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.

I’m sure you can clamp them though and charge a fee to release them

So confidently wrong

This.

I think gates would be better as you can put a sign on them saying no parking. I imagine your neighbours would have little problem parking in front of bollards tbh.

A letter from your solicitor enclosing a copy of the deeds will help make it official too and help in case it continues in the future.

Its an awful way to start off in your new home but needs must.

Its a criminal offence

https://www.askthe.police.uk/faq/?id=0e0cb3f6-12db-eb11-bacb-0022483f57c9

Indeed.

She then said she parks in our bit of road from 9pm when she finishes work so it’s ok!

um we’ve been parking here for a while now, houses were empty so it’s ok’.

Surely your response is, 'well, no it isn't ok'...?

Parking issues are a nightmare
We have them too.
Ask them how they'd like it if you parked across their driveway. Answer is they wouldn't.

I would put bollards up and lock them. Contact the selling agent and give spare keys to them for your new neighbours.

So excited people are entitled. F those horrid neighbours!

When we moved in we are on a private road ' new build. I have a driveway garage and a separate drive the other side of my house next to my neighbours. I put a sign with my house number on my fence at my spare driveway. The neighbour came out and said they'd hoped to park there - yes nice assumption, CFs - I said that's ok unless I need the space. We all have to fund repairing the road surfaces so it's fine. They actually haven't used it cos we have 4 cars, so that put paid to that.

Thank you for the many replies.

DH and I have decided we will block them in if they park on our road again to try to train them out of it, then ignore door, or answer if they bang loudly to disturb DC and say we’ll move it in a minute then take half an hour. DH put doorbell camera up yesterday after the kerfuffle with their family motivated him to! We’ll need to put up another camera on side of house overlooking the whole road access though.

Don’t really want to shoulder the cost of automatic bollards on our own so will wait to see what happens when next door move in.

Our youngest DC has a medical condition which has previously necessitated middle of the night dashes to hospital, and I also need to be able to get to his school or pick him up from anywhere in an emergency, which has made this more aggravating. Why the hell should we have to ask them nicely to move in a medical emergency when they are knowingly obstructing us? I doubt they’d even respond at night anyway which could mean the difference between life and death as ambulances can no longer be guaranteed to arrive in minutes or at all (we are 7 mins drive from hospital).

I also have a disabled badge on my car for this which neighbours have probably not noticed but I don’t think I need to share medical information with them when they shouldn’t even be parking in someone else’s private land!

TBH I wouldn’t be surprised if the CFers saw bollards or gates as a dead end to the road which they can then park in front of, so we’d just be providing them with extra parking on the road!

I mean I can understand it’s a pain having to park 2nd car away from house if you only have one driveway space and there’s no space on road in front (we had that with last few houses) but they would have known that from viewing the property, you don’t just decide that because nearby houses are luckily empty you’ll park there, expect to continue when they’re occupied and then start a war with the new occupiers!

They had been told not to park there before they did it enmasse with their family members! The father eventually said ‘OK I can see what you mean’, as if we needed to demonstrate to him that we were not being unreasonable when he doesn’t even live there.

I mean how dumb and entitled can you be!

Could you explain to them about your son's medical condition and the need to keep the access clear at all times. They are clearly not the most reasonable of people but even they might understand this, and it is better than being locked in perpetual warfare with a neighbour, which is frankly a nightmare.

My lovely neighbour did this when I moved across the country and left the house empty and up for sale.
The buyer insisted on written note from me that my neighbour knew they couldn't park there once the house was sold. Fair enough, and my lovely neighbour wasn't a CF either!

Signage :

Private drive
no parking at any time
acess required 24/7
Vehicles towed /clamped at owners expense

If it’s your kerb - paint it red

Although they’ll presumably know that they’re not going to get towed/clamped.

I get your idea but I don't think people should be given reasons why they can't do something they shouldn't be doing. It opens the door to "well I can do it if/when that doesn't apply eg "well you were out for the day so you wouldn't have needed an ambulance" and yes people can say stuff like this. I have come home to next door's builders blocking my drive and when I told them to move I was told "oh we thought you were out all day, can you not just go out again?"

Just get them to move every single time - eventually they'll stop.

UK, you can't generally get a car towed in this situation.

100% get a recovery garage to do the removals. Why you think can’t get a recovery garage to do this?

Because it’s a literal criminal offence to arrange a private tow of someone else’s car from private land and people can be and are prosecuted for it.

As per the link posted by another poster at 12.42 (which has a heading of ‘clamping’ but which relates to both clamping and towing).

Cheeky buggers trying to make out youre in the wrong. Is it possible to install a gate/barrier as suggested?

I can't believe the amount of people that think you can just get someone's car clamped or towed away.

Because you need a court order to remove a vehicle from private land.

And any garage that would do it is seriously dodgy (because they would either be knowingly breaking the law or have no idea of the laws around what they do) and the OP and her DH would end up civilly liable for any damage the towing company cause as well as having committed a criminal offence themselves.

It's always like this. Who pays for the tow? Who pays the impoundment cost? Where is it impounded? A tow without the keys is going to need a flatbed too.

There's no company you can ask to do this for free. And they're certainly not going to do it gratis on the hope the car owner will eventually reimburse them.

It just doesn't work like that.

Not in the UK you can’t.

If anyone is interested, the ‘no towing / clamping on private land’ was brought in because of dodgy companies that would trick people into parking somewhere with a tiny, deliberately obscured ‘no parking’ sign then clamp or tow the car and charge hundreds for it to be released. They could make thousands a day in some areas.