‘Tis a difficult one. Parking is one of those things that does get contentious.

No matter what the previous arrangement was, this is your land so you can do what you will with it. If you want to end the agreement they had with the previous owner, they’ll have to suck it up because at the end of the day they have no right to park there. I’d definitely nip it in the bud now* but I’m not too fussed about being best mates with my neighbours…I’m happy at just saying hello.

You will be seen as the bad guy so you are doomed to a certain extent. Those saying get over it etc – how would you feel if your neighbours assumed that they could use your drive / toilet / garden as they please because of an informal agreement that used to exist? I suspect it’s very easy to say get over it, an easy life is more important but harder to do if it is your property being used despite you asking them not to.

The bit that would annoy me the most is that they have just assumed that they can continue to use your spaces. Surely the right thing would have been to check with you first? That would have avoided all of the tension.

I get what people are saying about why can’t your friends / family park further away. On the otherhand, why should they have to when you have ample space for them to use? Its not your fault their houses have less parking than yours.

* on the basis that the spaces will get used. If you kick off about it and no one uses them you will look like a toolbox. Although as it is your property, its up to who uses it.

Junkyard I was in my front garden one Sat morning. Neighbour (medical professional) went across the road and hammered on the front door shouting move your **** car NOW.

Two Asian lads in their 30’s came out, shouting/one was swivelled-eyed (probably with the stress of it literally wanting to hit her, calling her a fat-this, fat-that etc etc). Lasses Father came out (nice bloke and he obviously felt dutybound to be present for his daughter although he was very uncomfortable). I intervened, cooled everyone down. The father came round and thanked me. Bizarrely so did another neighbour who was nothing to do with the trouble.

She didn’t. She did this again the following week. Mrshora said ‘shes at it again/are you going out’?

NO.

Guess who moved out? Not her/her family.

Had our Mondeo keyed again over the weekend.

We have a drive. Probably could squeeze two cars on but we are talking a Mondeo & a Galaxy here, so not the smallest cars.

Had a party for my youngest weekend before last, so I parked the Mondeo in the communual area at the end of the street so that family could park on the drive & outside our house. The comunual area has room for about 5 cars, but the bays are not marked.

A chap who uses the communual area because its right outside his front window takes offence to me using it. He has his owne drive at the back of his house. Probably annoys him that I have space for 2/3 cars so shouldnt be parking there. But its a public area. Its not assigned to anyone, but this chap honeslty thinks he has a right to it becasue he has parked there for so many years.

I’m not too fussed. Couldnt care less about the car. Its got half a dozen key lines on it anyway. We are talking 11yr old Mondeo here, with 170k on the clock. I honestly dont care, but by god i’d love to catch him doing it. I’ve tried befriending him. Tried reasoning with him. Tried everything. I just take the stance that its a bit of inconvenience to me sometimes, but at least I’m not annoying him.

But after this latest incident all attempts to reason with him are abandoned, & I shall be doing everything in my power to annoy the hell out of him. 🙂

There’s compromise to be had. But ultimately, it’s your property, and your neighbours are taking liberties, so I fail to see why you should. You say you want to use the space but really, that’s irrelevant; it’s your space, you shouldn’t have to justify it.

You don’t want to fall out with your neighbours, and that’s fair enough, but arguably the ones who’ve responded to your request not to park on your land with anything other than “oh, ok, fair enough” aren’t people you want as ‘friends’ anyway.

Ultimately, you need to make a decision as to how much leeway you want to give them, and then communicate that to them. If any of them are arsey about that then I suggest that what you give them is “none at all.”

I really like the idea of knocking on their door and asking to use their toilet, and explaining that it’s the arrangement you had with your old neighbours before you moved so you assume it won’t be a problem. (-: Or going round with a load of clutter and asking to store it in their garage as you don’t have room in yours.

I intervened, cooled everyone down. The father came round and thanked me.

I haven’t been keeping count but I swear this is far from the first story you’ve told in which your appearance averts a crisis and you’re subsequently thanked by witnesses and bystanders. You must project a zen-like serenity. 😆

I haven’t been keeping count but I swear this is far from the first story you’ve told in which your appearance averts a crisis and you’re subsequently thanked by witnesses and bystanders. You must project a zen-like serenity.

Well I was fettling my bike. I was hardly going to bury my head into my bike or slyly walk inside and look from behind a curtain.

I still remember the time a group of lads were outside the bar (thrown out for fighting) were waiting for us to come out and I went out alone to ask them if we could calm down/go our own way after another naughty STW’er had sparked off the ruck.

I’ve been actively campaigning for this for some time, but seriously….. Lets make this happen

Loved the PetrolHeads thread, brilliant work, and exactly what I would have done. The 9 ton towing strap I have in the boot probably wouldn’t have broken, either…

the real feeling will be one of seething resentment of the ‘who does he think he is?’ variety

He doesn’t think, he knows he’s a) the rightful owner of the land in question, and b)he’s perfectly within his rights to re-assert his rightful ownership of it. Whatever they think is their problem.
Their getting pissy wouldn’t bother me one bit; I honestly don’t care if my neighbours talk to me or not, so if this was my situation, I’d happily let them stew in it. 😈

Other odd neighbour behaviour.

Me – Hi I’ve got this transit for the weekend, I’m off to the tip. Do you have anything that you’d like taking.

She filled the van. 😆

^^ and then you get to the tip to find it’s only Thursday’s where they allow anything over 1.7m tall, and only then if you’ve pre-registered with the council as residential, and not dumping trade waste 😉

Start renting the spaces out on http://www.parkatmyhouse.com
Advertise through flyers through their doors.

parking does seem to bring out the crazied mentalists in otherwise normal people.

My mother in law shares a side by side driveway with her neighbour. Neighbour doesn’t like it if she feels car is too close to her half and now doesnt like the fact that MIL parks a motorhome on the drive (very much within her own half), this has escalated to to CCTV, legal letters, painted lines, expensive bollards, police involvement and damage to vehicles.

I doubt you are going to reason with them over this.

Op, do nothing except twitch the curtains and moan to your wife whenever they park there.

Op, do nothing except twitch the curtains and moan to your wife whenever they park there.

😀 ….and while they’re at it, put up a ‘No Ball Games’ sign just in case any of the neighbour’s pesky kids dare impinge on their property by kicking a ball over the fence.

If you really value your parking spaces that much put some bollards in. The type that sink into the ground when not needed as they can’t be taken out by the neighbours. You will have to carry out this works at night and try and be as quiet as possible.

Had our Mondeo keyed again over the weekend.

We have a drive. Probably could squeeze two cars on but we are talking a Mondeo & a Galaxy here, so not the smallest cars.

Had a party for my youngest weekend before last, so I parked the Mondeo in the communual area at the end of the street so that family could park on the drive & outside our house. The comunual area has room for about 5 cars, but the bays are not marked.

A chap who uses the communual area because its right outside his front window takes offence to me using it. He has his owne drive at the back of his house. Probably annoys him that I have space for 2/3 cars so shouldnt be parking there. But its a public area. Its not assigned to anyone, but this chap honeslty thinks he has a right to it becasue he has parked there for so many years.

I’m not too fussed. Couldnt care less about the car. Its got half a dozen key lines on it anyway. We are talking 11yr old Mondeo here, with 170k on the clock. I honestly dont care, but by god i’d love to catch him doing it. I’ve tried befriending him. Tried reasoning with him. Tried everything. I just take the stance that its a bit of inconvenience to me sometimes, but at least I’m not annoying him.

But after this latest incident all attempts to reason with him are abandoned, & I shall be doing everything in my power to annoy the hell out of him.

Go buy a pig of a car for £200, preferably a big one, that blocks light from his window, park it there permanently and let it rot.

Similar here. When we moved in the neighbour who thought they had rights and the other one who had an informal previous agreement were fighting over our spaces!! First I heard was a solicitors letter from next door grassing the other up!!! Why not come and chat??? Anyway I had great pleasure getting the deeds out and politely asking them both to jog on. Neither talk to me now! I just get bitchy things like they cut my part of the hedge(on shared private road that I’ve cut twice this season) and left the cuttings on the floor for me when I got home!

Yep, keep it washed and cleaned though. buy it with some tax left to run so minimal outlay in a private sale. It’ll pick up alot of keymarks but then you might spot him doing this. Imagine the satisfaction of him paying for a respray and/or prosecution on what really is a scrapper.

A chap I know bought some land and put up a couple of small barns to store cars and equipment in, They were nice tasteful wooden structures, landscaped drive and flower beds around them. The neighbours complained to the council it went to court and because he didn’t have planning permission, he’s had to take the barns down. The court said the land could only be used for it’s original purpose, a scrap yard. He now has a small crane in there, a load of old cars piled up and a low loader. He’s rich enough not to give a monkeys and the neighbours now have a scrap yard next door, not a landscaped garden, with some storage.

This is totally OT…sorry, just reminded me of it.

I dont see why the OP needs to pussy foot around its his land tell them to sod off neighbours are just that .They are not your friends just the people you have the misfortune to live next to

Just chain it off, that’s not rude or confrontational, you’re just reserving your own parking space, on your own land.

The people that pi55 me off are the ones who put cones out in the public road outsie their house.

I live in a small cul-de-sac with a communal car park..

We were shown a space that was generally regarded to be for use by our householf and for the first three months or so that was fine.. Everyone stuck to their regular spaces and there were no arguments..

After we came back from a holiday though, the boyfriend of a neighbour was using our space..
The first time I ignored it.. the next time I knocked on his door and in a blokey friendly manner I told him he was a cheeky **** and that he needed to move his car..

job done.. although he parked in a neighbour’s space recently who responded by parking sideways on across every space that the boyfriend, girlfriend and her parents use..

oh how we laughed

They are not your friends just the people you have the misfortune to live next to

They’re the people who feed my cats when I’m away on holiday, lend me tools, help with odd-jobs every now and again, collect post for me, put my bins out if I’m not around, baby-sit my kids sometimes etc. One of them even stopped my house burning down once. Yes they may not be my best mates but they fill a role that if it wasn’t there would make life a hell of a lot more difficult. I only hope I’m as useful to them as they are to me sometimes.

listen here daz, obviously in the eyes of STW you’re common as muck:

1) you spell your username with a ‘Z’ so you must be poor

2) poor people have lower standards and are obviously too dumb to realise other people are horrid filth that one must avoid at all costs

3) its not proper to engage with ones neighbours unless employing their teenage kids to muck out your stables in the summer holidays

this is STW son, your type aint welcome ’round here!

bloody neighbour loving hippies.

If you’ve a single solitary ounce of common sense, then the people who you live next door too shouldn’t ever feature on the ‘people I’ve needlessly pissed off today’ list.

If you’ve a single solitary ounce of common sense, then the people who you live next door too shouldn’t ever feature on the ‘people I’ve needlessly pissed off today’ list.

Presumably that works the other way round then, ie not parking in other peoples parking spaces when they have asked you not too…

Just a thought 😉

you’re obviously poor binners, or is it binnerZ?!

Philly – i’m common as muck! hence getting on well with all my neighbours. 😉

They’re just doing what they’ve been doing every day for a decade, so the situation needs a bit of diplomacy. One of the many things noticeable by its absence in this thread.

Sometimes you just have to look at the bigger picture, and take on the chin what is ultimately a pretty trifling matter.

Choose your battles.

Park a tank in the spaces and at the weekend start it up and take it for a spin. Either that or a monster truck.

http://www.tanksforsale.co.uk

Its not a trifling matter if its happening to you though. Its thoroughly annoying and makes people visiting hard work and unenjoyable if you have to go out and essentially inform your neighbours that you have visitors and could they move out of the way for them. I sympathise with the OP no end.

One of my other neighbours has 4 cars, 2 large (E class merc’s) and 2 small (a mini and a 2 seater merc). He has managed to get all 4 cars on his one car drive by replacing his front lawn with stones. Now none of his cars are even on the public part of the close, blocking no-one in. One day he was moving them round and had left his (engine running) in the road as I was going out, he nearly tripped over himself to move it for me. To me, this is normal behaviour. I offer him the use of our drive when Im on holiday as its beneficial to both parties but he doesnt park there the rest of the time.

Sorry for ranting but when you arent having the problem its easy to look at it and say, oh you are making a big deal out of it, but it is a big deal if you are involved. The OP could well have bought the house for the additional parking, exactly what I did. Two spaces with the intention of two cars. But now I only have one space and no where for a second car.

But all this actually means (in reality, rather than your more imaginative scenario) is that occasionally one of your mates may not be able to park up directly outside your house, and may have to walk 50 yards from their car instead when they pop round. In the ‘isn’t modern life hellish’ stakes, it doesn’t really make it onto the radar IMHO

Having just moved in somewhere, would I choose to make it an issue, and risk winding up my new neighbours. Well, personally I wouldn’t, no.

I seem to be in the minority though. I’m glad I don’t live next door to some of you lot. Compromise isn’t a word that seems to figure very prominently

Its not really all that imaginative, I’m curious which bit you think isn’t factual. I have two cars. I bought a house with two spaces. One of the spaces is permanently filled by some lowlife’s piece of junk. I don’t think its unreasonable to expect to be able to use my parking without having to ask permission from other people. Perhaps you are willing to pay more for a property that suits you needs only to have some it made unavailable due to selfishness? I do not.

Why do you not have driveway with suitable garaging for your fleet of motorcars? Surely this should be a problem for your staff rather than you?

Are you a peasant?

Are you sure? You were fairly ambiguous in your earlier posts. 😉

Your situation sounds considerably worse than the OP’s though. Can you not channel all this angst, and subsequent ranting into more direct threats of physical violence? I think it’d do you a lot of good personally. It’d be cathartic! 😀

Photo copy the deeds ( after double checking the area is yours )
Then write a simple letter in plain English explaining how a right of way over your drive does not give everyone parking rights.
Tell them the standing arrangement with Mr ABC who owned the house before no longer exists.
Invite all your bikey mates/ friends/ family round over the next few weekends so the existing residents can see the hardstanding is being used regulaly.
So what if they get huffy , boo hoo. Tell them to go and buy their own house with adequate parking for their needs , not to think they are entitled to something that they are not, that then requires them to put one foot in front of the other for 1min extra.
Your house = your rules

You are Paul Dacre and I claim my £30,000 in border-dispute legal fees! 😆

Singltrackmind in one.

You need a

‘Polite Notice’

I always feel better being told what to do if the notice I’m reading also has to make the point that it is being ‘Polite’ I get a warm fuzzy feeling as I subserviently observe an comply with the notice that has just been so beautifully passive aggressive.

If I owned that many parking spaces surplus to my normal requirements, I’d be converting them to something more attractive like garden, or more useful like a shed!

Ahhhh “polite notices” – they make me laugh. Two homes near us are defaced with great big blue metal Polite Notices in the style of road signs, stuck to the house front, all because they don’t want people parking in front of the house.