shared by four homes. The way the property is deeded, two own it and there is a property dividing line. The other two have a right of way. Everyone shares the cost of maintenance as a condition of using it. It hasn't been a problem for us but with different neighbors, I could envision scenarios where problems could occur. One of the neighbors sort of coordinates the maintenance and snow removal and let's all of us know our share of the cost. One winter one of the neighbors was out of work, so the rest of us absorbed their share of the cost and one winter one of the houses was vacant, which increased our costs a bit. But overall, the good has outweighed the bad.

[Anonymous]

Plenty of people have shared driveways and I'm sure they work out fine most of the time. I don't have one, but the reason I'm responding is bc since purchasing a SFH we have had a number of annoyances, some minor, some not, with our neighbors - we moved into our home from an apt and were surprised at how many neighbor annoyances we've encountered - things like parking in front of our walkway when there was space right beyond it, placing garbage cans in a location making it really hard for me to pull out, crappy stuff they've left out in their front yard, etc. And these are people we are decently friendly with! I just feel like I would not want a day-to-day shared driveway situation with a neighbor if I could help it.

[Anonymous]

We share a driveway with one other home and have never had a single problem in the 8 years we've owned our home. Our neighbors are very courteous about it and so are we. The best part is that they own a snowblower!

[Anonymous]

We had one for several years and it was not a problem. We even had a shared garage/structure and it worked out fine. Our house owned the property and the other house had an easement on a portion of it. Wasn't a problem at all.

[Anonymous]

We lived in a house with a shared driveway, and that was one of the main reasons we moved. We HATED it. We had several neighbors (the property next door was a rental owned by a rental company), some of whom were terrible about blocking the driveway, running over my plants, leaving junk in the driveway, etc. This was a very nice neighborhood, the house was a SFH, but still, the shared driveway was a huge headache. Never, ever would I even consider buying a house with a shared driveway!! One of our neighbors was great, but the others were awful. You never know who is going to move in next door to you.

[Anonymous]

We lived in a neighborhood where most houses had a shared driveway. The garages were behind the house, so between 2 houses would be a pipesteam leading to both garages. We weren't sure about it when we first moved in, but in 12 years only had a few issues with people being so stupid that they would park at the end and block it. Seriously, who does that?

The issue we did have was with our neighbors with whom we shared the driveway. In this lovely community where everyone maintained their home, we had to live next to the one family who was just horrid. Didn't mow the lawn, didn't watch their children, didn't shovel snow, garbage everywhere. And it didn't appear they were going anywhere anytime soon. Even the HOA was on their case constantly to clean up their act.

We moved. I feel sorry for the nice family who bought our house. Our house was fantastic, but those people were awful.

[Anonymous]

We have a shared driveway. I do see where it could be really annoying and a pain, but we really like our neighbors and we are both respectful and enjoy our shared time. It is great when it snows -- we all work together. Overall it is really positive. In a lot of ways I think it has made us closer than we would normally be -- we see each other all of the time and it is nice. A good sense of community.

[Anonymous]

dumb question here, what exactly is a shared driveway? I understand the jist of it, but could someone link to a picture of one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The issue we did have was with our neighbors with whom we shared the driveway. In this lovely community where everyone maintained their home, we had to live next to the one family who was just horrid. Didn't mow the lawn, didn't watch their children, didn't shovel snow, garbage everywhere. And it didn't appear they were going anywhere anytime soon. Even the HOA was on their case constantly to clean up their act.

We moved. I feel sorry for the nice family who bought our house. Our house was fantastic, but those people were awful.

YES! Except we weren't in an HOA so it required dropping a dime to the city to report their uncut grass etc. (WE never did - but I am fairly sure the neighbors across the street did.) They parked blocking the driveway constantly. My husband would fume and I'd go over and with a big smile ask them to move it. They were not friendly but always moved the car.

[Anonymous]

Unless you've got many millions to spend you're going to be making some compromises, and honestly I think this is VERY minor compared to things like schools, neighborhood, commute, yard, and home size, layout, and finish level. If you think you can afford a house with everything you want plus a private driveway, by all means hold out, but if you find something that's right in every other way this seems like a silly reason to not buy it.

[Anonymous]

We had a shared driveway and it was never a problem. As noted by some above, we shared snow shoveling duties etc.