Car parking query

tomd269

I believe the area is privately maintained and would fall under our responsibility but I would have to double check that.

It's definitely not council maintained, so I would assume it's our responsibility.

DandelionPatrol

tomd269 wrote: »

Thanks again for the help.

How would I go about checking whether there was any transfer of that land? I have all title plans and deeds for both ourselves and the 3 houses, issued in May this year. [1]

Looking at the plans it quite clearly belongs to us, and reading the seperate deeds I cannot find any mention of the land being theirs. However, I am of course reading it through an average joe's eyes and not those of a solicitor so may fail to pick something up. [2]

[1] You have been looking at this from the wrong end of the problem. Rather than looking at the buildings and seeing if the land is on the title of any of the buildings, you should be looking for the title of the land itself

[2] What you are failing to pick up is the distinction between

• what the freeholder owns
• what is demised to you under your lease
• what you may have some shared right to use under your lease.

If the close is not demised to you under your lease or your lease does not give you some lesser right to use it, in general, you have no rights to use it. But would be the freeholder who has the right to pick a quarrel with you.

I would suggest that you do not go telling the owners in the close to take anything down unless you can show that the area is explicitly demised to you under your lease or that you have some lesser right under the lease. But if the people in the houses do not have a lease on the land, ignore them and carry on parking there until and unless they prove their rights to the land.

moneyistooshorttomention

tomd269 wrote: »

Thanks.

Would it be better to drop a letter through or go round for a chat with my evidence do you think?

To be honest, we're happy to share that area, we would just like to be able to park there from time to time. And of course, to stop them being so hostile and vocal towards us regarding parking there.

I wouldn't give away any of your parking spaces there - ie "share that area". Future owners of your property might not be very happy to find that there was any sort of arrangement to share your spaces with other people and its always possible that a sale of one of your properties in the future didn't happen because of it.

From everything you've said it does sound a lot like the owner of one of these houses is a person that is used to getting their own way by stating authoritatively that things ARE the way they want them to be - rather than because they are actually correct.

moneyistooshorttomention

tomd269 wrote: »

I believe the area is privately maintained and would fall under our responsibility but I would have to double check that.

It's definitely not council maintained, so I would assume it's our responsibility.

Add that fact into the equation - and you could end up not being able to use something you are physically having to pay to maintain. Don't put it past those detached house-owners to try to have cake and eat it (ie use your spaces - but still have you pay to maintain them).

tomd269

Thanks for the advice.

DandelionPatrol - Can you clarify your point a little for me please? We are one of the freeholders of our block of flats, and therefore all jointly own the land in our title surely? Sorry if I did not pick up your point (been a long day)

moneyistooshorttomention - That's a good point.

G_M

tomd269 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice.

DandelionPatrol - Can you clarify your point a little for me please? We are one of the freeholders of our block of flats, and therefore all jointly own the land in our title surely? Sorry if I did not pick up your point (been a long day)

moneyistooshorttomention - That's a good point.

Well Dandelion did not know that!

The freeholder is a separate legal entity from the Leaseholders. If the feeholder was for example me, and your lease did not include the close, then I could park there, but you could not. Nor could the detached house owners (uness I gave them permission, eg by renting them the space).

However, since you now say that the Freehold is jontly owned by the leaseholders (via a company perhaps?) then yes, you can park there since you own both the lease and freehold in this case.

DandelionPatrol

G_M wrote: »

Well Dandelion did not know that!

The freeholder is a separate legal entity from the Leaseholders. If the feeholder was for example me, and your lease did not include the close, then I could park there, but you could not. Nor could the detached house owners (uness I gave them permission, eg by renting them the space).

However, since you now say that the Freehold is jontly owned by the leaseholders (via a company perhaps?) then yes, you can park there since you own both the lease and freehold in this case.

Whoa! Not quite so fast. It depends how OP has his stake in the freehold. I agree with all this mostly, but there is a clarification required.

If it is directly by tenure as Tenants in Common or Joint Tenants, OP could park there on his own sayso - [and indeed take down any signs actually on the land]. But if OP owns the freehold via a company, then technically, it will require permission from the freeholding company to park and it would be the freeholding company which could take down any signs on its land. In this case, any correspondence with the owners of the houses should be in the name of the freeholding company and not in OP's own name.