I manage a commercial building in a historic downtown area the bottom level is rented out to a store and there are two apartments upstairs I rent out. However the only way to get upstairs to the 2 separate apartments is by a metal stairwell that's attached to the side of the building in an alleyway. The building next door is owned by an older gentleman and we use to have a verbal agreement that he would get paid monthly and my tenants would get to use his dumpster and use the alleyway to go up the stairs. I got the opportunity to get my own dumpster from the city for a lot less then he was charging us so we took it. He now says he's going to block the alleyway so the tenants or myself can't use the metal stairs. The alleyway is technically on his property and the building I manage only gets around 10 inches off the side of my building . Can he actually block this off making it impossible for the tenants to get up to their apartments? He said he owns the stairs and I would only be able to use 10 inches of the stair width since it's on his property but it's solely connected to my building so I don't see how that is. Would he be allowed to do this or would the city side with him or is this just him trying to scare me into paying him again? Any suggestions would help or if I need to talk to the city about this.