Houses with Shared Driveways -- Pros and cons please

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a swingers thing

[Anonymous]

These days the odds are too high that one of your neighbors will be a nutjob or extreme cheapskate. Shared driveway is a dealbreaker for me

[Anonymous]

When I worked in insurance claims, I handled numerous matters where people with shared driveways sued each other. A few got vicious, with barriers put up, smashed windows, etc. I vowed to never live in a house with a shared driveway, especially ona flagpole lot. People are awful.

[Anonymous]

We have a driveway off of a shared pipestem. We are responsible for snow removal and maintenance. Interestingly, per the HOA docs, we are supposed to be contributing monthly to a reserve fund but no one does it. Just something for you to consider if you do buy the home to make sure the prior owner has been contributing to a reserve fund or ask for a credit to offset the lack of contribution.

In our case, the neighbors wanted to replace it one year after we moved in and they extremely generously told us they did not want us to contribute because we just got there even though it would have been entirely reasonable for them to expect us to do so. Perhaps if our realtor was more astute they would have flagged this potential issue for us.

We have never had issues of people parking on the pipestem because they have their own driveways and garages. Maybe if someone had a lot of teens that might be an issue, I don't know. The pipestem is also wide enough that two cars can fit so even if someone parked there you could go around them.

Snow isn't so bad since we all get out and do it. A nice chance to catch up with everyone I suppose and I don't really mind shoveling snow but if you were elderly I could see it being an issue.

Anyways, just my two cents that it doesn't have to be a dealbreaker depending on how it is set up.

[Anonymous]

We have one and it is awesome for our kids to plan on— tons of shade and a great big space to use not near the road. We informally socialize with our neighbors every day— it is a really easy way to have a your home be apart of a community. Our HOA covers snow removal and maintenance of the driveway so we never had any issues. We pull each other’s trash cans in and occasionally carpool to school when convenient. I love it and recommend you consider! We both have two car garages and teo parking spaces at the end of the driveway so it is not issue with cars blocking the driveway ever.

[Anonymous]

We have a shared driveway....they are not nearly as big a deal as I thought. It's actually nice and we help each other out with snow, etc. I wouldn't overthink it too much if the house is right.