It’s a parking related one…

[Trysbutfails]

AIBU to leave a camper van parked outside a neighbours house for months?

We’ve got the opportunity to buy a large transit-sized camper van very cheaply from a relative. We’d love to have one for holidays and camping trips and it would be helping out our relative who is a bit overwhelmed about selling it.

However we live in London on a terraced street that only has off street parking for one vehicle (ie our car). There is unrestricted parking on the road, but it’s always hard to find a spot - for our neighbours who don’t have off street parking, spaces are heavily contested.

Obviously there’s no law against us taking up a space with a camper van that will be parked in the same place 99% of the time. But also it feels a unneighbourly to park a whacking great van outside someone’s house and leave it there.

But we’d love the van and have nowhere else to park it.

YABU - it’s unneighbourly, don’t do it
YANBU - it’s unrestricted parking, buy the van and leave it there

All these car owners on this thread, who themselves cause traffic, pollute the air and park on streets - but object to someone else having a vehicle - are so hypocritical.

Car owners seem to think other people should not own vehicles.

Insurance on road is extortionate.
Pay for storage

We used to have that problem before we converted our front garden to a parking space - we’d just park somewhere else locally and move it when a space opened up. Normally it’s quieter in the evening when people using shops/station have gone home.

Parking 50m away from the houses seems like a good compromise. But why buy a campervan if you're not going to use it? We're away in ours all the time.

Hmm good point. I’d not factored in insurance costs at all yet.

TBH this isn’t a well formed plan - it just came up that the relative wants to sell their van and my first thought was “oooh we could buy it off them…but where would we keep it?”

Our neighbour has done this and we actually don’t mind - massive caravan plus a huge estate car - but they are elderly eccentrics and I sort of love them! It does make things extra awkward when someone gets a skip.
I reckon park it down the end not outside anyone’s house and you’d be alright.

Obviously we’d use it, but it’ll be there most of the time. I’m not thinking it won’t move at all for months, but most of the year it would be there, in roughly the same place.

Surely your neighbours are more annoyed by people who don't live there parking to go to the station/shops? That would wind my up more than a neighbours van. And do many of your neighbours have more than one car? If they do, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to park a van especially when your other vehicle is parked off the road.

YABU. And why outside your neighbours? Why not outside your own house? In either case everyone will hate you - get storage, there's loads about where we live in kent (about half an hour's drive from London) and I am sure you will find someething closer as well.

Pay for storage

If you do leave it on the street then chose those places that have no houses. Do be careful though as it may look like a nice thing to steal - if you live in such a place where lots of people come and go then it may be at risk of theft

The lack of parking is annoying but as I said no-one feels any ownership of particular parking spots as it’s so busy. So no-one gets in a huff about someone else parking in front of their house, it’s just expected. Price we pay for a really convenient location.

We can’t park outside our own house as we have off street parking - it’s a terrace so there’s no additional frontage. The only parking on the street is outside those houses that don’t have off street parking or spaces that aren’t directly outside someone’s house.

Exactly. Don't ask for advice if you're going to ignore it.

OP, pay for storage!

I’m not ignoring it, I am looking into it now - I had no idea this was a thing.

Ah ok, so you are alright for parking regardless of the huge big camper van. Sod the neighbours then!

I think it’s fine. It’s not that massive I assume. There is one parked near us by a neighbour, they use it a few times on summer weekends. I don’t understand the drama. And your compromise idea sounds even less controversial

I would be most worried about it being stolen to be honest, especially if it’s a conversion insurance will be expensive and you might not get back the value of converting it again IYSWIM

So fuller context - our relative is older, used to use this van all the time but is no longer able to manage it, but readying it for sale is a bit overwhelming for them.

My impulsive thought was we could take it off them, give it some TLC and use it a bit over a few months, then decide whether we want to keep it or arrange a private sale on behalf of the relative.

I did feel it was really out of order to leave it parked in front of someone else’s house as despite it being a free for all on our street, it’s a bit big and wouldn’t move much. But I feel better about it remembering that at the end of the road we can just park next to a wall that’s not going to be directly visible to any of the houses on the street.

I think maybe that’s OK - we could take it for a bit and keep it parked on the street while we’re sorting it out, then decide on what’s happening to it long term, which might be that we keep it but it needs storage.

i’ve just looked outside the window and counted up - at our end of the street there’s six houses that don’t have off street parking and on street parking for about 20 cars. Most of the houses without off street parking are older people without cars - nearly everyone with a car has converted their garden to parking because it’s so hard to park otherwise.

Sounds like you have sorted out a much better plan OP. Another thing to consider when parking up a large vehicle on a street where some have off-road parking is the visibility issue. These larger style vehicles can massively restrict a driver's view of the road when trying to get off their driveways which might cause some friction if this was to be an almost permanent fixture.
Anyway, I hope it works out well for you and happy camping!

Even if you just park it just to do up, where will the car owners, who use the length of the road park during this time? Will there be space for them? That would be the deciding factor tbh. It appears from what you’ve said your houses are narrower than a car parking space so I’m guessing this space you’re planning to use is regularly occupied.

If it's a reasonably nice van you'd be mad to park it on the street anyway. They are at high risk of being stolen. For that reason find somewhere you can store it off-road.

It is pretty unneighbourly for sure.

Just pay to park it up somewhere outside the city? Loads of sites offer this

Also, OP says it's a large transit (so assume LWB?), that's hardly "massive". As long as you don't park it opposite someone's lounge windows 24/7 I think you are being respectful.

Someone did this and parked it outside my house. My living room was darker and if I wanted to look out at the road all I could see was the side of their van. It was awful. I hated my neighbour. Please park it somewhere else.