Yeah, really don’t want to walk away from this one but the parking might turn a dream home into a nightmare.

Less effect than having only having one parking space.

Not much effect I would think. You’ll have two parking spaces. Lots of people have to juggle cars around.

Replacing grass with driveway is an option

What about a halfway house of embedding those plastic squares in the grass so you can park on it, but still have grass

At the end of the day it is not a dream home if it doesn’t work because you can’t park conveniently.

I think every house will have a compromise somewhere, you have decide what compromise you can cope with. I don’t think this sounds like a compromise that would work in the long run.

Also, where would visitors park?

If it is private, do you become a part owner when you buy the property or would you merely have right of access?
If you become a part owner, what is set up with regard to maintaining it? Is there a sinking fund taking in annual contributions so that it can be repaired or will it fall on those who live there at the time to pay for repairs regardless of how long they have lived there or whether other owners have lived there, used it and moved on without ever contributing.

Might not be an issue or it could be in the future…

Don’t worry “thegingerone”. There is visitor parking, plus for a busy weekend, we could move the wife’s car to the compound at work. The property is leasehold and with that comes 1/10 of the freehold of the estate. There is a sink fund that sounds reasonably robust. In fact, they’re considering dropping the annual charge.

leasehold – yuck. Granted my only experience is with flats and never doing that again.

Leasehold and limited parking?

Get the **** out of dodge my friend, that’s a whole heap of shit your would be buying in to.

We were initially sceptical of the leasehold thing but it seems to be a regional thing and pretty hard to avoid in the area we’re looking at. The upside is that, at least we’d also be the freeholds (along with the other residents) and there’s over 950 years of lease left with no rent.

Considering some of those grid things nbt, just wondering what they’re like pkg term. Does it become grass you can park on or a green grid filled in with mud?

Considering some of those grid things nbt, just wondering what they’re like pkg term. Does it become grass you can park on or a green grid filled in with mud?

It depends! Partly it depends on the quality of the grass anyway. Grass needs to be well drained and well watered… …if the driveway drains onto the grass that edge section could get very soft in heavy rain. It seems to drain better with well established grass on it.

However the real issue for the grass is if the car is parked there for long periods during the day. Sunlight is obviously essential.

I’ve seen this used as “road” with large numbers of vehicles crossing and it copes very well because it is exposed to daylight between vehicles. I’ve also seem it used with a caravan on top which did get used almost every weekend year round and its was ugly, dead grass and mud!

Careful if you try to wedge two vehicles on there – I bet you can’t get too close to the gate before it refuses to close 🙂

And practically, you need to work out if you can turn a vehicle easily onto the grass without having to get within 5mm of the gateposts.

Agreed, I’m already thinking that if car A is clear enough of the French doors, it will still have to be moved for car B to get on and off the new drive/reinforced grass.

It wouldn’t bother me as I can’t park anywhere near the house as it’s straight onto a field but if it bothers you, it will bother a potential buyer in the future. I would walk unless there are few alternatives.
When I lived in a street with multiple occupancy households parking could be a nightmare and you’d dread having to move the car as getting back would be such a hassle. That just introduces an unwelcome stress in your life which doesn’t go away as there’s nothing you could do about it. If it’s giving you grief already, is it likely to get any better in the future?

If by buying the property you become a co-director of the leasehold company along with the other owners, it is not that bad. I currently have that where I live. We have to have management meetings twice a year, we rotate who is the company secretary and who is the treasurer. Once a year you have to upload the accounts to companies house. It is a slight ball ache, but nothing compared to when a company owns the leasehold. As long as everything is done properly and the owners are happy to take their turns (the difficult bit especially with the inept).
Though I am admittedly happy to be moving away to reduce the burden. 🙂