NU 6 BB-What pisses you off at the neighborhood? What do you suggest?-bb

Date: Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 1:33 PM
Subject: What pisses you off at the neighborhood? What do you suggest?
To: profjorge.entrep@gmail.com, jorge.sguisin.jusgein@blogger.com

What pisses you off at the neighborhood? What do you suggest?

By: S070006

I've been living in my neighborhood for ten years already and there's only one thing that really pisses me off.  And that is my front neighbor which parks their cars in front of our gate.  As a result I have to ask our house maid to knock on their gate and ask to have their cars move for me to properly park inside the garage.

Our street I lived in is not wide enough to accommodate parallel parking.  Our neighbor is considered the richest among all within the village.  They occupied 4 lot areas having one huge gate.  They have 6 vehicles, 3 are parked in their garage and 3 are parked outside.  Considering they have 4 neighbors in front of them, when their cars are parked outside, they only leave spaces in front of our gates.

I have 2 cars under my account, both me and my wife share vehicles since our offices are close with each other.  This is very useful especially during days when one is ban due to coding.  We only have 1 car garage which means the other one has to park outside.  Now this is the problem, since our front neighbor parks their 3 cars outside and only leaves our front gate open, when we need to use the car inside the garage, I have to move the other car first then do a lot of maneuvering when going out of the garage.

Because of this issue, I suggested to our neighbors that all of us will have to park on one side of the street for us to have ease in terms of parking.  Everyone agreed on the suggestion.  Although it worked for few months or years, it didn't really work for me since I still have to maneuver a lot just to move out of the garage.  Now I started thinking if there's a Right of Way law which will solve this issue.

Somehow, I found few articles that may be related to the issues I have.  Here are the following articles:

SECTION 8. - Easement Against Nuisance (n)

Art. 682. Every building or piece of land is subject to the easement which prohibits the proprietor or possessor from committing nuisance through noise, jarring, offensive odor, smoke, heat, dust, water, glare and other causes.

Art. 683. Subject to zoning, health, police and other laws and regulations, factories and shops may be maintained provided the least possible annoyance is caused to the neighborhood.

 SECTION 9. - Lateral and Subjacent Support (n)

 Sec. 684. No proprietor shall make such excavations upon his land as to deprive any adjacent land or building of sufficient lateral or subjacent support.

Art. 685. Any stipulation or testamentary provision allowing excavations that cause danger to an adjacent land or building shall be void.

Art. 686. The legal easement of lateral and subjacent support is not only for buildings standing at the time the excavations are made but also for constructions that may be erected.

Art. 687. Any proprietor intending to make any excavation contemplated in the three preceding articles shall notify all owners of adjacent lands.

CHAPTER 3

VOLUNTARY EASEMENTS

Art. 688. Every owner of a tenement or piece of land may establish thereon the easements which he may deem suitable, and in the manner and form which he may deem best, provided he does not contravene the laws, public policy or public order. (594)

Art. 689. The owner of a tenement or piece of land, the usufruct of which belongs to another, may impose thereon, without the consent of the usufructuary, any servitudes which will not injure the right of usufruct. (595)

Art. 690. Whenever the naked ownership of a tenement or piece of land belongs to one person and the beneficial ownership to another, no perpetual voluntary easement may be established thereon without the consent of both owners. (596)

Art. 691. In order to impose an easement on an undivided tenement, or piece of land, the consent of all the co-owners shall be required.

The consent given by some only, must be held in abeyance until the last one of all the co-owners shall have expressed his conformity.

But the consent given by one of the co-owners separately from the others shall bind the grantor and his successors not to prevent the exercise of the right granted. (597a)

Art. 692. The title and, in a proper case, the possession of an easement acquired by prescription shall determine the rights of the dominant estate and the obligations of the servient estate. In default thereof, the easement shall be governed by such provisions of this Title as are applicable thereto. (598)

Art. 693. If the owner of the servient estate should have bound himself, upon the establishment of the easement, to bear the cost of the work required for the use and preservation thereof, he may free himself from this obligation by renouncing his property to the owner of the dominant estate. (599)

Title VIII. - NUISANCE (n)

Art. 694. A nuisance is any act, omission, establishment, business, condition of property, or anything else which:

(1) Injures or endangers the health or safety of others; or

(2) Annoys or offends the senses; or

(3) Shocks, defies or disregards decency or morality; or

(4) Obstructs or interferes with the free passage of any public highway or street, or any body of water; or

(5) Hinders or impairs the use of property.

Art. 695. Nuisance is either public or private. A public nuisance affects a community or neighborhood or any considerable number of persons, although the extent of the annoyance, danger or damage upon individuals may be unequal. A private nuisance is one that is not included in the foregoing definition.

Art. 696. Every successive owner or possessor of property who fails or refuses to abate a nuisance in that property started by a former owner or possessor is liable therefor in the same manner as the one who created it.

Art. 697. The abatement of a nuisance does not preclude the right of any person injured to recover damages for its past existence.

Art. 698. Lapse of time cannot legalize any nuisance, whether public or private.

Art. 699. The remedies against a public nuisance are:

(1) A prosecution under the Penal Code or any local ordinance: or

(2) A civil action; or

(3) Abatement, without judicial proceedings.

Art. 700. The district health officer shall take care that one or all of the remedies against a public nuisance are availed of.

Art. 701. If a civil action is brought by reason of the maintenance of a public nuisance, such action shall be commenced by the city or municipal mayor.

Art. 702. The district health officer shall determine whether or not abatement, without judicial proceedings, is the best remedy against a public nuisance.

Art. 703. A private person may file an action on account of a public nuisance, if it is specially injurious to himself.

Art. 704. Any private person may abate a public nuisance which is specially injurious to him by removing, or if necessary, by destroying the thing which constitutes the same, without committing a breach of the peace, or doing unnecessary injury. But it is necessary:

(1) That demand be first made upon the owner or possessor of the property to abate the nuisance;

(2) That such demand has been rejected;

(3) That the abatement be approved by the district health officer and executed with the assistance of the local police; and

(4) That the value of the destruction does not exceed three thousand pesos.

Art. 705. The remedies against a private nuisance are:

(1) A civil action; or

(2) Abatement, without judicial proceedings.

Art. 706. Any person injured by a private nuisance may abate it by removing, or if necessary, by destroying the thing which constitutes the nuisance, without committing a breach of the peace or doing unnecessary injury. However, it is indispensable that the procedure for extrajudicial abatement of a public nuisance by a private person be followed.

Art. 707. A private person or a public official extrajudicially abating a nuisance shall be liable for damages:

(1) If he causes unnecessary injury; or

(2) If an alleged nuisance is later declared by the courts to be not a real nuisance.

Now a lot of these don't really make sense to me but putting some logic about the Right of Way of every property owner, every owner must or should not in anyway allow themselves to block each other's drive way.  It took me a lot of effort in putting this in place.  I have to talked to our Association officers and placed complaints towards my front neighbors.  Eventually my neighbor noticed my dissatisfaction towards their behaviors and I began to observe that one side of my drive way are kept open.  This somehow brought some ease on our living.  Accessibility to public streets has now improved.

Although these has given us better accessibility, our relationship towards our front neighbor was also affected.  Somehow I find it ok with me since I tried talking sense about it but it didn't do any good to us, I'm fine to have this relationship as long as it doesn't bother us when leaving our premises.  You can do so much but you wont be able to win all of them.

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