A: Situations like yours are occurring more frequently as parts of King County, particularly in-city Seattle, grow more dense, says attorney Brian Lawler of Lawler Burroughs & Baker. Sometimes they're popping up when two houses have shared a driveway for many years, one of the houses gets torn down and replaced by a larger project. So where there were two owners sharing a driveway, now there are several more.

When many of these shared driveway easements were created 50 or more years ago, their paperwork was "pretty general and vague," says Lawler. "Another common problem is that they got drafted by cooperative neighbors in layman's terms that tended to make sense to them, but not to people down the road."

Newer easements "tend to have more provisions, scope of use and remedies," he says, so there's not as much head-scratching by homeowners who are unclear what their easement allows and what it doesn't.

All this means is that your easement's language is the starting point for resolving your situation. An attorney can help you understand it if necessary.

"If the easement doesn't authorize parking or storage, technically it's trespass," says Lawler. That's illegal. However if you complain to the city, there's a high probability they'll say yours is a civil matter because it's on private property and decline to become involved.

That leaves you to solve the problem. Begin by talking cordially with the trailer's owner; perhaps this person is unaware that the easement can't be used for storage parking.

If this doesn't get results, get an attorney to write the neighbor a cease-and-desist letter.

Lawler says you'll definitely want to do something because letting the situation continue could allow the trailer's owner to establish a right -- through adverse possession -- to park there permanently. But the one thing you cannot do is move the trailer yourself.