Confusion over right to park in 'communal/visitor' bays within a boundary line

lilahloo

On my road each house has one allocated parking space - this is outlined and numbered on our land registry documents.

There are also two parking spaces that show on my Title Plan marked P and coloured/highlighted in purple.  The wording in the Second Schedule (Rights Transferred to the Transferee) states 'The right when same shall be available to use on a first come first served basis to park a private motor vehicle or light commercial van for reasonable periods only in any of the communal parking areas shown coloured purple on the Plan the Transferee contributing a fair proportion of the cost of maintaining and repairing such communal parking areas'.

As I only have one car I've hardly ever parked in them but when they have been free my visitors have occasionally parked in them over the years.  Also the 3 houses they are closest to have always had 6 cars between them and parked strategically to always use these bays.

One of the houses was sold last year, the new owner has 1 car,  and because I parked in one of the bays for a week the owner knocked my door and told me I couldn't park there. He said those two spaces were private parking for the 3 houses he's the end terrace of (these two spaces are next to his gable end).  I explained that I believed I could and I would find my land registry documents and put a copy through his door when I found them.  I also suggested that he give me a copy of his documentation showing that I couldn't.

I was thinking maybe I'd made a mistake, that the bays were no longer communal and I hadn't been informed, so I checked with my nextdoor neighbour who had recently moved in and his plans were exactly the same as mine.

I put a copy of my documents through the door and never heard any more about it.

Another neighbour has now got a second car and has been parking it in the communal bays

Neighbour across the road knocked my door this week to tell me again that these spaces aren't communal and I/my visitors can't park there and he has since followed it up with a letter which threatens to park in our allocated parking spaces if we continue to park in  what is shown on our Title Plan as communal spaces.

When he knocked he had a copy of his Title Plan showing his boundary in red - I couldn't get a good look at it but it did appear to include the two parking spaces within his boundary but I could see that the parking spaces were also coloured in purple, like on my plan. 

The copies of his Title Plan that he attached to his letter are only black and white and they don't show the numbering of the allocated parking spaces and the Ps on the communal spaces - it's just the boundary plan that he's attached.  And he hasn't included the wording in the Second Schedule that I have in mine.

So my question is - can my visitors park in those spaces?

Thank you for reading - this is a concise version! And apologies if I've used any wrong land registry terminology.

RAS

You start by down loading all of the relevant deeds from the Land Registry, cost £3 per residence.

And once you understand these post back. If you don't, scan, without identifying details  and upload here.

Brie

I would have thought that if your property was giving up a privilege such as having a parking space available it couldn't be taken away without your agreement and possibly with financial compensation.  So if your deeds show you can use it, you can.  if his shows you can't then it's an error on his deeds and he needs to take that up with his solicitor and the previous owners.  

But I am not a lawyer.

lilahloo

RAS said:

You start by down loading all of the relevant deeds from the Land Registry, cost £3 per residence.

And once you understand these post back. If you don't, scan, without identifying details  and upload here.

Thanks - I have a feeling the £3 copy might be what he's attached to his letter.  This seems to show his boundary is around the communal space, but it doesn't show the specific house numbers any of the spaces are allocated to. If he had two parking spaces I would expect to see two spaces with his house number.

I will try and attach the docs I have tomorrow.

ThisIsWeird

I wonder what this means, what its intention is; "to park a private motor vehicle or light commercial van for reasonable periods only..."

It's clearly not there as a second parking space for anyone on an even semi-permanent basis - first come first served or not - but more likely there for visitors, who'd park only temporarily? But, for this, the spaces would usually be clearly assigned for 'visitors' on the deeds. So, not sure who the intended parkees are.

However, if these spaces are coloured purple on your neighb's deeds too, and accompanied by the same wording as on yours, then he has no greater rights over them than you do.

It could even be that the extent of his property as shown in his deeds - outlined in red - includes these spaces, but provided the colour is purple, and they are referred to in his deeds with the same wording as yours, he has no greater rights than you, even tho' he 'owns' them!

It's like when you have a shared road to a number of houses, often the sections of that road immediately in line with each house will be shown as belonging to that house - the red property boundary lines will extend out and enclose that section of road, and your neighbours ditto - so each house 'owns' a piece of that road. However, the deeds will make it clear what can, and can not, be done on that road, and that usually excludes parking, for example. 

If you could post on here both your deeds maps, and your equivalent texts, it should become clear.

From what you've described, it may well be that this neighbour 'owns' these spaces, and therefore presumed he had a greater right to park there than you. But he may end up with egg.

And he'll likely have problems with other homeowners too, if they are regularly parking their second vehicles in these spaces.

I have to ask, tho' - why did you park in one of these spaces for a week? :-)

eddddy

It's probably worth clarifying the legal set-up.

'Typically' on estates, there would be an estate management company who owns and maintains the communal parking spaces. And you would pay them a service charge.


But based on your posts, it sounds like you might have a different (and unusual) set-up:

Another house owner owns and maintains the communal spaces. But you are allowed to park on them, and you must contribute to the cost of maintaining them.

Does that sound right?


It might make a big difference to how you take this forward.

lilahloo

ThisIsWeird said:

I wonder what this means, what its intention is; "to park a private motor vehicle or light commercial van for reasonable periods only..."

It's clearly not there as a second parking space for anyone on an even semi-permanent basis - first come first served or not - but more likely there for visitors, who'd park only temporarily? But, for this, the spaces would usually be clearly assigned for 'visitors' on the deeds. So, not sure who the intended parkees are.

However, if these spaces are coloured purple on your neighb's deeds too, and accompanied by the same wording as on yours, then he has no greater rights over them than you do.

It could even be that the extent of his property as shown in his deeds - outlined in red - includes these spaces, but provided the colour is purple, and they are referred to in his deeds with the same wording as yours, he has no greater rights than you, even tho' he 'owns' them!

It's like when you have a shared road to a number of houses, often the sections of that road immediately in line with each house will be shown as belonging to that house - the red property boundary lines will extend out and enclose that section of road, and your neighbours ditto - so each house 'owns' a piece of that road. However, the deeds will make it clear what can, and can not, be done on that road, and that usually excludes parking, for example. 

If you could post on here both your deeds maps, and your equivalent texts, it should become clear.

From what you've described, it may well be that this neighbour 'owns' these spaces, and therefore presumed he had a greater right to park there than you. But he may end up with egg.

And he'll likely have problems with other homeowners too, if they are regularly parking their second vehicles in these spaces.

I have to ask, tho' - why did you park in one of these spaces for a week? :-)

Thanks - because he hasn't included any of the wording from his deeds in his letter attachments, my thinking is there is no explicit wording that the spaces belong to his house.  He is saying the boundary takes priority - I understand what he's saying and why he thinks like that but at the same time I have my deeds that state they are communal. But like you say the wording is weird.

Last year a family member had parked in my space and gone away for a week.  I used the communal space because it was free.  It was during that week he knocked my door and we had the first conversation about it and I put a copy of my paperwork through his door to show him why I believed I wasn't doing anything wrong.

I'll try to anonymise my plans and post them this afternoon.

lilahloo

eddddy said:

It's probably worth clarifying the legal set-up.

'Typically' on estates, there would be an estate management company who owns and maintains the communal parking spaces. And you would pay them a service charge.


But based on your posts, it sounds like you might have a different (and unusual) set-up:

Another house owner owns and maintains the communal spaces. But you are allowed to park on them, and you must contribute to the cost of maintaining them.

Does that sound right?


It might make a big difference to how you take this forward.

There is no management company - the estate was built in the 80's.

From what I can see from the black and white plans he's given me, one of the spaces is within his boundary and the other is within his neighbour's but they both show on my title plan as P and highlighted in purple.  They don't have their house numbers on them like their allocated spaces do.

silvercar

lilahloo said:

eddddy said:

It's probably worth clarifying the legal set-up.

'Typically' on estates, there would be an estate management company who owns and maintains the communal parking spaces. And you would pay them a service charge.


But based on your posts, it sounds like you might have a different (and unusual) set-up:

Another house owner owns and maintains the communal spaces. But you are allowed to park on them, and you must contribute to the cost of maintaining them.

Does that sound right?


It might make a big difference to how you take this forward.

There is no management company - the estate was built in the 80's.

From what I can see from the black and white plans he's given me, one of the spaces is within his boundary and the other is within his neighbour's but they both show on my title plan as P and highlighted in purple.  They don't have their house numbers on them like their allocated spaces do.

It could be that he owns the land that these parking spaces sit on. But they are visitor bays in the usual meaning. Maintenance of them can be charged to all the neighbours who have use of the spaces. 

Nothing to stop you paying £3 and downloading his deeds.

ThisIsWeird

lilahloo said:

ThisIsWeird said:

I wonder what this means, what its intention is; "to park a private motor vehicle or light commercial van for reasonable periods only..."

It's clearly not there as a second parking space for anyone on an even semi-permanent basis - first come first served or not - but more likely there for visitors, who'd park only temporarily? But, for this, the spaces would usually be clearly assigned for 'visitors' on the deeds. So, not sure who the intended parkees are.

However, if these spaces are coloured purple on your neighb's deeds too, and accompanied by the same wording as on yours, then he has no greater rights over them than you do.

It could even be that the extent of his property as shown in his deeds - outlined in red - includes these spaces, but provided the colour is purple, and they are referred to in his deeds with the same wording as yours, he has no greater rights than you, even tho' he 'owns' them!

It's like when you have a shared road to a number of houses, often the sections of that road immediately in line with each house will be shown as belonging to that house - the red property boundary lines will extend out and enclose that section of road, and your neighbours ditto - so each house 'owns' a piece of that road. However, the deeds will make it clear what can, and can not, be done on that road, and that usually excludes parking, for example. 

If you could post on here both your deeds maps, and your equivalent texts, it should become clear.

From what you've described, it may well be that this neighbour 'owns' these spaces, and therefore presumed he had a greater right to park there than you. But he may end up with egg.

And he'll likely have problems with other homeowners too, if they are regularly parking their second vehicles in these spaces.

I have to ask, tho' - why did you park in one of these spaces for a week? :-)

Thanks - because he hasn't included any of the wording from his deeds in his letter attachments, my thinking is there is no explicit wording that the spaces belong to his house.  He is saying the boundary takes priority - I understand what he's saying and why he thinks like that but at the same time I have my deeds that state they are communal. But like you say the wording is weird.
Last year a family member had parked in my space and gone away for a week.  I used the communal space because it was free.  It was during that week he knocked my door and we had the first conversation about it and I put a copy of my paperwork through his door to show him why I believed I wasn't doing anything wrong.

Thanks.

We need both sets of plans, please, or there will be no way to figure out what's going on.

(You did the right thing, I think, by allowing your family member to use your space, and then presumably you used one of these 'free' spaces 'for a reasonable period only', as is clearly your absolute right.)

I suspect your thinking on his deeds not having any wording will be wrong - almost certainly, it will. It should.

It really is looking as tho' the guy has misunderstood the significance of his 'ownership', and the most likely fact that it's really more like a Freeholder's responsibility that he has - ie, he has the hassle of regulation and upkeep, getting monies from the other entitled residents for this, but has absolutely zero additional parking rights over it. Poor fellow.

But, we need their deeds. And then we need you to be magnanimous. And, if you can't be mangnan, then at least record the conversation and put it on here.

propertyrental

Stop referring just to your deeds, and stop 'guessing' what his (black and white/briefly viewed) deeds say.

Pay £6 and download his tile deeds so you can see the actual wording and his Title Plan.

Then come back with facts, not conjecture.