Assigned Car Space Blocks Neighbour's Access

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stuartmc

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We are close to signing for the house we want to buy but today our solicitor contacted us regarding our parking space.

There is a small car park with 6 residents' spaces and 5 visitors' spaces for 6 houses. Our assigned space was not obviously marked, while others were, so we asked our solicitor to investigate.

It turns out that our space, marked out on the land registry map in the folio, is beside our (prospective) house but if we were to park there, we would block our neighbour's rear access.

This evening I had a chat with the neighbour who told me that he erased the house number that had marked out our space because it would block his access. His opinion is that the car park is communal. He is clearly contradicted by the land registry map.

Our concerns are that we do not want to start out on the wrong foot with a new neighbour, nor block his access if we can help it, nor do without our defined car space. This issue, if left unresolved, could come back to bite us when we go to sell the property on.

The visitor spaces are still in the developer's folio. We intend to ask the vendor to sort out a car-space swap with the developer - a visitor space for our space. The risk is that the vendor will walk away from the deal. We do want this house.

Has anyone been in a similar situation to this? What was the solution?


Thanks in advance. See [broken link removed] for maps and photos.
 
How about ignoring the fact that the land registry contradicts what exists on the ground and have your official spot become your neighbours spot, and change the marking on his so it becomes yours in practice.

He should not mind blocking his own rear access seeing as he can move out of his own way when needed.

If he plays hardball, tell him that you intend using the space intended for your use per the registry and he had no right to erase evidence of your ownership. If he is not happy, it sounds like it should be him that arranges the visitor space swap for you.
 
While the above sounds grand in principle i would caution starting out on these lines with a new neighbour. While i don't condone his actions there is clearly a problem with the planning side of things that needs addressing.

Stupid things like this can quickly blow up into grudges held for years if you have the wrong kind of neighbour.
 
I think the neighbour has already shown he is a bit of a chancer by reasing your markings. It sounds like he could be a nasty guy to deal with. Try swapping spaces and see how he takes that? It seems reasonable.
 
Thank you for your responses.


The current owner's solution is to park in a visitor space. This is fine in practice but I want to avoid this becoming an issue in future with a new prospective buyer or indeed with a neighbour who might complain that I am always using a visitor space. Therefore, before I buy this house, I think I should get the space officially swapped.

I called the developer this morning and she said would look into it and call me back but she doesn't think anything can be done. I will let you know...

How about ignoring the fact that the land registry contradicts what exists on the ground and have your official spot become your neighbours spot, and change the marking on his so it becomes yours in practice.
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He has claimed the space as his access and won't park there. He parks in his designated spot.
 
stuartmc said:
He has claimed the space as his access and won't park there. He parks in his designated spot.
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Is he legally entitled to do this?

Get your solicitor on the case-don't let this guy bully you-as it sounds like this is what he is trying to do.
 
CCOVICH said:
Is he legally entitled to do this?

Get your solicitor on the case-don't let this guy bully you-as it sounds like this is what he is trying to do.
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The neighbour may have a valid point, without seeing the plans it's impossible for us to say. The blame probably lies with 1) the developer, for shoehorning the parking spaces in. 2) the previous owner for not picking this up in his snag when he originally bought the place.

The neighbour may be legally in the wrong but how would you feel if your access was blocked by other cars? There have been countless cases of vandalism in private estates of this type of thing with people parking in front of houses all day. Near Dart stations for instance ....
 
Is he legally entitled to do this?
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Does my right to park on my property supercede his right to access? I'm not sure. Anybody?

The current owner may have been pushed into this scenario but my guess is that it just sort of happened - you would not feel comfortable parking in the space, blocking a gate.
 
To be honest it sounds like an unresolveable situation.

The neighbour is a pig-headed bully. If the land registry shows the spot is yours, he has no right to stop you parking there or erase your spot. Get your solictor onto the case but to be honest I'd walk away if its not resolved. It will most definitely come back to bite you as effectively your neighbour has removed your designated space. Does it really block his access or is he just being unreasonable? If it genuinely did block his access then it wouldn't have been put there in the first place.
 
Does it really block his access or is he just being unreasonable?
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The space does genuinely block his access. He would not be able to, for example, put out his bin if my car were parked.
 
Could you not just put your number on one of the visitor spaces?
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I could but then it wouldn't be official and when I try to sell, it could be flagged as an issue.
 
stuartmc said:
Does my right to park on my property supercede his right to access? I'm not sure. Anybody?
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Ask your solicitor-surely that's what your paying them for.
 
In reality, is this all not the tough luck of the guy who's access is blocked? He's the one who bought his place, had his solicitor look over everything, and looked over the place and saw the lie of the land.

Difficulties for him or not, your parking space is your space - should you decide to buy. If he was dumb enough to buy a place with restricted access, then that's his tough luck.

Given all that though, unfortunately, it's a tough situation to put yourself into. The seller should really have reclaimed the space before trying to sell, or at least sort things beforehand, leaving everything soothed over for the new buyers.

Could you ask him to sort things out before he sells? He can have all the tough conversations with the other guy since he's going to be moving away soon. You could point out that it's really in his interest to do so, as otherwise all prospective buyers will have the same issues as you.
 
ronan_d_john said:
In reality, is this all not the tough luck of the guy who's access is blocked? He's the one who bought his place, had his solicitor look over everything, and looked over the place and saw the lie of the land.

Difficulties for him or not, your parking space is your space - should you decide to buy. If he was dumb enough to buy a place with restricted access, then that's his tough luck.

Given all that though, unfortunately, it's a tough situation to put yourself into. The seller should really have reclaimed the space before trying to sell, or at least sort things beforehand, leaving everything soothed over for the new buyers.

Could you ask him to sort things out before he sells? He can have all the tough conversations with the other guy since he's going to be moving away soon. You could point out that it's really in his interest to do so, as otherwise all prospective buyers will have the same issues as you.
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Good point, your neighbour has HIS access blocked. He should have bought another house. However, with the increase in high density living, parking is becomming a major problem
 
True, it is the neighbour's problem. Do you think future prospective buyers will see it that way? Or will they see a potential dispute and baulk?

What would you do in that position?
 
Hi,

We had a similar problem in our last house. We had two parking spaces and one visitor spot (shared between us and our neighbours on one side). The visitor spot was was directly at our rear access. Many other people parked in it and blocked our access particularly when my boyfriend was trying to get his motorbike in and out and when we put the bin out. I talked to the management company at the time and they just said there was nothing we could do.
One neighbour applied for planning permission and got his two spaces moved from the front of his house to the side of his house (the entrance he used most frequently) and got the visitor spaces moved to the front.
Although assigned parking spaces sound great in theory - they don't work. Personnally, I wouldn't buy a house again in an estate where the parking was assigned. It caused us too much hassle.
 
Hard to tell. I would weigh up all the factors involved. Parking being one factor. If the parking adds to a list of cons, I would start to get worried.

Parking may not be a priority now but say in a couple of months, and you want to have a housewarming or BBQ, one of your friends parks there but decides to get a taxi home.

I would not like for a silly parking space to sour my relationship with my neighbour. If the place does not have proper parking, it is a bad sign.
 
I'm not quite so interested in where I park as what future buyers will think. Parking is the only issue, so I would like to get this sorted and buy the house.

I had a callback from the developer to say that it's not their baby. But then she admitted that the vendor's solicitor needs to speak to developer's solicitor to sort it out.

I will ask my solicitor to request that.

Cheers.
 
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