Old Easement and Land Use
We have a commercial property with has a right of way easement for the neighbour, this was granted in 1934 and purpose was for rear access to their property (their building extended part way along the boundary) . Our property is rectangular in plan and extend back from the street with rear access to an open area. Their property is triangle in shape with a very narrow back boundary. Over time - their property is now full length along our boundary ie past the end of the 1930 easement. Our legal advice is that this easement is practically defunct as is right of way. However, their building does have doorways on the boundary in the easement part, so they still need right of way access. There is a now a large public car park at the back. So, the issues are - neighbours tenants/delivery trucks and general public abuse of the easement and/or short cut traverse/illegal parking on our land. Its impacting our tenants and their customers to the use the back area (they have to walk around to the front via the easement to access the shops). All efforts via legal end up with no change. We are looking at locking the back gate and using the easement/laneway for vehicle access for our tenants. This still wont stop the neighbors tenant using it is they do so. We did look at licencing but then this needs to be controlled/limited to how many vehicles. We don't think that controlled access gates , security or cameras will help. Any other suggestions appreciated...