Its a parking one

[DeathStare]

I live on a street with victorian terraced houses. It's not a main road and is very narrow, so parking is often a nightmare. There is no other parking nearby (we're off a main road with double yellow lines)

My neighbour (next door but one) has started parking one car on their paved front garden. It has no lowered kerb, no white line, nothing official saying nobody can park in front of it.

I came home earlier - with toddler and shopping - and there was no other parking space that would fit my car. So I parked outside their house blocking their car in.

They just came and asked me to move it so they can get the car out - which is fair enough and exactly what i expected. So I went straight out to move the car (with the toddler).

I pulled my car backwards so they could get out, then pulled forward into the same space to park there again. The neighbour pulled up next to me and said I'd have to move it again when he comes back so that he can park there again and basically told me to park somewhere else.

I said no. Im happy to move it if they need to get out but im not leaving a perfectly legal parking space (and then driving round the local area trying to find another one, in the rain with a toddler) when its not an official driveway and Im not moving it again so they can park there again.

Neighbour was really not happy and I half expect him to come and demand i move it when he gets back. AIBU?

He needs to get a dropped kerb. That’s it really isn’t it?

If parking is such an issue, he likely wouldn’t be approved for the dropped kerb. If he wants a driveway then he needs to try and do it properly but he cannot demand that you move so he can access his garden.

I’d tell him that I’ll park elsewhere once the council approve his driveway and he has paid for a dropped kerb, but I won’t be moving for his garden.

You are in the right. If it's not a dropped kerb then you can park there.

His parking was illegal and he has a cheek

His parking wasn’t illegal, his actions to get to the parking spot were

I said that. He said that the council had told him he was fine to park there.

Your parking was perfectly legal yes. He does not have the right to just stop other people parking in front of his garden if there is no dropped curb. He also doesn't have the right to get you to keep coming out to move your legally parked car to let him drive in an out of an entrance that isn't an entrance.

However, be careful you don't uphold your right to park there and actually make it harder for yourself to park. If he gets wind of the fact you are not going to move your car for him (which you don't legally need to do), he may just start taking the spot you legally park in outside his garden, whenever he can.

This could means that his car sits legally parked for days outside his house (when he has no-where to go) and you have to come and go, parking in different random spaces further away. If you'd not objected to him using his garden, all that time he might have parked on his garden, enabling you to use the space undisturbed.

If that were true, then they’d have approved a dropped kerb and he could pay to have that installed.

So nope, they didn’t say they. Tell him that once his dropped kerb is installed, you won’t park in front of it. But until then, it is just on street parking like the rest of the road.

Im not sure he would get permission for a dropped kerb. The front gardens are only very short. He has one of the smallest possible cars and it still overhangs onto the pavement slightly.

Then he doesn’t have a driveway, doesn’t have a hope of a driveway, the council haven’t given him permission. It’s a garden. That’s it. None of those is your problem; park where you want.

That would actually be preferable. His car is so tiny I could probably still fit. That's where he used to park until a few weeks ago.

Yeah he’s lying. If he carries on demanding you move your car, report him to the council. Or though him parking there frees up one space for others to be able to park on the road.

Although the posts about him not being allowed to drive across the path are correct it’s worth remembering that if he doesn’t then he’ll just be using the space on the road in front of it, so the street isn’t gaining a space by using the one in front of his house if it results in him parking in the street again.

This being the case, is it worth getting into a dispute over?

The length of his car is shorter than the width of his garden, so this would be better - and is what he was doing until a few weeks ago!

Only suggestion I would make is that if you have a rear garden you could turn that into a parking space, although if another road is facing that you might have the same issue. I used to live in a terraced house and we had a back alley big enough to get cars down, so a few properties did turn their gardens into driveways.

I had this EXACT same issue with a terrace house in Oxford! We had an "offroad parking space" but didn't have a dropped kerb, so it wasn't actually a parking space.

Legally, if we were parked on the drive, then other cars were not allowed to block us in, but if no car was parked, then as there was no dropped kerb then anyone could park there, which was fair enough.

The council wouldn't let us drop the kerb as they said it would then remove TWO road parking spaces (as the dropped bit has to be wide enough for a car to enter the driveway at an angle).

My housemate would usually park on the drive then I'd block him in if I couldn't find another space, and move my car if needed. I'd also often block the driveway if he was out so I saved the driveway space for him. It was a faff but did mean we both had a space with a bit of car moving.

Pull the other one!

Yes you knew what I meant, you cannot drive over a kerb

I know you said that, I was replying to the comment that said he was parking illegally

UPDATE

I'm shaking.

He came back about 15 minutes ago. Im already in bed as I'm not feeling well and toddler was asleep. He absolutely hammered on my door until I went down.

By the time I got downstairs he was sat in the car in the road outside my house. When I opened my front door he screamed at me from the car that I need to move my car so he can access his "drive". (Its not a drive).

I said no I wasn't moving the car and I was going back in as I had a toddler in the house. He carried on screaming at me to move the car and then said "if youre not going to move it, its not my responsibility if anything happens to your car". Then he screached his car to level with mine and started trying to manouvere his car round mine to get his on his "drive".

Given what he'd said about my car getting damaged, I started videoing him from my path and he started screaming at me again that if I could video him, I could move the car.

I probably should have stayed videoing but I was pretty shaken and I could hear the toddler had woken up in the house so I went back in.

A few minutes later he is relentlessly hammering on the door again. Apparently he has managed to maouvere his car onto his paved garden past mine. He says "Just to let you know im going out at 7.30am so Ill need you to move it" (not said nicely!) So I said "fine if you need me to move it, ill move it for you to get out" .

So he says "so you'll move it for me to get out?" And I said "yes if you need me to" And he said "Ive changed my mind. I'm going out again now. I need you to move it again now" So I just said "no" and he started arguing with me that I'd said I'd move it if he needed to get his car out. He was shouting at me again that the council have told him he can park his car there and has a right to access and that I'm inconsiderate.

I just shut the door and went back in but I'm still shaking

Do you have the video of him getting it on his drive?

Id be telling him he can get it on his drive, then he can clearly get it off again and then I'd go and call the police because he has made threats to damage property and verbally attacked you in the street and you fear further action from him. What a prick.

This needs reporting to the police really. Do you have anyone who can come round to sit with you?

Log it with the police. Take a photo of his car and report him to the council.

If the space is big enough for both you and he to park in then surely it’s big enough for you to park in but him to still fit out.

His car can’t be wider than it’s long, can it?

I think a diagram might help….

I would ring the police as he has threatened to damage your car.