Told I cannot park on unregistered land???

anyideas

Hello everyone,

To the side of my house there is a small rectangle of land where I park my car. It saves me having to walk with my children from the top of the street each time.

My neighbour owned the land behind this land and would use it to walk down the side of my house to the road.

Years ago it came to light that this land, I mean where I park, was unregistered and I tried to find the owner to buy it off them. I had no luck so carried on parking there.

After the neighbour passed away, a developer bought the house and sold off some of the land. I coudn't afford any of it so didn't take much notice. I have now found out the the neighbour on the opposite side of me has bought this land. After spending Christmas away with my family I came back home to find they had put a sliding drive gate in their fence and had started to park their car inside the back garden.

They had put a sign on a wooden stake saying "NO PARKING- PRIVATE PROPERTY". When I tried to talk to them about parking my car on this unregistered land they said that I couldn't. I explained that it was unregistered but they insisted that they own it. I showed them the documents I had collected and pointed out the limits of their land on the boundary map they showed me.

SInce then I have received a letter from their solicitor stating that I am parking on their property and blocking access. This is not true, I am only parking on the unregistered strip. I think they have not told the solicitor the entire truth or are accusing me of blocking access for their car.

I am very worried that I can get taken to court. I cannot afford a solicitor after enquiring about how much it would cost! I can barely pay childcare costs at the moment.

Can anyone advise if I should or shouldn't be allowed to park there? Can my neighbour stop me from parking there now that they have bought that land? Surely they would have considered I had been parking there before they did so?

Please help!

Nasqueron

At the very least, why not stop parking there and get your kids to walk a bit, it'll do them good rather than causing conflict with the neighbour. You need to be 100% certain they don't own this land

motorguy

Photograph your car parked there and send it to the solicitor. Mark out on a copy of the documents you have where you are parking and send that tool. Ask him how hes concluding its parked on his clients land.

[Deleted User]

It does sound like a blag. You have documents showing that they don't own the land and that you are not parking within the boundary of their land. It's a typical developer tactic to get their solicitor to write a scary letter in the hope that you relent, so they can effectively grab the land and increase the value of their property.

In addition to what Motorguy said, in the letter I'd ask them to remove the sign.

AndyMc.....

DELETED USER wrote:

It does sound like a blag. You have documents showing that they don't own the land and that you are not parking within the boundary of their land. It's a typical developer tactic to get their solicitor to write a scary letter in the hope that you relent, so they can effectively grab the land and increase the value of their property.

In addition to what Motorguy said, in the letter I'd ask them to remove the sign.

It still doesn't give them the rights to park there.

DoaM

Which still doesn't give the other party the right to try and prevent them parking there

AndyMc.....

DoaM wrote: »

Which still doesn't give the other party the right to try and prevent them parking there

Depends on what they've actually bought.

Either way the op has no right to park there.

AdrianC

You CAN park on unregistered land. It's private property, the same as registered land is. All you need is the owner's permission.

The only difference is that there's no easy way to know who owns it.

You don't think they own it. Maybe you're right, maybe you're not. By putting the fence up, they may be trying for adverse possession... or they may actually have done the homework to find the owner, bought it, and the registration of their purchase is now slowly going through. Does it really matter...? After all, you know you don't own it, and you know you have zero legal right to park there...

PasturesNew

Tell them that you accept they bought "something" and, to prevent you making an idiot of yourself could they please just show you the deeds diagram and you promise never to do it again.

They can either produce the document .... and will do just to shut you up -or- they can't because they know it's a lie.

Simples.

anyideas

Thank you all for your comments so soon. I must admit the letter from the solicitor was a shock. It did provide a copy of the land that they had bought which had been shaded in a different colour. The bit that I have been parking on though was certainly not shaded. It had stopped before it. The letter talks about parking on their land and blocking access and nothing about this unregistered bit.

I know it was not my land to park on but when you have puschairs and baby seats it is sooo much easier parking on this land and it certainly hasn't been a problem until now!

waamo

Is it worth the aggravation? I don't see that they would have any monetary claim on you but they could try and get an injunction if they believed they were in the right.