Parking bay disaster

[newhouse12345]

Hi all, NC because of previous posts

We recently bought a property and having lived here for 2 months, we have been informed by the council that our drive isn't official and the council are going to install a parking bay across our drive.

We have a drive for 2 cars, which is paved and is identical to our neighbours. The kerb is very low profile so you wouldn't know by sight that ours is any different. But the neighbours got the official sign off years ago, and apparently ours didn't! The rule have changed now, so we don't qualify to apply for one!!

Now we are stuck with a driveway that we cant make official and will potentially be blocked by a single parking space.

The council consulted with the owner in April- when we were in the process of purchasing the property.

I'm frustrated that this wasn't flagged when we purchased it. All the house documents claim that it has off street parking and there was no mention of council consultation on any local issues.

Is it just one of those things? Should we have been more thorough? Either way I'm annoyed as off street parking was part of the appeal of the property.

Ouch. It does look like your solicitor massively dropped the ball - I would expect a dropped kerb to be covered under the searches, and if the seller fobbed off the solicitor with “can’t find the docs” then the solicitor should have a) let you know and b) done the appropriate searches to see whether planning had been applied for - I assume dropped kerbs are recorded.

Going from 2 spaces to effectively none is not great, but I don’t think you’ll gain a huge amount from protesting. Do you really need 2 cars in London long term?

So our solicitor did flag to us that he couldn't prove the 'dropped kerb documents' but we were told it was applied for before his ownership and he didn't have access to it 🤷🏻‍♀️ we had no reason to believe it was because he didn't have it.
Our drive and kerb profile is identical to our neighbours and most of our road (some people have full gardens, no off street parking)
So we had no reason to believe the parking wasn't legitimate.

I don't know if this would be classes as misrepresentation? Or if we haven't done the correct due diligence?

I think we need to get independent legal advice

Couple of additional thoughts:

Talk to people who ran the local meetings. Ask if vendor or his representative was present. As if anyone would be prepared to say this in court.

Your solicitor is partially to blame. He will have indemnity insurance.

In practical terms I wonder how much it is worth fighting this. Are people really going to be arseholes enough to park in a spot that is very clearly in front of someone's driveway? Could you buy a teeny banger and keep it permanently parked on your drive so it's clear it is used? One that's so old it doesn't need tax?

If it plays out that the latter isn't practical and people do turn out to be arseholes, I would be be considering going after the pair of them. It depends on how much you care about the house really. If it's just a house to live and there are many similar houses, I would probably be seriously considering going after the vendor for misrepresentation with a view to getting him to buy the house back.

As pp said, there were no forms, so he lied, and I assume you have that in writing.

It is a pity 2 terrace houses can’t apply for the dropped kerb to be shared across the double width of their frontages, then split to the house driveways…

Your solicitor has massively dropped the ball here, the lack of documents amongst other things should have been huge red waving flags that they should have been transparent to you about rather than ah its fine. I don't think you've done anything wrong as you should be able to trust someone doing their job when you don't have the same insight and awareness of problems, I'd full expect them to say to you this is a potential problem and not rely on you to say that sounds weird.

As for recourse I'd be interested in how the council communicated the drive issues back in April (which is before you purchased), I'd also collate anything you have written in regards to this- from the advert to the email comms and seek independent advice.

In practical terms I wonder how much it is worth fighting this. Are people really going to be arseholes enough to park in a spot that is very clearly in front of someone's driveway?

In Greater London on a road with no other on road parking? It'll be constantly in use even in front of a drive.

So for any other issue (such as planning) where the vendor couldn’t supply documents, I would expect to purchase an indemnity, that you can claim on if it turns out that issue hadn’t in fact been sorted. If the paperwork was asked for, the seller said he couldn’t find it, and you proceeded anyway then you’re probably on your own. Yes, I would have expected the solicitor to have let you know if the potential implications of not having the paperwork but they aren’t always that great.

i think it’s more likely that you could complain about the searches failing to reveal the consultation on parking.

I doubt he would have attended as he wasn't living in the property and he wouldn't be impacted as he was selling. But the property was empty and he would have received all correspondence for the address.

Obviously your suggestion is ridiculously inconvenient. Who would but an old car outside their property? I don't want to look at a banger all day! And move it constantly so my family can park on our drive.

My main concern how far the council will take it. Are they going to put a bay as we have been told 'to show residents were they are legally allowed to park' or are they going to penalise people who continue to use their drive?

Yes we need 2 cars as my partner has a van for work and I have a family car.

The parking was a large consideration when purchasing the house.

It feels like a huge blow as we'v only lived here a few months and we went through a year of hell trying to sell/ purchase. It's a stress I could really do without

It does not as so many people are saying sound like the solicitor has dropped the ball.

The solicitor flagged up the issue. OP says So our solicitor did flag to us that he couldn't prove the 'dropped kerb documents' but we were told it was applied for before his ownership and he didn't have access to it 🤷🏻‍♀️ we had no reason to believe it was because he didn't have it.
Our drive and kerb profile is identical to our neighbours and most of our road (some people have full gardens, no off street parking)
So we had no reason to believe the parking wasn't legitimate.

The solicitor also asked if they had concerns and OP told them they hadn't. If they had indicated they did have concerns then they would have been addressed.

However the seller has clearly misrepresented the issue knowing full well it wasn't a case of not being able to access them but they didn't exist. The redress is against them. Ask an agent to tell you the difference in value between a house with a drive and the house without. That's the damages claim.

Further contact the council and explain yiu didn't take advantage of the offer to apply as you were buying at the time and see whether they will let you apply now and how to go about this as the form would obviously suggest it might normally be rejected.

You say "low profile kerb", so is it not a traditional dropped kerb? I have a dropped kerb and don't recall it being flagged at all as to whether it had paperwork. The only driveway mention was asking if it was permeable.

I can't imagine the council would take action about you continuing to use your drive. Obviously that doesn't detract from the ballache of people parking there though.

We had concerns that a window in our garage had been put in without the relevant permissions. The previous owners had no proof one way or the other so their solicitor offered an indemnity insurance, just in case.

I know a lot of people say the insurances aren't worth much, but in this case it might have been useful. At the point there was uncertainty about the dropped kerb the solicitors should really have covered it off with a policy.

I know of the issues you describe though OP. I used to live in Harrow and when I was looking at properties there was a mix of those that had had driveways for years and the neighbouring houses that didn't have one, but now couldn't have one because the rules had changed.

Those houses that didn't have a dropped kerb, but continued parking on their "driveways" would often come back to find a bollard had been placed on the pavement, blocking their access.

It's really shitty of the previous owner though. They clearly knew what they were doing.

In the end do you want to expend energy chasing seller, solicitors, and/or EAs for fibbing or screwing up. Or spend that energy getting together with other residents and working on the council to get them to see sense.
In the first case if you won the best you could hope for would be some recompense and you'd still have the issue. And it's a very big if.
In the circumstances it's about tomorrow not yesterday. even though your seller deserves a metaphorical shoeing.

Perhaps it isn't an either/or. The OP needs to find the energy to pursue both the vendor and the council.

I agree with @Spirallingdownwards .

Your solicitor does not visit the property so it is very important that you flag up anything that you're worried about. You were asked about the driveway and dropped kerb, but didn't express any concerns. Therefore any further enquiries about it were not undertaken.

The local search will not show up dropped kerbs, though if there are any planning permissions/building regs documents that would be recorded.

In hindsight, one way of researching the area you are moving to is to join a local neighbourhood chat/facebook group, where you might have found other residents vocal about this problem.

The vendor answered that there was a driveway with space for two cars on the PIF. That is factually correct, but what he didn't say or add was that there was no legal right to cross over the kerb and path to access it.

Your conveyancing solicitor will not be able to act for you to pursue the vendor for misrepresentation as it does not form part of the conveyancing instruction they did for you. So, you would have to instruct a solicitor experienced in dispute resolution or litigation.

The EA would not even know if there was or was not a legal right to cross over the pavement, so you will get no recourse from them, apart from the obvious issue that they did not have a contract with you.

I completed agree with all the comments here. I feel like we haven't done anything wrong, but are now in a quite shitty situation that we didn't foresee. We are just normal hardworking people who wanted to move house.

We were asked if we had any concerns, which we didn't. Why would we? It was advertised as off street parking, it was being used as a fully paved driveway and the kerb is the same as our neighbours. All our neighbours have the same parking. If you walked down our road you could not confirm which was official or not.

I can't help but feel the advice about missing paperwork wasn't sufficient enough. We weren't told we could find out via the council or get an indemnity policy. And the seller wasn't honest.

We have contacted an independent lawyer who will review the details and confirm if we have a case or not. I'd rather know either way.

No ,i didn't know what was going on. I think it might be rare that anyone accuses me of knowing what's going on ... I posted that pic because I thought someone would say it was completely and totally wrong.

Do you have a dropped kerb or just a low normal kerb? I used to live in an area with low normal kerbs but you could tell which where approved drives as they were slightly lower but also made of a different stone.

I think joining in collective action is your best bet.

I was asked for paperwork for the dropped kerb when sold my late parents house in 2018. I didn’t have it, it was done in 1982, but I recall thinking at the time that it was an extremely odd thing to get hung up about.
obviously now I’ve read this I understand.

I’d urge you to go to your local paper with this. We’d cover it in a heartbeat and we have a pretty good success rate on council reverse ferrets.

Reminds me of this story;

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12311265/amp/Homeowners-fury-council-erects-two-bollards-pavement-outside-home-blocked-access-driveway.html

*However the seller has clearly misrepresented the issue knowing full well it wasn't a case of not being able to access them but they didn't exist. The redress is against them. Ask an agent to tell you the difference in value between a house with a drive and the house without. That's the damages claim.

Further contact the council and explain yiu didn't take advantage of the offer to apply as you were buying at the time and see whether they will let you apply now and how to go about this as the form would obviously suggest it might normally be rejected.*

I agree with this- good advice. However, I do think the solicitor wasn't sufficiently thorough. The one we used was SO thorough and when we were missing paperwork from the vendor, was like a dog after a bone - she explained the risks to us in minute detail and wouldn't let anything drop.

I really feel for you. I would be utterly furious. Do fight this.

This has been my exact experience too, OP. Dog with a bone. Took great care to explain any implications at length too.

His thoroughness is why we walked away from the purchase.

Perhaps the change in drive use is partially why your vendor was selling in the first place.

Round where I live the difference between a house with the crappiest of drives and one without is around 45k. Goodness only knows what it must be in London.

I think in this case, where it is totally obvious what the set up is, a photo would be more helpful than a diagram. A diagram doesnt show us the actual kerb, nor an idea of the space (hard to visualise with measurements).