Tenants and heavy work van

butters86

Hi all,

I have a property that I have rented out for the last 3 years and which I previously lived in for 2 years prior to renting. For the past 18 months it’s been rented to a young family, they are excellent and always pay on time and have never had any problems inside the house or complaints from any of the neighbours.

The only issue I have is that the man has a heavy work van that he parks on the drive. Since they have been renting the property I have had to re-lay the flags on the drive twice and the estate agent has just emailed me saying that they have moved again.

Question is - Do I just ignore it, it doesn’t cost much to have them relayed each time as my dad does it for me at cost.

Or do I request that they don’t park the works van on there? I'm not sure if this is causing the issue but I never had any problems with the drive when I lived there and the previous tenant didn’t either.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Herzlos

Maybe ask if he does the relaying work since it's his van, or if he's willing to help out with upgrading the drive?

How big a van is it? It's presumably not that much heavier than some cars.

G_M

You have 3 options:

* ignore the issue and re-lay the drive periodically, or when they leave
* wait till they leave, then charge them for damage (via deposit or whatever)
* have a chat and hopefully get them to agree to stop parking there.
* refer them to the clause (?) in the contract prohibiting the parking of commercial vehicles

Hmm... that seems to be 4! Personally I'd start with the chat and see where that goes.

butters86

Thanks for the reply Herzlos,

It's a Ford Transit van as he work's for the local water company, I don't know about the weight but i'm assuming it will be full of tool's so will be quite heavy.

fairy_lights

If you've already had to relay the drive twice and he's only been parking there 18 months, maybe you need to replace the driveway with a more hardwearing material? Having somewhere to safely park his work van might have been what attracted the family to the house in the first place so I don't think it would be fair to ask him to stop parking there. Having a driveway and not being able to use it for it's intended purpose for fear of damaging it is madness imo.

Annie1960

Do you have sufficient hardcore under the drive, as it may be this rather than the paving slabs themselves.

StumpyPumpy

it doesn’t cost much to have them relayed each time as my dad does it for me at cost.

I'm assuming by what you are saying that your dad is in the trade and knows what he is doing, what does he think about it?

Sounds like a lot of movement over 18 months for just a transit parking there. Maybe a deeper, better surface is called for. I'd use dad's experience and if necessary get someone else in to do the work if it requires more than he wants to do. Might be worth bringing it up with the tenant to see if he would help with the cost to "protect" his van from damage.

Herzlos

butters86 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply Herzlos,

It's a Ford Transit van as he work's for the local water company, I don't know about the weight but i'm assuming it will be full of tool's so will be quite heavy.

I'd check the drive is up to scratch, a transit van with tools probably only comes in at about 2000kg. It's heavy but it's not huge.

Has there been any movement with cars in the past?

Dan-Dan

It`s not the van , the drive isnt fit for purpose

tea-bag

Dan-Dan wrote: »

It`s not the van , the drive isn't fit for purpose

THAT! A transit is not that heavy, you could just concrete the drive.

zaax

A proper sub-base is needed. A big estate or 4x4 would be that heavy. That's the problem with getting a friend to do something if it goes wrong.