Neighbours and parking hell - I've contacted the landlord

[ValsCupcakes]

I live in a square, and about half of those houses are owned and rented out by landlords. I own mine and so do the other half. A woman and her teenage daughter moved in a few months ago. She is divorced and their son lives with her XH. They have upset most people in the time since they arrived, which was in May. There are allocated parking spaces and they don't use them. They just nick everyone else's. They've been heard yelling at a neighbour over parking and calling him a cunt, parking across exits and blocking people in and parking outside others' houses. They have two cars and the daughter who doesn't work has just passed her test and got this Fiat, so the car barely moves, she just dumps it. It was abandoned (literally, it was shocking parking) outside my house last night when I got home after a very long shift at 10pm so I had to park somewhere down the street and get piss wet through walking back to my house and piss wet through walking to the car this morning too. It was left outside someone else's house for about a week last week.

If it is still there when I get home tonight I am going to knock on their door and ask them to shift it and not use my space again. They do have spaces, they just need to use them. I have already messaged the landlord (who gave another neighbour permission to pass on his number) and told him this, and that I will contact him again if they give me a load of abuse.

Am I doing the right thing and if not what would you advise? They've upset at least six separate houses in less than six months!

If it’s allocated to you, can you get a bollard installed?

My friend lives in sheltered housing and has an allocated disabled space with an electric charging point installed and it still gets parked in, and she’s regularly given filthy abuse if she speaks to them about it. She can’t install a bollard as she wouldn’t be able to operate it unless it was remotely operated.

Rare they actual numbered spaces that are allocated? Or assumed spaces?

It's the norm for private flats in these parts to have allocated parking.

OP is in a house, so I’m wondering if the neighbours parking was allocated number outside her house, why park elsewhere?

I’m very confused by all the irrelevant information in the OP… they rent/she is divorced/son lives with ex etc. But regarding the parking, if the spaces are actually allocated, not just you think it’s your space because it’s outside your house, then tell them to move. Simple.

I don’t know if it’s your intention but your OP reads to me like you feel this family is in some way inferior because of their lifestyle. It has little to do with the perfectly reasonable point you are making about parking.

If the parking is specially allocated then of course they should only park where permitted.

Contacting the landlord to ensure he advises the tenants of their allocated space is perfectly reasonable. Once he has done that there is very little else he can do.

The only further action he could take if they are abusive to you is to threaten to end the tenancy. It’s a hollow threat with the proposed ending of section 21, as the reality of trying to evict a tenant for anti social behaviour is that’s it’s normally not possible.

@LumpyandBumps I think they think they are entitled. I also DO think someone who calls people a cunt in the street for simply being asked to park in their own spaces are inferior, for what it's worth.

Presumably though, if the landlord gave notice now, to end at the end of the tenancy it would still be possible to evict under S21? So if there are complaints about behaviour he has the means at present.

Every time they park illegally, call parking enforcement. When they park legally but inconsiderately, put those big sticky difficult-to-remove labels on the windscreen telling them they park like idiots.

Are these officially allocated and numbered spaces that go with the houses?

They aren't numbered as such as in they are painted on the road but they are on the deeds.

If it is your space that you own this needs to be made clear visually on the space. Get it painted on e.g. "Number X" like you see in flat car parks.

To be honest I would be annoyed if I parked in an unmarked space in the road and someone told me to move - if there's no signage etc then it's presumed to be public road/space.

So if they’re on the deeds, are the neighbours aware? They won’t have seen the feeds.

The deeds actually say you own the spaces outside your house exclusively?

@LumpyandBumps I do also think that the information I have given sets the family in context. They started shouting at neighbours the day they moved in, asking one woman "what are you looking at?". They've played loud music. They had an Olympics party in the garden that went on until 3am. As I have said they've argued in the street with people asking them to use their own parking spaces and called them abusive names.

I got home one day in the summer to find a car outside my house with a man inside it in the passenger seat. I asked him if the car would be moving so I could park mine outside my house and he said "I'm waitin' for 'er at No 12" as if I knew who he meant. It looked like he was an unofficial driving instructor as the girl has recently passed her test. He clearly didn't teach her how to park as she has quite simply chucked it at an angle in front of my house.

It's not on the road. It is directly in front of my house. You park with the front of the car in front of the front door, it is not on-road parking. There are plenty of places for them to park without taking spaces that householders use. They are doing it because they think they are entitled. See my post above this one. I've been parking there for 12 years, and they know I always park outside my house.

is there a management company that organises painting and the square (so you have some form of leasehold)

as they could take action against the landlord owner? (thats what would happen in my flat, where we have allocated spaces). The landlord could potentially forfeit their lease if they don't sort it out.

If not, then you take your own enforcement action against the person who is parking in your space (costly). But i'd keep contacting the landlord over and over to make them give the tennants notice to keep you off their back. they may refuse and then you are back to costly enforecement action on your space.

I hate the knee jerk ‘report to the landlord’ attitude some homeowners have. What would you do if they owned OP? I’d do that. And get the numbers painted on for the future.

Weird to have an allocated space, but not actually have numbers painted on it. I can see why your neighbours think they can park anywhere and get annoyed when people confront them.

If you own the space, I suggest you get a penguin bollard installed.

I deal with many a car parking complaint in my job as I work for a housing association, and parking REALLY gets people riled up. We have a scheme like yours in a square, with assigned parking but randomly the spaces in front of the front door, is not necessarily the one assigned to that house. But of course some people want to park out front their house, others in their allocated space. Utter carnage!!

Speak to their landlord and get them to remind their tenant on where to park.

Sorry I don't understand - it's not road but also not a driveway? So is the whole square a private road kind of thing?

Could you find an image of similar on Google or add a diagram to make it clearer?

Regardless of whether they are generally a 'difficult' family it's hard to say YANBU about the parking specifically of there is no markings at all and it's just meant to be presumed that all spaces are 'owned' by the property they are next to.

Ok … we need a diagram!

Not very good but the red is my house and the blue is theirs. The larger blue area is where they should park, ie they have parking behind their house that they can't be bothered to use.

If they are tenants they won't have seen the deeds as the house does not belong to them. Of course this does not excuse their behaviour. Can you and other residents, owners and tenants agree to take pictures of their cars parked in the wrong spaces and if they don't want to get further involved you can show the pictures to the landlord?

If the entry to the square doesn't mark it as 'private land' and the middle square part of your diagram is lined with unmarked spaces then I would consider them free spaces available on a first-come first-served basis 🤷‍♂️ Sorry that's probably not what you want to hear.

In the context of neighbourly relations I personally would stop parking there if asked because it's just not worth the hassle to me (and I would worry about my car being vandalised!). But if your neighbours aren't reasonable, I think you'll need to look at clearly marking your space as privately owned/unavailable if you want to stop them parking there.

I took a picture of the one outside mine and sent it to him this morning.

Well that’s not clear at all to me that they should be parking behind their house if they see everyone else parking inside the square in front of their houses - also as they are new how are they to know whose car is whose?

You need to number your spaces with paint or something - otherwise it just looks like free for all parking.