QUESTION
Do I have a chance suing this neighbor for blocking entrance to my driveway after the entrance was there for 10 years?
Asked on Jul 17th, 2018 on Property Law - New York
More details to this question:
The home I currently live in was foreclosed on last August. Sometime after the foreclosure, the neighbor took a survey of his home and saw that the entrance to the driveway for our home was part of his property. So he took it upon himself to expand his backyard and left just enough space for a motorcycle to enter. When he saw some maintenance workers surveying the driveway to see if they could expand it enough for a car to fit he came over to show me the survey he had taken. He tried to tell me that if he wanted he could have taken even more land all the way up my current front lawn and he did us a favor by leaving the small walkway entrance. He says that apparently in the past the homeowners had an agreement where the driveway entrance was allowed, but I guess after the foreclosure the neighbor had a bug up his butt and decided to take the entrance to the driveway as his backyard. The driveway can be seen on Google Maps since Nov 2007 with the driveway access open. After the home was
1 ANSWER
Civil Rights Law Attorney serving Rockville Centre, NY
Partner at
Lori Nevias, Attorney at Law
1 Award
The answer depends on your relationship to the property. If the home was foreclosed, the bank owns it until it's auctioned to a new owner. Do you live there under a lease with the bank? Are you the owner who lost the house in a foreclosure? Are you a tenant who stopped paying rent to the landlord when you found out the house was in foreclosure? Unless you are the actual owner of the property, you have no action against the neighbor. If you are a tenant living in the house under a lease agreement, and the lease promises a driveway for your car, you may have an action against your landlord. Please clarify, and I'll be happy to answer your question.
Answered on Jul 18th, 2018 at 11:03 AM