Someone parked on my drive

[Redadmiralflyer]

Moved into my property on Friday. We have a driveway to fit two cars.
The person before us was elderly and didn't have a car so neighbours visitors frequently parked there. One of the neighbours gave us a private parking sign that's yellow. We stuck it on the hedge at the side of the driveway. So far so good.

Today I come home from work and find a car in my drive. I assume it's one of the neighbours cars and I'm really annoyed. I sit and watch out the window and finally appeared a salesman who got into the car and he sat on the phone for ten minutes. My car was parked next to his so he knew I was home. I couldn't believe he still sat there on the phone.
I lost my shit and came out and pointed at the sign and shouted can you not read! He drove off.
Was I unreasonable for shouting at him even though there was space on the drive? Dh was at Ikea and on his way back with furniture so I wanted part of the driveway clear to allow him easy access to house.

I'm not confrontational so I feel bad for shouting. Just to clarify he was some sort of sales person who had walked over to the next street so wasn't just nipping into a neighbours house.

happened to me as well about 3 years ago we lived at the end of a road with a 6 car parking bay as well as the drives for the houses long story short came home and found a small,white council parking enforcement van parked on our drive ,guy popped his head out of next door and said he would be 5 or 10 mins then disappeared back inside! a some what bad move on his part as where on the drive he was parked was where the local builder had ordered the 4 pallets of house bricks and 1 ton of sand and other items to be placed for the work on our home ! delivery arrived 5 mins after we arrived home ,result one van blocked in ! we had departed for a drinkies and nibbles to the local pub and came home about 2 hours later .Police and council parking bods awaiting our return ;the Police where very nice and after a little chat with parking bods about illegal parking and the laws of trespass they made a call and got picked up by a taxi (tax payers expense no doubt) Police took some pics of said van a few notes and slapped a "police aware" sticker on its wind shield and left .We had that van for nearly 2 weeks on our drive (very heavy rain pushed back buid)before they could move it,oh and we also had a nice letter from the council saying they where taking us to court for illegally blocking in their van; So on the 6th of Nov 2014 off to court we went 5 mins after being in court we left £300 better off .Moral of story dont fucking well park on my drive !

I would of informed him you were the new owner, my elderly neighbour would stop people getting out of their cars to tell them they could use her drive. after her death the new neighbours occasionally would have random people park even if their car was there. People had been using her drive for a decade and would not of known of change of ownership.

Oh the irony of it being the 'parking enforcement' van. He should have fined himself! Glad it had a good outcome for you.

I had some sort of insurance guy park on my drive once ( he appeared to be visiting my next door neighbour) so I parked behind him and blocked him in. He knocked on my door and asked me to move my car and I said I was busy and made him wait a long time so that he was probably late for his next appointment so I don't suppose he'll do that again in a hurry!

There was plenty of space for him to park in the road so I thought it was very rude of him.

Next time ring council and have the car towed. Put private drive signs up.

The council, quite bloody rightly, don't tow cars off people's private drives, it's a civil (or uncivil!) matter for people to sort out themselves.

You could always write something rude on their windscreen in sharpie - I have noticed that this is a thing that gets the CF's attention when they park across my drive bloody parents of a morning or afternoon.

Well done for shouting at him, but you should have gone out the moment that you saw him getting back in the car. I might also have blocked him in from the get-go and ignored the doorbell...

Are people unable to read signs now?

OP has a new sign in bright yellow stating it's a private drive. It's not difficult to realise that it's now not available for any random person parking there.

OP you should have gone straight out and pointed to the sign and asked him which part he needed explaining to him.

How do you know he was a salesman ?

As you knew the situation prior to moving in, a quick word with the person on the drive about the new ownership would be sufficient. Sounds like an honest mistake.

Why wait ten minutes then go out shouting? If he had gone and returned a few days later doing the same thing, it would have been even more bizarre.

I haven't read the full thread just the first place so forgive me if I missed some drip feeding. I just wanted to comment as I don't know why so many people want confrontation so easily.

Why did you have to 'lose your shit'? It's your driveway. All you have to do is calmly and clearly tell him he needs to leave. You don't have to be confrontational to be assertive.