Restrictive Covenants - parking on a local highway

User_220321

Believe me, there has been a vast amount of letters in which we have said we will not be paying and that the roads are adopted. We have provided all evidence discussed above and this is still being pursued by him and the charges are not being removed. His reply was basically that the legal action will now begin. Like you are all saying, it seems so obvious to us but yet as he is ‘pursuing costs based on a legal document’, apparently this cannot be harassment yet. It all seems ridiculous. It appears that the courts may have to decide! 

HampshireH

User_220321 said:

Believe me, there has been a vast amount of letters in which we have said we will not be paying and that the roads are adopted. We have provided all evidence discussed above and this is still being pursued by him and the charges are not being removed. His reply was basically that the legal action will now begin. Like you are all saying, it seems so obvious to us but yet as he is ‘pursuing costs based on a legal document’, apparently this cannot be harassment yet. It all seems ridiculous. It appears that the courts may have to decide! 

Let them crack on.

Just point out he will be misusing residents service charge by pursuing a false course of action. 

I can't imagine your neighbours being too impressed..... What do they have to say about it?

wannabe_a_saver

User_220321 said:

Believe me, there has been a vast amount of letters in which we have said we will not be paying and that the roads are adopted. We have provided all evidence discussed above and this is still being pursued by him and the charges are not being removed. His reply was basically that the legal action will now begin. Like you are all saying, it seems so obvious to us but yet as he is ‘pursuing costs based on a legal document’, apparently this cannot be harassment yet. It all seems ridiculous. It appears that the courts may have to decide! 

Honestly, let them knock themselves out.  Don't pay, let them take it to court, you'll win without breaking a sweat its so clear cut. 

edgex

Is the management co a Ltd company?
If they are, you may be able to find out if they have solicitors already. Check their Companies House documents for the latest accounts & see if there is a solicitor/lawyer named.

I'd be inclined to go nuclear on them;
Put together a letter setting out what they've done with a timeline (every letter they've sent), that they have no grounds to make any charges & provide copies of the evidence from the freeholder & Local Authority. State that any further communications from them, or any attempt to continue with the charges, will be considered to be harassment & will be reported to the authorities (obviously you would say that you would allow one letter stating that they have accepted your evidence & there will be no attempt at charges)
Send the letter & attachments by recorded delivery to the Management Co.
Send copies to; freeholder, local authority highways dept, local councillor, MP.
(if they do already have a solicitor, send it to them too)

Cash-Cows

edgex said:

Send the letter & attachments by recorded delivery 

Using recorded I don't think is recommended on the parking forum because if the person doesn't sign for it (collect it) all you've done is get confirmation of that fact. Proof of posting is recommended as it's deemed to have been received unless the person can prove otherwise which they won't be able to. 

A_Lert

This company's attempt to charge you for sending letters telling you not to do something they have no right to stop you doing will not hold up. That is patently obvious. While you will still need a decent lawyer to make your case, any competent judge will utterly eviscerate the company.

getmore4less

Wonder what else these potential crooks are up to?

Maybe  they need removing from their role with this estate.

Bigwhitevanman

This unfortunately is the outfall from about 15 years ago when most new housing estates began to be left unadopted by the Local Authorities. Some estates are part adopted when completed by way of prior agreement with the developer in the planning stages. As long as the areas in question, footpaths, roads, park areas, grassed areas, sewage, rainwater tanks and pumping stations etc. are up to specification then it’s a fairly seamless handover to the responsible authority. We all pay our council charge which funds the maintenance and repair all publicly adopted areas, especially roadways.

The complication with all of this is that the areas left unadopted frequently become taken over by an unscrupulous management company. I say this because these companies are unregulated and have no caps on what they charge for their services or how well or poorly they carry out their obligations. This means you will usually pay hundreds of pounds a year plus anything else they can think of to line their own pockets. The rise of these companies became popular over the last decade as for all the reasons mentioned, it’s a license to print money. There are many public action groups making good progress against this practice and at the same time parliament is reviewing these rip off businesses. You wouldn’t believe the charges they have in store for you, for example the sale of the house, any building extension, they even want a fee when you purchase your freehold if you are a leaseholder.

Now moving on to the subject of the parking issue, Yes we all want to live on a picture book estate with bowling green standard grassed areas, flowers growing, kids playing, entry into the village of the year competition, Neighbors getting on like best friends, saying good morning, Mrs Brown organizing the summer fayre with home made jam and cakes.

The reality is that people need to go to work to earn money to pay for their nice 4 bedroomed detached house and 2.4 children. This means some normal hard working people will have company vehicles, not just vans but large 4 X4’s maybe a trailer, you know the scenario.

Some folk may have an annoying barking dog or chickens in the back garden or a floodlight which shines in your window at night. What im trying to say is that people need to tolerate and communicate with other residents so we can all lead a happy unstressed life.

You will have read on your title deeds about not parking a boat or a caravan in your driveway, not to keep livestock, not to fence off your front garden etc. however no one can really stop you. Many have tried and failed.

Getting directly to the OP’s issue, management company, busybody neighbor, The mighty Lord himself. None of the above can prevent you from parking on an adopted highway that is for public use and right of way. The management company may threaten charges, legal action, you name it. The reality is that these are just bully tactics to worry you and tip the cash up into their bulging bank accounts. Hold out and nothing more will come of it, they are powerless.

Its hard to believe in this day and age how a company can pretty much maneuver its self into this position of power and abuse your trust by ripping you off. At the end of the day, they do this to make MONEY, not to keep the residents happy. Be clear on that.

Section62

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

The trouble, perhaps, is that the man doing the pursuing still possesses an obsolete copy of the lease, which includes the roads within its demise and allows for the enforcement of parking regulations.  The adoption process passes the 'highway and scrapings' (funny what you find out) to the Highways Authority.  Highway rights, those which permit you to park the van, are granted at the same time.  Logically speaking, at least for the sake of tidiness, the lease should probably have been amended at the same time.  The road, now a highway, should no longer be demised within it.  Have you raised that point with the freeholder?  A varied lease might be sufficient to convince the maintenance man that he's wrong.  

Whilst the maintenance man appears to be working with duff information, I do wonder whether his confidence about being in the right is based on a slightly different understanding of the law.

In my experience it is possible for restrictive covenants to be put in place which impact on the use of local roads, even after they have been adopted.  The change in the legal status of the road doesn't automatically negate the effect of covenants unless they were worded in a way which causes that to happen.

It is also important to acknowledge that unless a parking place has been marked out on a public highway there is no 'right' to park on it - there is nothing in the adoption of a road as public highway which automatically trumps an existing legally valid restriction on parking.

The issue in this case isn't that the maintenance man cannot be correct because of general highway law, it seems to simply be that the legal documents he is relying on don't appear to support his case.

If the OP focuses on that - rather than the general legal principles - it might get the maintenance man to see the light somewhat faster.

edgex said:

I'd be inclined to go nuclear on them;

In anything which has the potential to 'go legal' it is usually a good idea to be the epitome of reasonableness.  The facts of the situation can get swamped in arguments about who said what. Going 'nuclear' is generally the opposite of being reasonable.

edgex said:

Send the letter & attachments by recorded delivery to the Management Co.
Send copies to; freeholder, local authority highways dept, local councillor, MP.
(if they do already have a solicitor, send it to them too)

At present it seems the OP has a private dispute with this company and the extent of their powers. Copying letters to everybody doesn't necessarily help resolve problems.  If there is a specific reason to include council departments, councillors and the MP then it is worth doing, but in this case there doesn't seem to be an obvious benefit from a scattergun approach.

Keeping the communication simple and focused is usually a better way to resolve misunderstandings, and allows the other party to back down with less loss of face.

davidmcn

Cash-Cows said:

edgex said:

Send the letter & attachments by recorded delivery 

Using recorded I don't think is recommended on the parking forum because if the person doesn't sign for it (collect it) all you've done is get confirmation of that fact. Proof of posting is recommended as it's deemed to have been received unless the person can prove otherwise which they won't be able to. 

Just cover all bases by sending duplicates by normal and recorded mail.