Neighbours being funny over parking

[seabrooks1945]

We moved into our new home 3-4 months ago. It’s a beautiful house in a nice, quiet area with good schools. The only issue is the parking situation. We have a driveway that can fit 1 small car. I park my car there, and my husband has to park his bigger car on the street right in front of me, blocking me in. So far, we’ve just been shuffling the cars around to get in and out, but with work, kids, school runs, and all the activities, it’s becoming a hassle. My husband recently started parking on the road outside our neighbours house to make things easier, but every time he moves his car, they park their car there instead. They used to always park in on the driveway until now, so it feels a bit suspicious. Are they sending us hints? Do you think it’s a good idea for us to have a conversation about it? How would you go about it?

The only way to solve this is to talk to them - ask if they mind your DH parking there and if there are any times he should avoid, e.g. if they have regular visitors?

Otherwise your choice is to park elsewhere, or continue to park in front of the neighbours' house when the space is free, knowing you're probably pissing them off.

How would that be? Two cars must be able to afford a house with two spaces?

If you can afford to run 2 cars you could have afforded a house with 2 parking places...

This assertion doesn’t remotely hold for vast swathes of urban Britain.

Out of interest, why don't you have the same amount of space in front of yours?

I want to know if there’s a dropped kerb involved.

OP if you have a dropped kerb it is legal for you to park across it as you can’t block your own access. It is not legal for a neighbour to park over your dropped kerb (if you have one) and block your drive.

If there is no dropped kerb then it sounds like you should not even be parking on your “drive” as you are not supposed to cross the footpath if there is not a dropped kerb.

If there is no dropped kerb and you are using your drive then I suggest you act like a good neighbour to avoid them reporting you for illegally crossing the footpath.

We need a diagram OP!

"Only in front of our drive. He has to block me in if he wants to park in front of the house, which is exactly what we've been doing. "

Confused about how you can only park in front of your own house by blocking your dropped kerb but can do the same for the neighbours house without being anywhere near their dropped kerb.

This is why these threads normally need a diagram....

I need a diagram!

When your DH parks outside their house was it got difficult for them to get off their drive or does the car obstruct their vision?

If the OP lived opposite me she have the same problem. Our neighbour directly opposite obviously doesn’t like people parking in front of her house. Her house has a wide pavement between the road and her front garden so there’s a huge space between her front windows and the road, but if anyone dares to park in front of them, even her neighbours on either side, she’s out like a shot as soon as they've gone and leaves her car there for the next day or so.
If I’m entirely honest I’m a bit terrortorial about people parking in front of of my house but in my defence our garden is straight onto the road and if people do park there they have to get out of their car directly onto my garden. I have no problem with my neighbour’s visitors parking there but if someone chose to park there regularly just to save them the faff of moving their own cars around I would be having a word.

They are parking on the road as they would prefer to have their own car there than someone else's. Also, they may be considering getting a second car in which case they will need to do what you currently do (albeit without blocking themselves in as they have a wider frontage or whatever).

Isn't is actually illegal to block your own drive? Common sense would say no, but I'm sure I read that on a council post once, when there was a festival and the roads were busy. I suppose a parking warden doesn't check whether a car is registered at the address before giving a ticket.

Your neighbours are twats. My gran's neighbours used to do this, every day they would move their car off their drive and put it outside their house to ensure that nobody else could park there. Is there anywhere else in the road that he can park?

Unfortunately though, you bought a house with room for 1 car knowing you had 2 cars, so you do have to put up with the shuffling around if you can't park anywhere else.

Genuinely intrigued and not being goady but…. Seeing as you recently moved why would you choose a house that didn’t have enough parking ?

I think a diagram is required.

You both have driveways. If your DH parks in front of your house, it obstructs your drive and makes it awkward for you.

But if he parks outside the neighbour’s house, it doesn’t obstruct their driveway at all.

Is your house much narrower than theirs? If you can park outside their house without obstructing the drive, why can’t you do that in front of your house?

I don’t understand!

If you’ve got a dropped kerb he shouldn’t be blocking you in (and if you don’t you shouldn’t be parking in your drive). The dropped kerb isn’t just there for you, it’s for wheelchair and pram users to cross the road.

But I think they are annoyed at you for parking in front of their house. They can’t stop you, but depends how much you value a good relationship with them.

Not so much rude and cheeky for parking on a public road. More rude and cheeky making their lives a little less nice to make yours a little easier.

Her husband is literally blocking her in- T shape arrangement. They have to coordinate blocking and unblocking their drive with this arrangement.

seems like husband is instead parking on the street outside neighbours house- maybe OP doesn’t have the same space outside hers to park along.

Have you got a garden you could convert to a parking space

Don’t park over a dropped kerb, regardless whose house it belongs to. It’s an utter nuisance for wheelchairs and pushchairs.

Their neighbour doesn’t necessarily have an identical layout. I live in a double fronted detached house that three cars can easily park outside without blocking my drive access. My next door neighbour is a terraced house and you could about squeeze a single car in front of her house, but you’d probably impinge on accessibility.

Why can’t you just use the car that’s parked on the road if it’s already there? Why do you have to keep swapping?

It baffles me that people buy houses without enough parking for the amount of cars they own.
I cant think of anything worse than having to shuffle cars around or parking on roads or worrying about where to park.
Thankfully my house is set back from.the road in a row of 4 and each of us have 2 spaces each like a mini car park, then the road, so the only car I can see out of my window is a bit of my bonnet. It would drive me mad looking at someone else's car outside my window

Edit as misread.

It's not intriguing at all, can you really not think of any reasons? There are very few houses around us where there is room for two cars to park off the road. Plenty of houses don't even have a drive.