Neighbours have decided that myself and NDN park some of our cars in another street to make it fairer for everyone. AIBU to ignore the request?

[SumoFarah]

I live on a street with unrestricted parking and few driveways. I know it might sound excessive but my family and NDN family have 7 cars between us. I can’t get a drive out in as the street is really narrow so I would need the space opposite to be empty in order to exit.

A neighbour on the street knocked on my and NDN to explain that our six cars take up too much space and means that:

1. neighbours who finish work late can never get a space so have to park on another street and walk
2. their weekend visitors can never get a space
3. on weekends they sometimes have to park in the middle of the road to unload their shopping and then go and find somewhere else to park

We we’re told that ‘they all’ think everyone should agree to use a maximum of 2 spaces to use as they wish and any further space needed should be used in the free car park about 1/2 mile away.

Also that the two teenagers (one mine, one NDN) don’t need cars as they are still in school so should have no need for cars anyway.

I get that parking spaces are at a premium, and can be frustrating when all the spaces are taken, but I don’t want myself or my dc to walk 1/2 mile in the dark (or the light, for that matter) just to placate the neighbours when there’s a space available. All our cars are pretty much used on a daily basis.

NDN told the messenger neighbour that it’s first-come-first-served. I do understand the annoyance but don’t agree with the suggestion because some houses only have one car and some houses don’t have a car, so should balance out in theory, but obviously doesn’t in practice.

Would I be unreasonable to ignore the ‘request’?

Suggestions welcomed.

Neighbour is being totally unreasonable by:

*telling you you can't park your cars anywhere it's legal to do so
*telling you you don't need all those cars
*telling you that "they all" think the same thing
*telling you where you should park.

He has no right to do that.

However, you have seven cars between you. Legally parked or not, that's an unreasonable amount of cars to park where the parking is shared between your family and society. What do you expect people to think?

Can no one read? She doesn’t have a driveway and never said she did nor does she have seven cars for one household.

OP YANBU. You are as entitled as anybody else to park on the road.

I do think the 7 cars between two houses is a red herring, you have 3. And like many households when a child grows up, this is just a car each for the people living in the house who all can drive to work/education.

I would look at putting in a drive, but think about if your DS will be living at home long term, if he’s likely to go to uni and take his car with him, this is only another year issue.

If anyone down the road has a driveway they don't use you could ask them if they would mind one of you parking there (for payment)

You have it spot on. I’m going to go with this - and whichever of my dc get back first from school or uni can park further away so no one has to walk in the dark.

I don't think for one second that you think you're being unreasonable, or that any comment on this thread will convince you otherwise. We've got a neighbour like you. Everyone who lives up our end of the street thinks they're an absolute bell end.

You have 3 cars. Your neighbour having 4 has bugger all to do with you. They clearly resent the teenagers having cars which is unreasonable. I’d carry on parking wherever there is space tbh

That selfish, entitled neighbour everyone wishes would move house.

What will you do if your road becomes restricted and you can only get 2 permits per house? This happened in our old house.

This is what used to annoy me about our previous house. People would park on bends, corners, across drives, on cobbles and even double park. Their excuse was that their 4 bed house only had one parking space. Yes, true, but they also had a garage and knew when they bought the house what parking spaces they had.

Its not your neighbours fault that you have too many cars OP and you should consider the inconvenience to the people who live near you.

I think a lot of people are misreading this for some reason @op ! Don't take the harsh responses to heart.

You have 3 cars. No drive. So you park on the road. It’s a non issue.

I'm not being funny, but if you need 7 cars, surely when you were looking for somewhere to live you should have taken into account the st, other properties and what was available to you on your own driveway? Whenever i move house i always make sure there's enough parking for my household's car's on the driveway and room for visitors. I think thats a common curtesy, i know people will say thats not always possible, but i grew up somewhere where we had excessive parking and we were well aware how spoilt/ lucky we were, especially when we grew up and moved into town, and bought our first properties. Yep you're unreasonable and it must be incredibly stressful for your neighbours to arrive home at night after a long day at work or with the weekly shop and be unable to park outside their own properties' and they shouldn't have to prearrange this with you. So i suspect this has been their solution after long discussions as a group

I think it’s totally selfish to park more than 2 cars per household in a street with limited parking. I say that as someone with 3 cars (me, dh and dd1 - 17yo). We park one on our drive, one on the street and one around the corner on the street where all houses have large driveways so it’s low impact on others. I would never tell a neighbour that as a rule though, I’d just quietly judge them as selfish arseholes.

I think most house holds would have 3 cars wouldn’t they? Myself and dh have a car each for work and 4 children so inevitably they will learn to drive.
When I lived at home I had a car and so did both my parents and brothers as did most of the families in the road, we had a large driveway but it wouldn’t have stopped me needing a car if we didn’t.
Really not that uncommon.

Thank you; yes, quite.

I summarised the info as it was presented to me, but I can see that caused some confusion.

They are saving to buy houses. If they paid market rent they wouldn’t have enough spare to save.

Thank you 🙏

The neighbour request is not something I would agree with as they cannot insist on this it is an open road. However the parking and not using the drive is very selfish and will be annoying your neighbours. There is a house like this where I live and everyone talks about how annoying and unreasonable it is. If you want to be well considered in your neighbourhood you might want to show willing. If the road does get resident parking you won't be allowed all those passes I think.

No. Most households do NOT have 3 cars. 28 homes in my street. Only 7 properties have more than 2 vehicles, around 7 have 2, the other 14 have none or 1. Not everyone has one car for each person who lives there!

Our 2 DC both drive, and have a car, but they have their own home. They both have a partner, and whilst both partners can drive, neither partner has a car, so they are 2-person, 1-car households!

.

I'm with the neighbours here, but they can't do anything about it.

In our case it’s a road where only half has houses so we always park on the part where there isn’t any houses, if there’s no spaces then we park a little further in a dead end by a church but that is the least preferable options as it’s a bit too quiet!

YANBU the cars are taxed and insured I presume so carry on, ignore the neighbours and their bloody rules.

I’d be concerned that if they complain, you’ll end up with a permit system. That happened here because our old next door neighbour had three cars. We’re now only allowed two residents permits and a visitors permit per house, and the visitors permit cannot be used by the same car for more than 10 days a month.

Except she doesn't have a driveway! 😂