Being annoyed about a visitor parking bay

[SaltyChickenWhite]

Hi,

I moved into a new build development recently. It's North London and space is quite tight. Each house has 1 allocated parking space.

Please see the humble diagram attached.

A row of 4 houses. Houses A to D each have 1 allocated parking space. And House A and D have a visitor bay outside. I live at House D.

There's a church and park on the other side of House D, but no parking availability down that side of the road. And the brown bits are pathways.

The issue I've quickly found is that House A has 2 cars. So they have complete control over that visitor bay. And when they have only 1 car at home, they'll park in the visitor bay first.

House B also has 2 cars.

And because Houses C and House D (me) only have one car each, House B has taken to parking their second car in the visitor bay outside mine. This means their car is parked in the visitor bay from evening until morning each weeknight, and usually most or all of the weekend.

It seems House B is fully aware that House A is in control of A's visitor bay, because House B never attempts to park their second car there, even on the rare occasion that it's empty. They just come straight to House D's visitor bay.

To the left of the houses, there's a road which has sort of unofficial parking availability (the blue line), and visitors have taken to parking there instead because Houses A and D visitor bays are usually occupied. And I find it strange that Houses A and B would not park their second vehicles on that road instead.

My options as I see them:

Speak to the neighbour. But I don't know them and people are unpredictable in how they'll react.

Speak to the developer, but what are they realistically going to do? And council have zero power etc.

Do something else?

I have a few questions:

Because I only have one car, should I even care about this? Would it annoy you in all honesty? It just seems a little cheeky to me.

It only becomes a real issue when we have a visitor (in that they can't park outside our house - but then again, they wouldn't be able to either if a genuine visitor was already in that bay, and in which case that would be totally fine - but because it's a neighbour's second car sitting there it sort of stings). Is there anything I could do or should do?

If you had a second car and you lived at House B, would you park in the visitor bay?

And of course give me some brutal honesty if I'm overthinking this.

The time you will feel more cross is when yourself or someone else ends up with an extra car. Currently you’ve actually got enough resident spots. Just one more car will make it become car wars for the 2nd cars. That’s when you’ll see people trying to ‘mark’ those visitor spots as being their own - cones, flower pots whatever. They will always park on one of those and not their private spot if it’s feee. It’s only a matter of time before someone has a further car.

If I were you, I’d do occasional parking in the visitor spots - certainly do it if you have a guest coming. Use both of the visitor spots. Those neighbours just need to know they can’t guarantee always having access, even if they do have it most of the time.
Entirkement is the problem, not the using of them. Once people think it’s theirs and others cannot it should not use it, that’s when you’ve got a problem and undoing the entitlement is v tricky.

For me, it’s a big reason against new build estates. Everyone has guests sometimes and they need to be able to park somewhere, even if it means walking a minute or 2. In most old non estate roads, on street parking is accessible to all. That’s good. Additionally roads are wide enough so those with drives can park on road and across their own drive giving an extra space without blocking the road. Rarely the case with new builds. Even if your own property has enough parking for you, often another resident not having enough impacts you as it causes them to park badly which can make your own access difficult or at least cause traffic flow difficulties and certainly ugliness - cars parked up on the kerb etc.

And in my book those new build car park things behind a group of houses are awful. No wonder cars get scraped, plus the inconvenient location means people still dump cars on roads on the kerbs and create problems. Clearly all related to developer greed.

I agree with PP - make sure you use the visitor spots every now and then to make it clear they have not become private spots for those two houses. And the rest of the time, forget about it.

Yes, park there sometimes. If anyone asks why your spot is empty, say ‘I’m expecting a visitor soon’ - no prob when one doesn’t arrive.
Op says one of the 2 car houses opts to fill the visitor space first ....it’s exactly as they can then guarantee their private space. Therefore if you were having a visitor you’d be doin nothing different.

Either of these regular users of the visitor space would seriously need some cheek to challenge you for using it. If they did, I’d simply say ‘Those spaces are for all our visitors to use’.

People try to establish an entitlement to communal space, so that no-one dares park there or use it. It’s really important people resist this and park there themselves sometimes so the sense of entitlement doesn’t become absolute and ingrained.

Likewise with public roads where people expect to park outside their house, even if they have multiple off road spots, it’s important for it not become an entitled and ingrained sense it’s their space. My neighbour who has 4 cars once told me my Dad was parked in her space. I replied with ‘Doreen it’s the public road and first come, first served. You often get parked there, but it’s not your space or right’. She huffed a bit, but really what could she say? Some people are basically empire builders!