Why buy a house with no parking if you have 3 cars

[Wineisrequired]

So parking where I live is awful. Made worse by people buying houses with no driveways or parking. So you now have extra cars and vans being parked on the side road. If you have that many vehicles why buy a house with no parking . Is it me and shall I just shut up. I know it’s not a given right to park near your house but parking miles away because new people moving in have lots of cars parked really grates on my nerves. Anyway rant over 🤣

As a society we need to start questioning why we need so many cars. We need a better public transport system (although most cities are not as badly served as people seem to think). Having said that most people round here don't seem willing to contemplate using anything but their car.

And if you don't live in a city? To be able to get to work on public transport I'd have to travel for an hour in the opposite direction first!

Where I used to work, travelling to work by public transport was pretty straightforward even though it involved two buses. Just catch Bus A into town, get off at stop A, wait for Bus B which took me to virtually outside my work other side of town. But getting home was a nightmare and would take twice as long. This was because Bus B was on a circular route and went a different way on the way back into town. And bus timetables have usually gone to pot by the evening.

I live in an end terrace, no car no parking space. My neighbour's have knocked their front wall down to provide space for one of their cars. They have four cars in total and park three of them on the road behind the row of terraces. They think nothing of parking over peoples drives, double park and also park on double yellow lines. The rows they have had with other people when they take the liberty is unbelievable !!!

I am amazed about the number of people on here who think because they have a certain set of circumstances where they can share a car or the fact that the number 32 bus goes directly to where they want to go that means that everyone has those set of circumstances

We live in an area with no public transport. They did trial a bus service about 15 years ago but the roads are too narrow and the passing spaces are too short for a bus to fit in so it quickly stopped.

Not everyone is near public transport or lives in a town or works 9-5 Monday to Friday.Everyone is different.
We are specifically told to drive as most of the time where we are working isn’t near public transport either

@purdypuma

I understand the op's frustration. I live in a 2 bed terrace with no frontage to turn into a drive. I bought the house I could afford at the time. Across the road has a works van & large saloon. Next door had 4 cars to their house at one point which annoyed me as I struggled to park a mini if I got home after 5pm as all their 4 cars would be parked in a row taking up any available parking near my home! To me that is inconsiderate. I'm hoping to buy a 2 bed property, preferably semi-detatched with a drive in the next year or so but at the moment the local property market is barmy & houses are selling in under a week!

But here's the thing - it's not. You don't own the pavement outside your house. It's first come first served. If you're going to get that hung up with wanting to park outside you house you NEED a house with parking.

My neighbour asked me if he could park in my assigned space (not a drive but a numbered space outside my house, not on the road) when he moved in. I assumed it was because the moving van was on his assigned space, so agreed.

Once the moving van left, he parked his work van in his assigned space and his partner parked her car on the street. The other car has been in my assigned space ever since. I don't drive so it feels a bit churlish to do anything, but every time I see a parking thread I get the rage.

YANBU but it's a housing issue.

trixies

You could be renting that space out if parking is at a premium

@bythemillpond I thought that but it looked like a lot of hassle and I think you need your lender's permission. Plus people do seem to park on the pavements instead so I'm not sure that I'd get many takers. I'll just settle for quietly seething instead.

YANBU!

having 3 cars and no driveway parking is just ridiculous- I understand that this impacts on everyone else living on the street

To those saying buy/you can't afford somewhere with a driveway- here is SE London (zone 5), for a 3 bed semi you're looking at around 600k and way upwards!

There are people, quite a few in our road, who have more cars and Van's than adults living there.

Cars are designed to carry (mainly) people; vans are designed to carry (mainly) large amounts of stuff. Say you have a couple - one is a builder/plumber, the other is a travelling salesperson/exhibition worker and they have four children. If they're only 'allowed' to have one vehicle per adult, which two vehicles do you suppose will enable their family to function practically?

This thread is almost like the negative of the other one on single adults having to pay more for things than couples. Single people are told they should share the limited housing stock and not expect to have one house all to themselves (or with their children); yet when people do use houses arguably more efficiently, they're told that they're only 'allowed' one (or at an absolute push, two) vehicles per person.

As I said before (I don't know whether or not the two deleted messages that immediately followed it had anything to do with that point), there is often a (hopefully) unconscious racist element to bigger and/or multi-generational houses; not to mention HMOs containing house-sharers or all races.

Imagine not only realising that you might end up having to share non-premium accommodation with four other adults you aren't in a relationship (or even necessarily good friends) with, for the rest of your life, and then, to top it off, you get people telling you that you shouldn't be allowed to have your own car, to enable you to work and pay rent for said shared house.

I'd still also like to know if people refuse on principle to use the services of any tradespeople until and unless they can prove that they have a drive for their van and any other vehicles in their family.

*house-sharers OF all races.

But here's the thing - it's not. You don't own the pavement outside your house. It's first come first served. If you're going to get that hung up with wanting to park outside you house you NEED a house with parking.

Exactly. People are allowed as many vehicles as they want/need, just as people can have as many children as they want. You get people criticising very large families and complaining about how much they'll 'cost the taxpayer' (conveniently ignoring the fact that they are likely lots of future taxpayers), but you just have to make your own life choices, provide for them yourself wherever possible (e.g. having enough private parking, a big enough house etc.) and let others make theirs.

How would those with 'only one car' parked on the road who complain about next door having four vehicles parked on the road like it if the government decided that roads are for driving on and not parking, that impeding the flow of traffic causes extra pollution, so therefore NO cars can be parked on the road any more - and you can only buy a vehicle if you can prove you have an off-road private space for it? I believe they already do this in Tokyo.

Roads are public property, just like parks. If you want your own guaranteed green space to sit in that's exclusively yours, you have to buy a house with a garden; if you can't afford that/don't want to/prefer to prioritise other premium features when buying property, you have to share and take your chances with everybody else in the public park.

@minipie

If people are parked legally on the public highway I don't see why other people are affected or why the car owner is being inconsiderate.

Can you honestly not see that a household with three cars parked on street is taking up three parking spaces, meaning other people living there may struggle to park near their house?

But then that person hasn't bought a house with a driveway either so are equally as bad. If they've got a drive then any parking on the road won't affect them

Households with 3 cars tend to have 3 adults. So it's still the same number of cars per person.

I have to park a 5 min walk away from my house as I "struggle" to park nearer. It's not a problem, it's not an issue. I accept that I bought a house with only space for 2 cars on the drive. Which dh and dd use. I don't complain that my neighbours with no drives or more cars than drive space are hogging the road.

83% of the UK's population is urbanised. You would think that Mumsnet would have a similar proportion of urban dwellers to rural. It is amazing therefore that there are so many posters apparently live in remote villages with only one bus a day.

Let's assume that in the case of the OP, that we're talking about a city terrace (these are the worst places for parking). Odds are then that some combination of public transport/cycling would actually be possible for some of the residents (possibly even the OP). Certainly most households could get away with one car each, if at all. So I see no reason that a one-house, one-car permit rule wouldn't be a good idea.

There’s two buses to my village. One in the morning to take kids to school and one to bring them home.

I’m 7/8 miles from the next town and 10 miles from the school.

I live in an ex council terrace which is appalling for parking.

I know what you mean my neighbour parks a large work truck and a massive american van plus has a son with a car. He rents from the council and keeps moaning that he wants them to pay for off-road parking. They would take over the entire road and any person who moves their car they would park in that place within a flash.We had a driveway installed cost a bit but worth it. Our neighbours are so miffed.

@CarlottaValdez

This is very normal where I live (zone 5 London). It doesn’t really bother me, I usually get a space within a couple of minutes of my house.

Why would one family need 3 cars in London?

So you bought a house with no parking but you’re annoyed with other people for buying a house with no parking 😶

You can’t afford anywhere with parking. HTH.

You got THAT from the OP's post? Seriously?

Or did you just want to come on here and give someone a good kicking? In which case please don't?

A good kicking? You think that was a MN 'good kicking'? Are you new?

@CoffeeCakey

I struggle to understand why any family would need three cars tbh. We do fine with just one.

Really? Well if both parents and the eldest could work and can't get a bus or walk then they need a car. Or one of them might need to do a crazy school run, they might have been unfortunate to have been allocated a school miles away from one of their other children and need to do two different school drop offs.

We are a family of 4 with 3 cars, not that unusual around here at all. I need a car for school run, dh needs a car to get to work, and dd has just passed her driving test and needs a car to get to college, which isn’t on an easy bus or train route. We do have a driveway though that is big enough for all our cars and more and we will prob get a 4th car when youngest dd has passed her test, We are in a village in the southeast that has one bus a day.

Why would one family need 3 cars in London?

Often it’s not a family, it’s adults in house shares.

I'm a little bitter about this right now. In circumstances where you don't need the extra cars, no you shouldn't have them.
A drunk driver crashed into my car, writing it off. It was parked on my drive way off the road. She was going to crash into something because she was drunk and out of control but only got my safely parked car because a neighbour has too many cars and his unused car with a flat tyre was parked opposite.

I'm glad it was my car and not a person at least.

I struggle to understand why any family would need three cars tbh. We do fine with just one.

There's 2 of us and we have a car each. DH is a self employed handyman and works in different places and I need mine to get to work so we have no option.

I'd love a driveway but it won't be happening as the only way we could afford to move is to move to a different area which we don't want to do.

Try my neighbour for size. He and his girlfriend moved here with 5 cars. He has one on his drive, one permanently parked on the street next to the drive, two large cars in the street and his girlfriend also parks her car there. We live in a seaside tourist area. Onstreet parking is limited and all other parking is limited to 2 hours. I asked him loads of times to be considerate but despite his promises to move them he still parks on the street. I wouldn't mind but they never use them. I, on the other hand have to get kids to school, do shopping etc. No we don't have a drive but it wasn't a bit issue until Mr 5 cars arrived. I just don't understand that level of selfishness.