BiggerPockets

I live in a single family and am now sharing our driveway with a 2 family. When we purchased the property the now 2 family was zoned a single family residence. Recently the town allowed the owner to zone the property as a 2 family and there are 7 or so cars at the 2 family residence. Our maintenence agreement doesn't cover 2 family maintenance responsibility. Am I still responsible for 1/2 the maintence or is it now 1/3 2/3? Was it legal for our town to change the zoning without considering the shared drive?

Thanks Joel,
I appreciate the advice. I tried to reach an agreement w/ the owner of the 2 family but they believe I am responsible for 1/2 the maintenance no matter what. I am working on selling our property, if the maintenace agreement becomes an issue I will contact a zoning attorney.

How does this driveway set w.r.t. the two lots and the city's land? Typically driveways are partially on the house's lot and partially on the land that belongs to the city (or whoever owns the street.) The part that's on the lots is what matters. If the potions that are on each of the two lots are the same size, then you would be responsible for 50% of the maintenance. Along with that, I would think you could restrict who parks on the part that's on your lot. If the driveways weren't shared, your neighbors couldn't just pull up and park in your driveway, right? So, the fact your two driveways are physically attached to each other shouldn't give them the right to park in your drive, either.

Thanks for the responses. Just to clarify the shared driveway is ~400' long it is equally shared and branches to the parking area for the 2 family. The parking area is unshared so I currently do not have to worry about vehicles parking on my property & I do not maintain the parking area. The town has no ownership of the drive. The big issues are snow removal & driveway repairs.How should this be divided up?

I think you're stuck with the existing 50/50 split. I would guess there was some sort of procedure for them to change the zoning from single family to duplex. And, there was probably a public hearing when that happened. That would have been the time to object. You could have brought up the increased traffic and maintenance and how some of that was going to cost you money. And then negotiated a deal with the other owner to shift to a one third/two third split. But I think its too late for that tactic. If the other owner won't agree, I can't see where you have any leverage to force the issue.

How is your maintenance agreement actually worded? Does it say you have to split all maintenance 50/50? Does it give either of you the ability to object? Can the other file a lien? It could be that when it actually comes time to spend some money, you could push for a different split.