Renting: Allocated parking constantly being used

henrygregory

Hi there, I have been renting from a housing association for three years.

My property comes with and was advertised as having one allocated parking space. It is a two bed, one space is hardly ideal for a two bed house in a rural area, but anyway.

There are three visitor bays for our street of 18 houses. The visitor bays are constantly full of resident cars as there are not enough spaces for everyone.

I am finding that my allocated space is constantly being used by either visitors or other unknown vehicles and I am forced to park a five minute walk away to get to my own house whilst others make use of my space, as I don't know who the vehicles belong to.

I have contacted my housing association on two separate times to make them aware that the visitor bays are constantly in use and not being used by visitors and that my space is often used by cars unknown to me.

To my knowledge, the HA has done nothing about this matter - maybe numbered bays would help or letters to all residents reminding them of the parking space allocations.

Can anyone suggest next steps I can take (or have any experience of this). This is now the third such time I am going to have to contact the HA and to be honest, I am getting to the point where I think a reduction in rent should be considered as I am not getting what was advertised and what I am paying for and the HA don't seem interested in rectifying the matter or even getting back to me on it.

G_M

henrygregory wrote: »

.......I am getting to the point where I think a reduction in rent should be considered as I am not getting what was advertised and what I am paying for and the HA don't seem interested in rectifying the matter or even getting back to me on it.

But you are getting what you are paying for. The HA has provided a parking space for you. Just as they are also providing a house.

If a 3rd party is using your parking space that is not the HA's fault, any more than it would be their fault if you came home and found someone had come in and was making tea in your kitchen.

Assuming the parking space is private land, in this case belonging to your house, the person/people parking there are trespassing. The difficulty will be taking action to prevent that (civil) trespass.

Whilst the HA might choose to take some action to generally improve the parking situation, they don't have to. I'd recomend discussing this with other residents and then sending a joint letter. They are more likely to take note of a letter with 10 signatures than with one, but I would also include one or more realistic suggestions of what the HA could do.

glentoran99

install one of these, take it with you if/when you move

moneyistooshorttomention

Numbered bays sounds a perfectly reasonable request to make of the H.A. imo.

It "might" help deter the culprits - as at least some of them would know who they were doing this to.

Perhaps it might be best to write directly to the chief executive of the HA and say "With reference to my previous letters - of x and y date - I note that no action has been taken to date to prevent this illicit parking. Could I accordingly request you expedite etc etc" and see what happens.

If that doesn't work one way or another - ie even the CE can't be arsed to do anything about it. Or action is taken - but people are still doing this.

Then - it's step two - and a bollard (even if you have to get it yourself). Though, actually, I think it would be perfectly reasonable to expect the HA to put in bollards all round on the allocated spaces. After all - you're not "getting what you've paid for" because of these people currently.

DaftyDuck

... as glentoran99 suggests....

Install a pillar!

G_M

You could employ a Pole to stand guard.

LocoLoco

We had a similar situation where we used to live, OP, the residents all got together and sent letters, requests, arranged meetings and so on and eventually they did number the bays so that everyone had a space reasonably close to their home. It worked fairly well so it might be worth getting some of your neighbours on board and asking until they agree

kinger101

Are you 100% sure the HA owns the parking space? I lived on a new build estate which had three unmarked parking spaces, which residents were told were for visitors. So I parked there.

One day, a number suddenly appeared, painted in a different font to all the other allocated parking spaces. I continued to park there assuming someone was claiming it as their own incorrectly. I got a note on my windscreen as a result. I contacted the house, and it turned out to be a HA tenant. They told me HA said parking spaces was theirs. I told them developer had told everyone else something different. I received a letter from HA. I wrote one back requesting evidence, such as deeds. Never got a reply.

ThePants999

On a certain other forum, the denizens would be recommending one of these.

PasturesNew

Get a cheap moped, it doesn't have to work. Park it at the back of your space and park your car in front of it. When you go out, pull forward, get out and move the moped to the centre of your space, get back in your car and go out.

Mutton_Geoff

PasturesNew wrote: »

Get a cheap moped, it doesn't have to work. Park it at the back of your space and park your car in front of it. When you go out, pull forward, get out and move the moped to the centre of your space, get back in your car and go out.

Good idea, but just the slight problem of tax, insurance and an MOT if it's on public roads.