Any landlords about?

[AIBVVVU]

Posting for traffic as DH and I getting desperate. We own our house. The person next to us rents. He is an arse. He has two long wheel base work vans which he parks on the road. One of which is parked about a foot over our dropped kerb every single day, making get in and out of our drive difficult. That's annoying enough. His stance is its a public road and he'll park where he likes, not seeming to appreciate that parking over a dropped kerb isn't ok.
Secondly, the boundary fence between our two back gardens needs repair. Not minor work - five of the eleven fence panels have been maintained so badly they have fallen into our garden. The fence belongs to next door. This tenant has a weird arrangement with his landlady in that he does work to the house for a reduced rent (he's a builder, hence the vans). When we viewed the house two years ago one fence panel was missing and he told us he would fix it. He's done nothing. Now five panels are pretty much missing so our garden not only looks awful but we can't comfortably use it as we can see straight in to his garden and vice versa.
DH has mentioned every other month or so about getting the fence sorted. We're always given 'tomorrow' promises. The fence runs adjacent to our shed at one point so it's not even like we can put up a new fence inside our boundary.
He's a selfish arse of a man who is a really inconsiderate neighbour in lots of ways, but these two issues are really starting to get me down.
I've checked the Land Registry for details of the landlord but the only contact they have is the address of
the property. If we write to the landlord addressed to next door I don't trust the tenant to pass it on or not to read it.
Sorry for the long post but what do we do? I'm so fed up of being irritated every time I come home by his selfish (illegal) parking and the crappy fence!
What can we do?

[Handsupbabyhandsup]

I'm a landlord but not in the UK.

I'd go to the council or whoever does traffic management with the parking issue and bypass the landlord totally. Although our leases here have a clause about disruption of peace to neighbours and other tenants that a landlord can use to force a tenant to comply. However the landlord has to be willing to do that and many are not as they don't want to upset their tenant for no gains to themselves.

[trufflesnout]

Yeah, the parking is nothing to do with the LL, you need to take that up with him/the council.

The arrangement he has with the LL about working on the property in lieu of full rent is bizarre - heard of it happening a few times though. But for that I think it's fair enough to contact LL since the property is not being maintained.

I don't think you even need to mention that he isn't keeping his end of the bargain tbh - the LL just needs to be informed that the fence is in disrepair and needs sorting. If they want to take that up with the tenant it's their deal - all you want is the fence fixed.

[scarednoob]

Is there a mortgage? If so you could write to the lender and say that the property isn't being maintained. This will be a breach of the mortgage so the bank is likely to want to check it out. Could be a way to get the landlord in touch with you.

Unfortunately it's a private contract between the landlord and the tenant and you aren't a party to it, which makes it very difficult for you to take any action. You could threaten it against the landlord (nicely at first) but in practice it's v hard to pursue

Agree that parking should go to the council.

[araiba]

where he parks has nothing to with LL- police or council need contacting about that.

contact a bank about a fence? lmao

[zikreetdreaming]

Is the name of the landlord a common name? Have you tried googling to see if you can find alternative contact details?

[Janecc]

Have you spoken to any of the neighbours or local people? The owners may have lived in the property first or someone may know them.

[MorticiaLiverish]

The mortgage lender won't care about the state of the fence.

The landlord is not responsible for where tyhe tenant parks.

There is no legal requirement for there to be a fence there at all, it doesn't matter whether 5 panels are missing or all of them are missing, the only thing you can do is erect your own on your side of the boundary (not sure why our shed means you can't do this?)

[BeckerLleytonNever]

The LL might not be responsible about the parking but don't LL's check credentials/whwere the rents coming from or whatever before they take a tenant? OP your neighbour sounds well dodgy.

my ndns on other side of driveway- who smokes god knows what outside, (and Im pretty sure hes dealing)litters, has dodgy cronies round, makes a lot of noise- does the parking in front of my dropped drive too (and I have disabled notices on it), Ive had a word with the LLO who I know, and he doesn't seem to care as long as hes gertting his rent from them. wtf?

would any LL have dodgy people in their properties? especially if the police and council end up getting involved? isn't that a blight on the LL's reputation? I don't get it.

[Penfold007]

The parking isn't the LL's responsibility, contact the council for advice. The LL and/or tenant are under no obligation to maintain or even have a boundary fence so you can't force them to repair or replace the fence, just chuck the fence panels back into their garden. You are, of course, free to put up your own fence.

[AIBVVVU]

We can't put up a fence on our side as one side of our shed runs along
the part of the fence that hasn't fallen down, so we'd only be able to put up half. We could move the shed (concrete base) and put up a fence, but the obligation to maintain that boundary is theirs, not ours, according to the deeds. I'll be annoyed if we have to spend out a lot to build a whole new fence, including concrete posts, when all he needs to do is replace five panels in the existing posts. He's just lazy.
Thanks for the hints about googling the landlady's name. It is unusual so hopefully something will come up.

[scarednoob]

Sigh, the letter doesn't say, "dear mr Barclays, the fence is in disrepair, please fix it".

The letter advises the mortgagee that parts of the property aren't being maintained and gets them to get the owner to get in touch. Banks don't like their security to fall down.

[leotwist]

Could you try, firstly, checking with your local police/council about by-laws restricting overnight parking & parking around dropped kerbs, particularly for commercial vehicles? The rules vary from area to area. Secondly, try looking up the vehicle registrations online, to see if they're taxed? If they're not, they can't be legally parked on a public road. Thirdly, check with the police or a solicitor whether your right of way can be legally enforced, ie. whether there's a way to prevent its obstruction. Unfortunately, for all these, you'll need subtly taken evidence, ie pix of the offending vehicles, showing the registrations. Tricky, but perhaps worth a shot for the hassle you're getting. Good luck!