Note left on car after parking outside someone's house.

[Thumbs]

Yesterday, a car was parked outside my house and there was no space on the pavement along my house so I parked around the corner.
There was no dropped curb so naturally presumed I could park there.

Spent my day doing things around the house when DH comes in saying there's a note on the car and that i've parked in front of their drive.
I read the note and it said something along the lines of
"Please don't park across our drive again, there are plenty of spaces on this street. Thanks."

I have never met this person despite living on the same street and never really took notice of their house to have known they have a "drive". Most of the houses on my street do not have drives apart from the odd one who has had their kerbs dropped.

But I was always led to believe that a 'drive' always has a dropped kerb. There is no dropped kerb outside their house.
Anyway I moved the car but DH told me it's obviously a drive even though it doesnt have a dropped kerb and he apologised to the owners of the house.

I feel stupid now because according to DH it was obvious.

We need a picture 😉😉

@liveitwell yes pretty obvious your parking over a driveway when the kerb is dropped. Concrete front garden does not equal drive otherwise nearly every house on this street would have a drive.

@IsFinnRogersDead

If it's not a dropped kerb it's just a patio with aspirations.

Perhaps you could print out your council's page about applying for planning permission for a dropped kerb and ram it through their door?

This.

A patio with aspirations 🤣

Your right and in my area you can get into trouble for it when you apply for a driveway you pay for permission to drive over the path and again for dropping the kerb you cannot get a dropped kerb without the permit and people have been fined for it

I won't take a picture for privacy of where I live but the pavements are like this (google images)

No dropped kerb and no car.. How on earth was the op supposed to guess it was a drive anyway ?
My front garden is really a spa pool. It just doesn't have an enclosure or any water.

I would do as previous poster suggested- put the correct definition of drive through the door

It doesn't matter if the kerb is dropped or not. If there's a space outside of the house for a car then you shouldn't block the house.

@pessimistiquerealistique

It doesn't matter if the kerb is dropped or not. If there's a space outside of the house for a car then you shouldn't block the house.

That is incorrect.

@pessimistiquerealistique but there's space on my front garden for my car so should I just now stop everyone parking infront of my house despite myself not having any legal right to park on my front garden?

I don't understand how the posters telling op she was in the wrong think she should have known it was a drive?! It has no dropped kerb and there was no car parked on it. I assume it looks like a paved over garden, which plenty of people have even if they don't own a car!

Got a picture so the Mumz can see the evidence?

@pessimistiquerealistique

It doesn't matter if the kerb is dropped or not. If there's a space outside of the house for a car then you shouldn't block the house.

Saying it doesn't matter means absolutely nothing. If there is no dropped kerb then that legally matters. Without the dropped kerb it is not and never will be a drive even if it has a car parked on it.

@pessimistiquerealistique

It doesn't matter if the kerb is dropped or not. If there's a space outside of the house for a car then you shouldn't block the house.

Of course it matters. If you want a drive then you need to go through the correct procedures.

I would definitely assume if no dropped curb there’s no drive to obstruct even if they are unofficially (and illegally) crossing the pavement with a vehicle to park in their front garden.
If there were another space in this set up I’d park there but if not I’d park by the curb (not dropped).
In effect sounds like they haven’t sought permission or paid to have it dropped and are in effect carving out roadside parking in front of their house. Not on.

If they’re bumping the kerb daily to park on their garden then they could be fined by the council for damaging the edge of the pavement.

They need to apply and pay for the kerb to be dropped. Otherwise it’s just normal street parking.

It’s illegal for them on park there without the crossover so it’s not a drive. They have no right to stop you parking there.

Dropping the curb is bloody expensive for what it is though so I get why people don’t do it if they can get away with it. By me we used to have loads of these but the council came round and told them they either needed to pay for the curb to be dropped or they couldn’t use it.

Also told us our crossover wasn’t big enough and we needed to double it if we legally wanted to park 2 cars on our drive.

Well, maybe I've pictured it completely differently to how it is. Out of courtesy I wouldn't park there and probably would knock on the door and ask if it was ok. I know you have right to park there but people get so angry these days.

kerb not curb! Engage brain before writing!

Perhaps they were so polite because they KNEW that technically they had no leg to stand on regarding a complaint about you blocking their
non drive?

@pessimistiquerealistique

Well, maybe I've pictured it completely differently to how it is. Out of courtesy I wouldn't park there and probably would knock on the door and ask if it was ok. I know you have right to park there but people get so angry these days.

I genuinely dont understand how it can be pictured differently? There is no dropped kerb so it's not a drive. All they have done is paved their garden, that's not uncommon at all but it doesn't make it a drive.

Knocking the fence down or kicking out a few bricks does not make a drive even if you chuck a bit of gravel down/haphazardly throw down a few paving slabs/let the grass go bald and hard.

If they want a drive, they can pay for a dropped kerb like everyone else has to.

YANBU to assume that what you have described was not a drive. I would have just thought it was a paved front garden with no dropped kerb myself. Plenty of people have have a paved front without parking on it.

On a side note, if my DH felt the need to apologise for me, I would not be best pleased with him.

I reckon OP's DH did right thing to apologise to keep the peace -- but obviously the owners of the 'drive' are plonkers to perceive they have any right to call that bit of their property a 'drive', since no dropped curve. Just beware they are eejits.

We had a drive without a dropped kerb for a year. The council were doing some renovations and asked if we wanted them to drop the kerb at a discount. We took them up on their offer when they told us it is illegal for us to drive across the pavement into the drive and we could be fined. Just found this article to support this. www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1005838/parking-driveway-dropped-kerb-pavement-fine-bill Maybe print it out for both your DH and your neighbours.

But yeah don't park there again now you know.

What exactly is your AIBU though?