A parking one - potentially aggressive neighbour

[Slowlymelting]

Our house is at the end of a very short dead-end lane and we have only one neighbour directly next to us (diagram hopefully attached because I'm not sure how else to explain the layout).

We've lived there 8 years, our neighbours have lived there 3 but the previous owners were their parents and they'd visit the house regularly, so are used to parking there. We both own our houses.

In order for our neighbours to park, they have to pass our house/car. For 8 years this hasn't been a problem, we've always made sure to park close to our front door/garage gate and they can pass with no issues. They have 2 cars, we have 1.

During the summer we rent our house out to holidaymakers (we live in France) and have done since we bought the place (we live in it ourselves the rest of the time). This past week we've had guests and we told them to park in our spot and to make sure not to block the neighbours in. Half way through their trip I receive a message from the neighbour saying that our guests had parked "ridiculously" and he ended up scratching his car against the wall surrounding our other neighbours property (green in the diagram) as he was trying to park. I checked our doorbell cameras and the car was parked in the same spot we always park in, bumper right up to the garage gate (so parked even better than we tend to). I told the neighbour that (in a nice way) and he said something about "yes but they have a big car", but we've had plenty of larger cars including tradesmen vans etc in front and it's never caused an issue. The guest genuinely couldn't have parked any closer to our house.

We're going over to the house on Saturday and I'm worried that the neighbour (who has quite a temper) is going to try and get us to pay for the scratch and I'm really not sure what to do/say to him.

Personally, I'm not interested in paying him anything as I think it's his fault. Him and his wife have almost hit our car countless times when they come down the drive as they drive far too fast down the small lane, and we have proof that the car was parked absolutely fine.

Another reason I'm pissed off is because for years we've come home to there being 4 cars in front of their house (totally unnecessary as there's free parking everywhere in the village, the nearest being 50 metres away) whenever they have guests over, which means we either can't physically park in front of our house, nor can we leave if their guests arrive whilst we're home. Essentially, he knew all about the parking situation because he grew up in that house before he bought it and has been regularly taking the piss about it with us and I think this is just another of those times.

So, I don't want to pay him, but I also don't want to fall out with him and his wife. We're amicable, we say hi, we help each other out etc.

What the hell do I say/do if he asks us for money to repair the scratch?

I wouldn't, it'll just annoy him for no benefit to OP, Kathy and John can take it up with Grumpy Man.

My guess is that he'll wind his neck in now he knows you've got a doorbell camera. He's scratched his car and was going to try to pin it on your guests. If he knows you've got a photograph of how the car was parked, he'll probably just drop it. Good luck!

Is the space that you own marked out, or is it a large continuous gravel area ?

In new houses normally the boundary is marked with a row of bricks or something.

If your area was marked out then it would be easier to claim that you were parking on your land and that your car is within the area you own.

I would be wary if he thinks you do not own the space, because that might be a prelude to him parking there or one of his visitors.

That's true actually! We haven't told him yet that we looked at the doorbell footage so it's a good defence if he tries it on.

It's all just tarmac, no markings, but I always draw a space with chalk during the summer so that it's obvious to guests where to park.

There's no chance he'd park in our spot, it would be literally right outside of our front door and it's just the two of us down that lane so it would be glaringly obvious he was doing it on purpose, in which case I'd have no issue calling the police. I'm more worried he's going to keep bringing it up and potentially start complaining that we rent the house out during the summer, but he knew we did that before he bought the place so he also wouldn't have a leg to stand on, would just be annoying.

Thanks, that sounds like a very non confrontational but still pretty firm way to deal with it so I think that'll be my go to.

Putain, non.

That's what you say. :)

Hahah, how could I forget, that's step number one!

Calm down Zammo 😂

He’s the one driving so he should have been more careful and if he genuinely didn’t have space to get in then he should have parked somewhere else or asked them to move it so he could get in. Do you have any other doorbell footage showing him driving past the car without hitting anything? Not that you need it, but it would just prove that it was his error and the car was parked fine.

He's clearly swinging around the corner too fast/too cocky! Tell him a firm, hard "absolutely not".

No other doorbell footage as the damn thing stopped recording. We've just got the live screenshot of the car about 5 minutes after he texted us, before we asked the guests to move the car back slightly (to which they responded they can't as the bumper was already touching the gate).

But regardless they've been quite mad over the years with driving down the lane super fast so they've not got a leg to stand on. I hope they won't make a fuss of it all but at least I've got some ammunition in my back pocket now and know we're not being unreasonable. Annoying thing is that the guy is huge and is likely to throw his weight around a bit!

If you pay him anything he will get even worse!

You are catastrophizing about something that might not even happen. He messaged in a strop when it happened, you told him they were parked fine. He might not even mention it again, so don’t stress about it unless he does.
In which case, tell him to jog on and ask if he’d like the image you have so he can show his insurance company if he wants to make a claim against their car insurance. He’ll know he won’t have a hope.

Here you go -
Va te faire foutre, espèce d'insolent.
Merci beaucoup Google translate 👍🏻

Just a quick point about the doorbell camera. Given you're in France have you checked it's within the law regarding what you can cover with it? Penalties can be very serious and if he's an angry type would he report you?

I think it's fine but our one doesn't capture his house at all (we're directly at the end of the lane so the only thing the camera can see is literally the first couple of meters of the lane), whereas his one is placed in a corner that points almost entirely towards the front of our house from the side and would capture us as soon as we leave the front door, so if he puts up a fuss we can put up a bigger one!

Ha ha - you can ask to see the footage of the guests car that was badly parked and his collision with the wall if he pushes is. Would be easy to see if he approached at speed!

Marvellous diagram. Absolutely superb.

Translate to French of course.

'Non' est une phrase complète. [gallic shrug]

Don't pay him anything. Let him pay for a solicitor if he wishes.
Putain effronté (CF)

Have you actually got footage of him driving past the visitors car ? I mean he could have scratched it anywhere and be pulling a fast one in the hope you will cough up for his poor driving ?

@Slowlymelting this is perfect!

Belt and braces if you don’t already have a copy of the Filed Plan for your property you can get one for £7 from Land Registry. Make sure you use the .gov.uk Land registry as there are a lot of scam companies.