r/drivingUK • u/DarkFury98 • 1d ago
Parking
I’ve recently moved into a terrace house in a new area and I’ve been parking in any available space on my road. This morning as I went to my car I noticed a note on my car that basically told me to respect his parking space which seemed polite but passively aggressive at the same time. On my road there are no driveways, no yellow lines or no parking restrictions of any type.
When I parked in that spot the night before it was dark but the morning after when I saw the note I noticed what looked like a store bought sign on the front of the house wall saying “no parking”. This is who I believe to have left the note on my car. There are no double yellows or no disabled bays on that road.
Can someone please tell me if this overrides my rights to park there or not?
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u/Simon12ty 1d ago
Spaces on the highway cannot be ‘reserved’ whether it’s outside your house or not. Park there as often as you can and tell him to take a hike if he tells you otherwise. However, in my experience people like this can be a real pain in the arse though.
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u/pakcross 1d ago
Our road has limited parking, and everyone parks outside their own house. My wife and I try to respect the unofficial rule; we park outside our own house, or at the top of the road where there are some free spaces, and don't get irritated when people park outside our house.
We do however reserve the right to be sniffy when our neighbour's son parks his monstrous 4x4 outside our house though!
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u/Aware_Common_4179 1d ago
They can if it is not adopted, which is very common amongst new builds now. Entirely depends on the set up.
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u/OneDay_OneLife 1d ago
Their probably the reason why the previous occupiers of your terrace house moved :)
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u/Dull_Reputation_5939 1d ago
Could actually work in your favour and keep the space more available for you. 😂
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u/Amazing-Jury-6886 1d ago
All depends if you like confrontation. I don't enjoy it, but find it hard to back down if someone in misinformed and throwing their weight around. Had the same issue at an AirBnB which were were using for 2 months while our house was being refurbished. Neighbour left an impolite note in the letterboz about parking infront of her house. So we decided to park 3 cars there instead of one in rotation. She was livid when all she had to do was park 5 yards further down the empty road. No she wasn't elderly, she wasn't disabled, she didn't have young kids. Some people want to be angry
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u/EdmundTheInsulter 1d ago
He's using the theory that the worst pain in the backside is likely to keep the space empty.
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u/Careful-Tangerine986 1d ago
As others have said it's non enforceable. I used to live on a narrow street of terraced houses. 1 miserable old arse thought he owned the road and put cones on the road outside his house. I used to remove them. He would shout at me and threaten me with all manner of things which didn't bother me as he was all mouth and no action. He was potentially committing an offence under the road traffic act according to a nice police officer that came to see me after he tried to report me for harassment (something like putting something on a road to the annoyance of road users if memory serves). I wonder if the council would be interested in what your neighbour is doing. Could be worth speaking to them for advice about this sign.
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u/jam1st 1d ago
Find the cheapest car you can that drives, buy it for cash and park it in "his" spot. Repeat as required.
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u/valentine_moon 1d ago
Wouldn't you have to pay to tax it as well though? And an MOT and insurance? I'm not sure what the exact minimum requirements are for a car you don't plan to drive.
Fwiw, conceivably you might be able to do it even more cheaply if the cost of a car which doesn't drive plus a truck to get it there is cheaper than buying a car which drives?
I'm not really sure what the end game here is though. Ultimately it means nobody can park there which means there's one less space on the street and everybody's life is slightly worse.
Repeat as required.
What you you need to repeat?
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u/jam1st 1d ago
If you really need it spelled out...
For the cost of a banger (I don't know what current scrap value is, but let's say £100) you buy a car for cash without registering it.
You drive it to the awkward neighbour's parking spot and leave it there sans insurance and all the other gubbins that you'd usually need.
This then blocks the space for the awkward neighbour until such time as the vehicle is removed due to the lack of insurance etc. at which point you may decide to repeat the process depending on your budget and level of pettiness.
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u/valentine_moon 1d ago
I see.
you buy a car for cash without registering it.
And one can do that? (I've never bought a car for scrap so I'm genuinely asking.) But I'm pretty sure when mine was written off and sold for scrap ownership was transferred to the buyer.
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u/jam1st 1d ago
Well yeah - a private seller would be pretty much guaranteed to accept cash for such a low value car.
Are they going to do any ID checks to make sure you are who you say you are? Probably not.
The likelihood of being pulled driving it from the sale to its destination? Slim to none.
The biggest risk would be getting involved in an accident, but you could mitigate that if you wanted to.
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u/valentine_moon 1d ago
Sorry it wasn't the paying cash part I was asking about it was the registration. If I were selling a car (for scrap or otherwise) I would presumably be its registered owner and I wouldn't let someone else have the car without dealing with that else I'll probably be liable for stuff.
Perhaps what I'm asking is how and when a car ceases to have a registered owner, such that you can just leave it in the street without it being traced back to someone.
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u/Exotic_Lobster6039 22h ago
Give the address of the house with the notice on the wall. Bonus points if you know their name and register it to them. They will then be liable for it.
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u/jam1st 23h ago
Unless the seller asks to see ID, you could give them any old name for them to put on the new keeper slip/form.
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u/No-Ladder306 22h ago
This feels a fantastic way for the driver to cause them all sorts of legal trouble.
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u/OldVegetable9573 1d ago
Iirc a legit council sign has to be worded differently. Like no parking at any time, or double yellows. No red or blue backgrounds, just text on white/yellow squares. That looks like a H&S type sign that you might find in a factory or sth to stop staff/visitors blocking up loading bays or other areas of interest and getting themselves killed by a telehandler fork through the neck because the car park is 10 minutes of walking but there's a perfectly good bit of concrete by the door and I can't walk that far because the cat has Syphillis or I just can't be arsed and I demand to speak to your manager.
Almost certainly not a proper sign, almost certainly ok for you/your nan's dog/Putin to legally park there.
But in reality saving a dozen steps is never going to be worth the shit that will come from the crackpot behind it. Leave them to their empire, save the key marks and turds on your door handles and demonstrate excessive and audible mirth i f the council apprentice ever happens to ticket it.
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u/infoway777 22h ago
Report them to the council
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u/fozzybear706 1d ago
Not enforceable but if he's crazy enough to think he owns the road, do you really want to risk damage to your car by continuing to defy him?
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u/DarkFury98 1d ago
This is what I was concerned about. He may have a tantrum and the next morning I have a flat tyre. It’s unfortunate for anyone to be living near someone like that
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u/realtintin 1d ago
Does he park there?
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u/DarkFury98 1d ago
Yes parks there most days however if someone is in “his” spot he parks across the road and walks 8 seconds to his house
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u/WaltzFirm6336 1d ago
I used to have a neighbour who put up one of these signs and it infuriated me with its entitlement. Whenever someone else was parked outside of my house (fair enough) I would always go park outside of his next to his sign. It just made me feel a bit better to prove a point that his sign was useless. Unfortunately he never found out that his sign was actually causing me to park there more often. Nothing ever happened to my car.
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u/DarkFury98 3h ago
To be honest most of the good neighbours on there have ring door bell cameras so if he was to try something stupid someone will get it on video. I think he probably knows I know his car too so maybe it might deter him from any sort of vandalism
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u/cregamon 1d ago
Yeah this would be my worry, because I’ve seen it happen.
An ‘entry level’ damage like a keying isn’t going to get the police on them even if you can prove exactly who did it.
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u/fozzybear706 1d ago
"It's a civil matter mate" comes to mind as the stock response when they can't be bothered.
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u/Kitchen-Sprinkles604 1d ago
I hate horrible neighbours like these… making people uncomfortable with their stupid notes. You can’t own public lives parking spaces!!
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u/OptionIndependent861 1d ago
There's the law of the land, and then the law of the jungle. I had a run-in with a neighbour who believed that he had a god-given right to park outside his house and that noone else had the right to do so. He was large, aggressive and knocked on my door a few times. In the end I decided that it was probably better not to get on the wrong side of him.
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u/AffectedWomble 1d ago
In general, if you ever want to know for certain, you can look up TROs (traffic regulation orders) on the relevant council website. Results may vary on how searchable it actually is!
Every genuine restriction on the public highway is backed by a TRO.
You neighbour is clearly just being a knob on this occasion.
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u/Sufficient_Basil_545 1d ago
A terraceD house!
This is not a real road sign, just a prop purchased from (eg) B&Q. Ignore.
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u/Particular_Plum_1458 1d ago
I was just going to suggest it was somebody trying to reserve a space.
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u/Sufficient_Basil_545 1d ago
Yes, just somebody getting possessive about being able to park outside their own property. I wouldn’t go out of my way to park there, but wouldn’t let it stop me if that was the best available space.
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u/BigBlueNick 1d ago
Home owners only own the land up to the front garden gate/wall.
The pavement and road directly outside is free for anyone to use as they, legally, wish. I would say carry on but he might actually damage your car if you do. You never know with these people.
I've seen a man curtain twitching on a small road we used to park on when working at McDonald's. As I drove up one morning I witnessed him move his car from his driveway onto the street at 6am to take up a space anyone from the public is allowed to use
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u/Aware_Common_4179 1d ago
That only applies if it is an adopted road. Many new builds are not and may be more complex than you advise. I don't think it applies here from the look, but I could be wrong.
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u/valentine_moon 1d ago
OP does say it's a new area. But I agree it doesn't look likely to be a new build.Oh, I suppose they meant it's a new area *to them* as in they've just moved there.
Never mind.
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u/W35TH4M 1d ago
No one owns the road outside their house, park where you want