Parking

Our next door neighbours do this all the time it's annoying but we decided not worth falling out over as in every other way they are good neighbours.

tiffaney, is it public parking? are they blocking your drive? if the answers to these are 'yes' and 'no', then I'm afraid they are perfectly entitled to park there, annoying though it is. You could still ask them nicely, worth a try..

Not at all unreasonable not to want the neighbour to do it, but probably absolutely nothing you can do about it, as you have no more legal claim to the road in front of your house than he/she does. You can try speaking to them , but that can sometimes make things worse.

Do you have a car yourself? If so, it's annoying if you have to park further away from your house.

The only cure is to keep on parking your own car(s) outside your own house so that there is no space for them. If it is on a public road, you have no ownership of the space at your gate, you can only object if you are unable to enter your own property to park off-road. Most annoying and you are not being unreasonable, but that is how it is.

Not unreasonable at all.

We live in a 7 house cul de sac. Everyone has 2 cars and a small drive. Then my neighbour moved in and started renting out his 5 bed house by the room. He has space at a squeeze for 2 on the road and 3 on his drive but regularly has 7 cars there.

As soon as he started parking in front of our house and drive we had a word . We have visitors, family, and until we retired 2 cars . He's been very good about it and now it rarely happens.

We had no 'right' to park outside our house but morally and historically ( last 23 years) it's been observed by all the neighbours. If anyone was having a party they let us know and wewillingly gave up our spaces and even our drive.

I'd have a word. Of if not I'd park outside their house :-) but then I'm a mean old bugger !! ?

I also live in a cul de sac but do not have a drive, just a small path from road to my house. People seem to think it okay to block the entrance to my path so that, because I am disabled, have one hell of a job to get to my car which is in an allocated car park space opposite. People in the next street have very little parking space so appear to think that where I live is fair game.

We are at the end of a t-shaped cul de sac. We park on our drive and they park on front of our garden so it's more difficult yo reverse out. They're not in effect blocking us in and have every right to park there as it's a public road. It's just something l wouldn't do in front of theirs. l don't want to start a war but l'm worried my husband who is normally very easy going, will go out one day and say something. I hate confrontation. I would rather put up with it.

You are not unreasonable but as others have said, the road is a public place and we do not have 'rights' over positions.
It seems unfair and you must be frustrated with it all.
My DS has a house with two 'allocated parking spaces' outside. He owns the house. As he only has one car, the spare space is regularly used by all and sundry. This results in visitors and grandparents having nowhere to park when they arrive. The space is clearly marked as being for number 19.
I'm afraid lots of people will respond to this thread as it affects many.
You could try chatting (!) to them.

I think a quiet word might be in order as long as it doesnt get nasty. She is quite a nice divorced lady with a partner and 3 teen/twenty year olds and it's mostly them that do it and then their friends come as well. They've extended the smallish house to it's limits but the drive has space for only 3 cars. Loads of spare space the other side of the street but its always ours they park in front of.

If there is space nearby that is more suited to parking and will not cause problems for other people, I think it is quite reasonable to have a chat with your next door neighbour, explaining the problems their current parking pattern causes you and the difficulties getting off your drive. Acknowledge their right to park there, but ask them, as a courtesy, not to.

I would also recommend reversing into,your own drive so that you drive forwards on to the public road. Always easier and safer.

Nanaaand Granmpy. Does your neighbour have a licence to be an HMO (house in multiple occupation)? Could be worth checking with your local council, as he may be breaking quite a few regulations if he hasn't!

As others say, if it's a public road, there's nothing you can legally do.

In the circumstances though, maybe you should start parking your own car on the road outside your house. The neighbours might get the message then.

DD has lived in the corner of cul de sac for many years and as everyone, except one bungolow have generous drive you rarely saw anyone parked in the road. The new occupantsof the bungalow with the small drive are a couple with no children or anyone else living in the bungalow have 6 expensive large luxury cars of which he is very proud and a horse box. They are parked in his drive and on the lawn. Normally 3 of his cars are parked in the road reducing the exit space from my daughter's drive. Very annoying but I don't think she can do anything about it.

On a recent visit, he did comment my daughter did drive rather fast ( past his cars) I responded 'she is a very good driver'. My daughter admitted she did drive maybe a little quickly past them to alarm him and discourage him from parking to close to her exit. She is careful because she didn't want to damage her own car, I do think it is bizarre to buy so many cars and inconsiderate to his neighbours. They blight a very pretty area,

Because we live near the centre of our village we gave a single yellow line outside which bans road parking between 8am and 6 pm. It's a huge nuisance when we have visitors as we can only fit our cars plus 2 others on the drive. It also means our visitors have to park further up the road - outside someone else's house.

I share your pain tiffaney and others. We live on a modern estate where each home gets 1 allocated parking bay with your door number on it. The estate was built to discourage cars but encourage cyclists and the use of public transport and there are few other (shared) spaces available. My neighbours have a car each plus those of their 3 grown up children (1 who lives at home and 2 at university) at the minute they are all home and they are using 4 spaces up plus squeezing a motorbike on the path (that really irritates me) but for some reason they can't be arsedbothered to walk around the back and use their allocated bay, meaning that there's nothing for anyone else. Some people are just so damned selfish.

We have parking outside our house but luckily we have a good size driver and fortunately people seem to respect that. What I get twitchy about is that our road is also used by learner drivers and they use my frontage to practise 3 point turns - with the driver as an escape route if necessary I think!! Oh yes, learner motorcycle drivers use our road to practise with their instructor which is noisy but luckily it doesn't last too long and as other posters have said, there's nothing one can do about it. I try to 'live and let live' but sometimes it's a bit annoying

Those neighbours who move in with 3 angelic kids, end up with 3 young adults who all own cars each.........it is a problem everywhere as car ownership expands.

Parking is a modern nightmare. I just onder if you do have a word with her, if other people will nip into the spaces?

Parking causes so much trouble. When my daughter and I moved to Dover we bought a terraced house. On the first night we had moved in DD left her car outside our house and, when she went to go to work next morning, found a scrawled note under the wipers full of swear words from one of the neighbours ranting about her taking 'their space' amongst other things. It turned out to be the partner of a neighbour two doors down the road. She had a car which was outside their house and he had got into the habit of parking outside out house. I posted the note back through their door telling them they had no legal right to park anywhere in the road and that we would be using a parking space now that we were in the road. His partner apologised - he had been away working and come home in the middle of the night and there hadn't been a space to park his car. Told her that wasn't really our problem and she agreed. If my daughter wasn't home when he was he always made a point of parking outside our house though, even if there was space elsewhere - silly man - when we move into our permanent home soon here in Telford we have a double garage/drive so won't have to worry about neighbours cars anymore - be such a relief!

We had a time last year when white van men would leave their vans overnight or all weekend. One van driver used to arrive in his car , park it up and go off for the working day in his van, thus securing his parking place for the evening. The problem was white van men would manoeuvre until they got their vehicles under my CCTV camera on the assumption they would be safer. When family visited no places were available which is annoying.

We had a slightly different problem in that the neighbour's teenage boys like to play football outside OUR house. We put up with the ball hitting our cars and garage door every five minutes. So, hubby drove out of our driveway and parked on the road. He did this in front of them and they had no room to kick their damned football!

One solution is to do what a woman in the cul-de-sac- just down the road did. She crept our in the dead of night and punctured the tyres of anyone who had the temerity to park outside her house. Bit drastic though.

There was a newspaper article over the weekend about people parking outside of people's homes which were near an airport and trying to save on parking fees. The residents were naturally angry as often not enough space for them to park their own cars. Although in the comments they received much sympathy, plenty of people pointed out that it was classed as a public highway and they had as much right to park there as anyone else having paid their annual road tax. You should not block a dropped kerb, or allocated parking spaces and obviously be aware of other road signs and markings but don"t think you can prevent someone parking outside your house on a public road. So many families have multiple cars now that a lot of councils are bringing in residents parking permits at an annual cost.