Bought our home, but can’t park on our drive?

abbie1998

Hi all,

My partner and I bought our home last December. There’s no dropped kerb, and looking at previous Rightmove listings of the home, the current gravel driveway used to be a front garden.

We received a letter from the council stating that we’re making illegal crossings by parking on our drive. We understand and have stopped parking on our drive, but we were never told by the seller that this was an issue? The Rightmove listing states that there is parking on the property. We would’ve reduced our offer if we had known the house actually had no parking.

Is this an example of non disclosure within the selling/buying process? We feel a bit misled and despite the listing claiming we would have a driveway to use, we now don’t and will need to fork out nearly £2000 to use it! What are our rights here?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

EssexHebridean

“There’s no dropped kerb”… that should have been the giveaway I’m afraid. If it had been a legitimate parking space, then there would have been a dropped kerb installed. This falls under the heading in my view at least of things that should have come under your due diligence to check on, indeed, did it really not occur to you that it was a bit strange? I’d also be a little surprised if there wasn’t anything in the listing that made clear that the “driveway” was being used as such, but was not officially classified as off street parking. It may well have been in the (very) small print though. A good number of properties we looked at where this was the case used the phrase “potential for off street parking”.

DullGreyGuy

Have you asked your conveyancer/solicitor? 

The lack of a dropped kerb seems an obvious issue which you wouldn't need the vendor to point out for you, its there to be seen which is the general approach on the sale between two private individuals. It wouldn't be for the vendor to give you legal advice on if you are entitled to mount the kerb or not and it would appear they were and so could accurately state they were using the hardstanding to park their vehicle.

RHemmings

*Checks house I'm buying for dropped kerb* Phew, it's there. 

Personally I think it's one of those things that could be easy to forget to check for if you haven't had it pointed out to you.

loubel

You could try complaining to the estate agent that they should have known that without a dropped kerb there clearly wasn't a driveway and the listing was incorrect. But they will likely point you to their standard disclaimer and say that it's not their responsibility to check this. Did you (or your surveyor) not notice this yourself at the time either? 

EssexHebridean

DullGreyGuy said:

Have you asked your conveyancer/solicitor? 

The lack of a dropped kerb seems an obvious issue which you wouldn't need the vendor to point out for you, its there to be seen which is the general approach on the sale between two private individuals. It wouldn't be for the vendor to give you legal advice on if you are entitled to mount the kerb or not and it would appear they were and so could accurately state they were using the hardstanding to park their vehicle.

The solicitor will almost certainly not have visited the property, and may not even have seen pictures. Unless the OP specifically asked for an enquiry to be raised about the legality of parking in what they thought was a drive, but now turns out to be a front garden, there isn’t really any logical reason for the solicitor to have any thoughts on the matter at all. Of course if an enquiry WAS raised and the vendor stated that it was an official parking area then that may be a different matter… 

abbie1998

Sorry I probably wasn’t very clear. We’re first time buyers and I understand now that we should be checking every inch of what we really want in a house, stupidly we were just over exciting about buying our first home and we didn’t think about any of this. We know what we need to ask and look out for next time! 

I’ve looked into the report we got back from our level 2 survey prior to buying the home, there’s mention of the gravel driveway being used as such, but no mention of the kerb. I’m not sure if it’s the surveyors job to point this out, but I just thought I’d include that. 

We weren’t sure if it would be the estate agents fault either for the statements around the driveway in the listing, as I assume they’re fed the info about the house from the seller. I’ll probably reach out to them just in case, thanks!

Thanks everyone for their comments  

bluelad1927

I don't think you'll  be able to hold anybody responsible for this. Have you asked the council if  you could apply for the kerb to be dropped. Yes it comes at a cost but it isn't huge and will obviously be of great benefit to you.

Depending on the location of the drive in relation to the road it is on its possible they won't allow it due to safety reasons

la531983

bluelad1927 said:

I don't think you'll  be able to hold anybody responsible for this. Have you asked the council if  you could apply for the kerb to be dropped. Yes it comes at a cost but it isn't huge and will obviously be of great benefit to you.

Depending on the location of the drive in relation to the road it is on its possible they won't allow it due to safety reasons

I assume this is what the £2k cost relates to, as mentioned in the opening post.

Section62

abbie1998 said:

We received a letter from the council stating that we’re making illegal crossings by parking on our drive. We understand and have stopped parking on our drive, but we were never told by the seller that this was an issue? The Rightmove listing states that there is parking on the property. We would’ve reduced our offer if we had known the house actually had no parking.

Is this an example of non disclosure within the selling/buying process? We feel a bit misled and despite the listing claiming we would have a driveway to use, we now don’t and will need to fork out nearly £2000 to use it! What are our rights here?

The potential problem with making a claim against the agent is that (subject to planning conditions or covenants) you probably do have "parking on the property".

The issue is with the legality of the method of getting a car/van onto the parking area.

And the further complication is that (unless you are in London) what the council is saying about the legality of crossing the footway/verge to get to the parking is probably wrong.

However, testing that in court is likely to be expensive with no guarantee you'll win.

RHemmings

bluelad1927 said:

I don't think you'll  be able to hold anybody responsible for this. Have you asked the council if  you could apply for the kerb to be dropped. Yes it comes at a cost but it isn't huge and will obviously be of great benefit to you.

Depending on the location of the drive in relation to the road it is on its possible they won't allow it due to safety reasons

Out of curiosity, on average how difficult is it to apply for a dropped kerb to be installed? I realise this is going to depend on a lot of factors, but is it something that would be permitted once in a blue moon, some of the time, a lot of the time, or nearly all of the time? On average. Assuming that it's a normal house with a front garden and reasonable space to park on the property.