My question involves real estate located in the State of: New York.

Our neighbors access their property by using our driveway and cutting across our property. Historically all the neighbors were related so things were pretty loose. As such there is no deeded easement/official right of way/maintenance agreement. Title search corroborated this. We bought our house recently and increasingly do not like the shared driveway concept (we have young kids who play on driveway). From what I have researched it seems we are liable for any accidents that may occur if they have any sort of accident on our driveway. We pay for the snow plowing.

Historically our neighbors property abutted the public road, but when their parents passed away they split the land. One heir got vacant land which abuts the public road and the other heir received the house which became landlocked upon the property split. In other words, that family landlocked themselves. How this was allowed is beyond me but it happened back in the 70s.

From research it seems they don't have a case for prescriptive easement since they have always had permission to use our driveway. Nothing was ever written down but we gave them a verbal okay when we bought the house. Nothing open and hostile plus we all use the driveway - it's not just for them. It also seems their parents created an easement by necessity when the land was divided upon their death. Our neighbors could run a driveway across their sibling's land to connect to the public road. They never did this because it was easier to just use the driveway that goes over our land and it didn't require a cash outlay!

Does my conclusion seem reasonable? Could we say sorry we are not related and don't want to continue allowing you to use our driveway. Further, point out that they have the right to put a driveway across their sibling's property due to an easement by necessity. I don't think they could even sell their house since a title search will not yield any "official" access to the public road.

Thank you for any thoughts on this...