DEAN DUNHAM: My neighbour rents out our shared drive. Can I cease it?

Q: My neighbour has began renting out her drive to generate profits — however we share our drive. 

There appears to be a special automotive parked there every week so I’ve received no thought who’s coming or going and really feel uncomfortable with strangers pitching up exterior my home. Can I get this stopped? P.B. through e mail

Consumer rights lawyer Dean Dunham replies: It appears like your neighbour owns the driveway and you’ve got both a ‘proper of method’ to drive over it or to park your car on it. If that is the case you will have to ascertain precisely what rights you will have, which you will discover both inside your property deeds or by finishing up an internet search on the Land Registry.

Here you’ll be able to get hold of what known as an ‘workplace copy entry’ — an digital doc that units out numerous issues to do together with your property, together with the rights connected to it corresponding to rights of method, which you will discover in Section A.

One reader mentioned they felt uncomfortable with a number of random automobiles parking up on their shared driveway (inventory picture)

If you merely have a proper of method over the driveway, it’s going to ordinarily entitle you ­merely to go over the driveway for the aim of going to and out of your land. This is not going to provide the proper to park on the driveway.

Whatever rights you will have, your neighbour should respect these rights and help you train them. So in case your proper is to go over the driveway, you should be free to do that; if the automobiles parked are stopping you from passing over the driveway, it is going to be a breach of your rights. Likewise, when you have the suitable to park on the driveway and you might be being prevented from doing this, your rights may have been breached.

In the primary occasion you must elevate the matter together with your neighbour and remind her of the rights you will have. If that is ignored, you’ll be able to apply to the county court docket for an injunction, which is a authorized device used to cease or compel somebody to do one thing by a court docket order.

If you are taking this route, you will have to indicate the court docket that your neighbour’s actions are inflicting a considerable interference together with your capacity to make the most of your rights in relation to the driveway.

Q: I used to be misled into believing I used to be ­shopping for denims from a UK retailer through an internet purchasing platform however, in reality, it is positioned in China. 

I wish to return the denims throughout the cooling-off interval however the retailer says this legislation doesn’t apply to it, and my card supplier will not give me money again because it says the retailer has executed nothing fallacious. L.J. Portsmouth

Consumer rights lawyer Dean Dunham replies: In the UK now we have a few of the finest client safety legal guidelines on this planet however they solely apply, and subsequently defend you, if you happen to purchase from a vendor based mostly within the UK or from an abroad vendor that agrees the contract will likely be ruled beneath English legislation, which is uncommon.

This is why I all the time advocate shopping for from a UK vendor, as if one thing goes fallacious with a purchase order you make from an abroad vendor your rights and routes of redress will likely be restricted and sometimes non-existent.

The vendor right here is right — the Consumer Contracts Regulations don’t apply — solely Chinese legal guidelines will apply, because it seems it has not agreed to be ruled beneath English legislation.

By method of be aware, if the vendor had been positioned inside an EU nation, you’d have been in luck, for whereas the Consumer Contracts Regulations wouldn’t apply, an equal legislation would have protected you, as all EU nations are required to implement legal guidelines that defend customers after they make a distant buy.

However, there’s some excellent news right here as your card supplier was fallacious to disclaim your Section 75 declare.

Card suppliers obsess over the necessity for there to be a ‘breach of contract’ for there to be a Section 75 declare. But this isn’t the one floor beneath which you may make a declare.

The legislation — Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 — additionally makes reference to ‘misrepresentation’, and clearly states that buyers may also make a Section 75 declare the place there was a misrepresentation on the a part of the vendor or dealer.

I usually see abroad sellers and merchants, particularly these from China, deploying techniques to mislead customers into considering they’re based mostly within the UK. Common techniques are utilizing English-sounding commerce names and ‘.co.uk’ web sites to masks the Chinese entity.

If you might be on the receiving finish of a tactic like this, it’s going to quantity to a misrepresentation and can, subsequently, set off Section 75 safety.