Parking in a reversing bay; help needed!

Cosmos12

Hi all,

I hope someone might be able to provide some useful assistance/advice, as I’m at the end of my tether with this current situation.

Essentially, my parents have a property with a reversing bay in front of their house. The bay is shared by a neighbour to the left of my parents. The issue is with one of the houses opposite. A few years ago, he asked my dad permission to park his van in the reversing bay, as it was constantly being broken into where he had been parking it around the corner. My dad said he could (a mistake!).

This has gone on for a few years now, to the point where he has now begun to treat it as his personal parking space. We have found that he is now selling his property and has said that this spot comes with it; to the point that his estate agent knocked on the door to say that it was his space “as it was on his deeds”. Er, not as far as we know. I had a look at the deeds to my parent’s property and it has the house and garden ringed in red, with the reversing bay having brown lines through it (I have no idea what this means, though I'm guessing it denotes a shared access with the other neighbour on the left).

Frankly, it has become something of a pain in the backside to get out of the driveway, as the van being parked there means you have to do a few turns, especially if my neighbour is also parked in her drive.

I went to see him after that and said could he please inform his estate agent and any prospective buyers that no one can park there. He said he would, but I doubt it. To make matters worse, my wonderful dad passed away this week. The last thing my mum needs is stress with new neighbours thinking they have a space outside her home.

The council say it has nothing to do with them; because there are no streetlights it is classed as private property and we would have to work it out ourselves. I have considered possibly putting up a no parking sign or something similar, but I have no idea if this would be okay to do.

The neighbour we share the reversing space with is furious about it (as am I frankly), but I am at a loss as to what we can actually do about it.

I have attached some images of the bay, both with the vehicle there and without, as well as an image showing the bay on the deeds.

Markneath

When he goes out I would make a point of parking there as often as possible to reclaim the space, has he also created off street parking off your turning area or is that a different neighbours garden?

Could you and the other owner agree to park something there temporarily just to make it clear its mo longer for his use?

When you do something to be helpful for neighbours it always seems to get taken advantage of eventually. 

You could even put a physical barrier between the footpath and the shared driveway.
To me it appears as a shared driveway for the properties fronting onto the area, 167 should not have access over it or other houses thats just an opinion though.

Cosmos12

Thanks for the reply. Believe it or not, it’s actually the house behind 167 which is parking the van there. 167 recently developed their garden into a driveway, which you can see in one of the images. 

Indeed, it seems if you give people an inch they will take a mile; my dad should never have let him park his vehicle there in the first place and now he’s treating it like his right. 

I was thinking of getting a sign erected stating “no parking”, though I know it wouldn’t be enforceable. 

maxsteam

The van is blocking access to the end house. You can report this to the council as anti-social behaviour. If/when you do this, you should not expect much to happen. If it looks like the nuisance neighbour is really moving away, it might be best to wait until someone else arrives. Vans generally have phone numbers on the side and repeated polite phone calls asking for the van to be moved to provide access can sometimes be worthwhile in the long term.

Unfortunately though, if there is no obstruction, there's not much that you can do other than park there yourself. It looks like a public road where anyone can park.

jimbog

Is there a covenant regarding parking there? Or one about commercial vehicles being permitted?

davidmcn

Cosmos12 said:

I had a look at the deeds to my parent’s property and it has the house and garden ringed in red, with the reversing bay having brown lines through it (I have no idea what this means, though I'm guessing it denotes a shared access with the other neighbour on the left)

Why not? Don't you have the rest of the deeds explaining what the plan means, or only the plan itself?

In any event, the buyer's solicitors will advise them that they don't have a right to park there - which will hopefully make them think twice about doing so. 

UnderOffer

Surely, as soon as the new buyers instruct solicitors and see the title plan, they will also have a red line around their property/land only and the parking bay will be shaded brown, so it will be very clear that the parking bay is not included. Have you downloaded your neighbours plan to check? 

princeofpounds

Unfortunately since clamping and towing were outlawed, it has become much harder to defend any space from nuisance parking, especially where you cannot easily install a physical obstruction or rely on council enforcement (if you ever could).

One approach: You should download three, maybe four sets of title plans and deeds:

- Yours
- Your neighbour's
- The property of the person doing this parking
- There's a possibility that the roads themselves are held on a fourth title, probably one that encompassed the original estate.

You obviously don't need to do them all in one go. From all of that, you should be able to figure out who the landowner of the road is, and what the shaded brown area means. Most likely, there is a covenant prohibiting parking on that section - the questions are a) who is subject to that covenant and does it include the anti-social parker, and b) who is the beneficiary of that covenant and can enforce it. From that, you will get a better understanding of your legal options and whether injunctive relief is a potential option.

The second approach: Target the property sale. Any potential dispute is declarable to any purchaser, which makes a property much harder to sell. You should have an informal word with the person selling the property and with the estate agent - if they continue to park in this space then you will write a formal letter raising a dispute.

You can apply extra pressure to the EA by looking up which code of conduct scheme they are members of, and threaten to raise a complaint regarding the false advertising too. 

The third approach: Use physical obstacles. Get a trailer, sandbags or similar low-value object(s). Stick it in a very awkward position or even block him in. Or, block the space he uses until he goes elsewhere. You are, apparently, on private land, so it is less legally problematic than doing so on a public road, but as a general rule it's less problematic to occupy the space than it is to prevent exit from the space. I need to think a bit about the best way to use this strategy, but I'm sure others will have thoughts.

TBagpuss

I would just do a letter to the seller, cc'd to the neighbour who shares the space, saying something like'

"As you know, the area outside our houses shown on the attached plan) is shared by  No's 86 & 87 and is a reversing bay, to facilitate access. As you will recall, we  gave you temporary permission to use the space,  however this is no longer convenient and is causing issues with our own use of our property,  so we are formally  withdrawing our consent and ask that you ensure that you don't  leave any vehicle in our space moving forward."

I would also drop a note to the agents to say "We noticed that you are marketing [adddress] There is an error on your particulars which state that the property comes with a space to park at [address] . We confirm that the space referred to is actually part of our property and is not owned by [address] nor does that property have any rights relating to the land. Can you please urgently correct the error and confirm in writing to us that this has been done, so that any potential buyers are not misled. For the avoidance of doubt we will not permit any buyer of [property] or any other person to use out land for parking. We have written directly to [neighbour parking van] also to make him aware of the error"
Keep copies of both letters and if the details haven't been updated within a week then follow up.

Mean while, I'd speak to the neighbours who share the space and perhaps agree with them that you put up a sign that says 'private property - no parking' or even 'access required at all times - no parking'

HampshireH

I would personally do the following;

Your mother owns the landscaping Infront of the turning bay. Erect a. No parking turning only type sign on her land. It's not enforceable but will act as a deterrent.

Download the for sale house deeds. Cross reference them with your parents. That brown area will be explained by a key almost certainly if not in written format in the deeds.

If all confirmed that they definitely do not have either a right outlined in brown and or to park. If it's the house in another street then it's almost a given.

Write to the estate agent and advise they are misadvertising the land. Send a copy of the above title plan as evidence and point out they could be creating an immediate neighbour dispute by selling it as part of the property. Should they not rectify this, you may instigate a formal dispute which will need to be declared by the seller, which could affect their sale.

Do not block it, park on it or anything as such. You haven't actually confirmed whether they have the same right as your mother. Blocking or parking there implies it is acceptable. I expect your mother's deeds also doesn't allow for this, making you no better than them. (Of course if they do allow you to park there then you could surely mark out and allocate this area - but from what you have shared this doesn't look to be the case)

Stop calling it a bay. It implies it is a parking bay, yet you dispute this. Do the deeds call it a reversing bay? You need to use the full wording so not to confuse things. 

I'm assuming 167 do not have right of way over this area if that is their back garden. But that's potentially a whole different problem (i.e. when their visitors start parking there)

Cosmos12

Thank you for the replies, all, it is very much appreciated. I took the advise of some other forumites, such as UnderOffer, and downloaded some plans from the Land Registry. I have attached them below; the first one is my parents property, followed by the neighbour opposite, and then the one behind him (who is the one actually claiming the area is for their vehicle).
I will have to have a proper look at the deeds to see if there is mention of a covenant or any other explanation for the shaded area (we had always believed it was shared access with the neighbour to the left, for the purposes of turning). 
As I mentioned above, my dad passed away this week, so I've busy sorting arrangements for him. Frankly, my head is in such a whirl that I'm not even sure I can tell you what day it is! 




As I said, it is the final image above who is the neighbour with the van.