PARKING WAR - from Day 1 of moving into new house!

[BreezyBertha]

Diagram attached!

So, moved into new house on Thursday. Our house is one of two houses at the bottom of a cul de sac. We own half the access road to our drive, house next to us owns the other half. Turning into our drive is tight as we have to go round a bend and need to pull out onto neighbours side and also reverse onto it as there are concrete bollards bordering it.

Neighbouring house has been empty for a while I believe and and sold last month so will be empty for a few more probably. Our house was empty for a while before we moved in.

Neighbours who live in the house at the end of the road just before our private road starts. have obviously taken to parking on our access road as both houses have been empty. They have two cars but one car drive. There is very little parking on the public road in front of their house and they have concrete bollards cordoning off their front garden so can’t pull into there. There is parking further up a few minutes walk away.

Anyhow, DH drove the removal van up on Thursday to find their car parked on our private road, blocking him from getting onto it. He asked them to move and politely asked them not to park there. They moved the car after a bit of ‘um we’ve been parking here for a while now, houses were empty so it’s ok’.

Well they’re not empty now! I mean WTF??

The wife then came out while we were unpacking and seemed friendly so we introduced ourselves etc. She then said she parks in our bit of road from 9pm when she finishes work so it’s ok! Also that she has family nearby who come to visit and they need to park. We said they can’t block our road so please don’t park there

Later in the same evening, they parked there again and I couldn’t get out, so DH knocked and said you need to move your car. Husband was not happy but moved it off our bit of road further back opposite his house where the public road starts. It is very tight but we can just about squeeze through.

Today they had the family they mentioned over. One car parked in empty neighbouring house’s drive, another on the private access road. DH couldn’t get into the drive so sat beeping his horn.

About 5 or 6 men came out, one the neighbours father and the others his brothers/BILs, telling us we have room and they don’t need to move! They were also saying they don’t live here so it’s fine to park on our road if visiting! Things got a bit shouty as we said they had no right to park there and should not be on the private access road at all. In the end they conceded that they needed to move from the access road but left the car in the empty neighbours drive! I did say what are you going to do when buyers move in!

They seem to think that as they’ve been parking there for a while, it is now their parking area!

They only moved in in February so have not been here long themselves and just took advantage of the fact ours and neighbouring house were empty.

I just can’t get over the entitlement. They have no business even coming off the public road and over the dropped kerb into our access road. It’s trespass!

Obviously I don’t want an expensive legal battle. Can’t put bollards up as new neighbours would need to agree and they have not moved in yet.

I can tell this is going to carry on though so what can we do? We actually bought this house for the big 3 car drive and had no idea we’d have issues with neighbours who shouldn’t even be entering our bit of road. Getting really stressed about it as just want to live in peace!

Title deed attached with my diagram added. . Our house is bordered in red, empty neighbouring house in blue and CFs house in green.

Obviously they can’t park there. Electric gates?

Increasingly I feel like there should be some way to ban people from owning more cars than the house they have bought can accommodate. Selfish pricks.

Get hold of the other owners via estate agent. It'll cost a couple of thousand pounds for an automated bollard, well worth it.

I would put a gate up if possible or bollards for sure.

Is the access road intended as parking, or as a road though? From the looks of your diagram, you have parking outside your house, as do potential NDN, and that access road is exactly that- for access. Therefore your new neighbours won’t be parking there, and your CF neighbours absolutely shouldn’t be now the houses are occupied as you need access in/out and space for emergency vehicles etc.
I’d get some big plant pots and block that side where they park, wait til your new neighbours move in and between you deal with the CF neighbours as they can’t feasibly think it’s acceptable to block access to two houses that are occupied, surely? You’ll have a lot more weight to your argument when both houses are occupied and there’s two of you challenging the CF’s

Streets with no drives are fun... especially when neighbour had 3 cars for 2 people and other one frequently parks flatbed work lorry in the street. Another I know of has all work vehicles which have blocked access for the disabled bus to pick up one of the kids I work with. They are reluctant to move these things out of the way despite knowing the reason.

Yeah great idea 🙄 add another vehicle to the mix and give the OP another car to move out of the way when they come and go from the property.

If a fire engine can't get past, you've got a problem.
Can you get double yellows put in?
If they're blocking your entrance, you can't do much, but if they're blocking your exit the police can be called.
I would start logging how often this is happening in case you need it in the future.

Yep, we’re a semi detached with a tiny drive, at the end of a row of terraces. It’s fine for us because we have one small car, as we don’t need more because it’s very well connected to local public transport, 10 minutes walk in either direction to 2 thriving high streets and half an hour walk from the city centre. Can’t use our drive though because if we park on it, we will be blocked on by someone parking over the drive. Every time.

These are people who’ve chosen to buy these not inexpensive terraced houses who have 2 + SUVs and often another car as well which cock up the entire balance. Why? Why do they live here? If you want multiple cars move to an estate with off-road parking. What’s the point paying a premium to live somewhere so accessible by walking and public transport if you’re going to drive everywhere anyway?

Wait till the owners move in to empty house and put an electric gate in.

Can't you?

I lived in a flat which had parking via a driveway down the side of the house. Someone parked across the driveway blocking us in. We phoned the police and someone came and towed the car away. This was in London.
They were parked illegally.

@MyDeftDuck this is exactly how I solved a similar issue. After months of trying to be polite this l worked straight away. Their indignation at being blocked in was mind boggling 😆

Devils advocate time...

Is it obvious that this part of the private access is not the general road? Is it marked in any way? Because otherwise it just looks like the road outside of CFs house?

This.
I knew someone who moved into a new build and it became apparent that if they parked in their reasonable place, the neighbours couldn’t access their garage.
It had to be solved both legally and financially but it was the developer who handled it and covered all costs.

That won’t solve the visitor problem sadly.

Most new houses are only built with 1.5 car parking spaces. I understand the desire to try and incentivise use of public transport but that's not the way to do it. All it does is clog up local roads as the reality is most households will have two cars, and sometimes more as adult children stay at home longer.

From your post they sound like right CFs. More cars than sense.

Just to clarify from your diagram though, they are parking on one side of that road? Is it private, as in it’s in your deeds that you own it or is it that it just leads to access your house?

We have newish neighbours ; couple with 2 adult DC . 4 cars and a camper van . Camper van sits on the 3 car drive so 4 cars cause chaos .
I might start a thread !

I don’t think the problem is people parking on the drive, but on the private access road to it. Nobody should be parking on the access road because it facilitates shared access to both drives.

Former neighbours of ours: 4 adults inclduing grown-up DC, 2 garages and 2 off-road spaces in the middle of town. Both garages full of stuff and motorbikes, one parking space covered by a pile of firewood, one car on the other parking space, other three cars on the streets. And she used to moan like anything if someone parked in front of her house, glare out of her kitchen window and get shirty at the drop of a hat.

The world is full of them, sadly.

I’m not understanding why a fire engine or any other emergency vehicle would need to get past given that it’s a shared private access road leading to two private driveways.

To the house???

I think some of the problems are greedy developers maximising the land and not providing enough parking . An estate near me has shared ownership housing and has allowed only one car parking space per residence and has bought in a private parking company to police it , now a lot of its residents are parking on bends & in awkward places on nearby estates .

Put a sign at the bottom of the road saying private road no parking so it's clearly communicated.

When I bought and renovated a property up a small single lane road, part of the submission to Planning was sufficient driveway size for my family. It was queried by the Planning Office too as they wanted to guarantee that our cars wouldn’t be blocking others.

Yet, further down the lane, a family have just moved in and they have 4 vehicles and no driveway, so they regularly make the lane inaccessible to cars trying to pass. Emergency vehicles would have zero chance of getting passed. I drive a T6 and it’s tight. It annoys the heck out of me and my neighbours.

Politely written note with a copy of your deeds showing that you own that bit of road.

They might think you are being CF and are trying to claim communal parking as your own. If they are renters rather than owners, they won’t have seen deeds of the road. And if there aren’t any signs up saying “private road, no parking here” then it may not be clear to them at all.

They are probably going around saying “These CF have moved in next door and are lording it up thinking they own the road!” So you need to make it clear to them with evidence that you do actually own the road! 😂

And put a sign up.