Parking Issues

[Oneeyedvic]

We have a garage that we use for my bikes. The access to the garage is via a private car park (over which we have no ownership).
We have lived here for around 10 years, but recently another car has started parking in front of the garage. I have previously spoken to someone about not parking there - I am not sure if it is the same person / vehicle or not.

I have (over the weekend) put a polite notice on the garage asking people not to park in front, but he is there again today.

When we bought the house, we also had a document from previous owners stating that they had always had access to the garage.

I am planning on finding out who's car it is and trying to politely ask them to park elsewhere, but if they refuse (if it is the same person as before, then they are simply ignoring me), what options do I have?

[andy-hughes]

It's tricky.

You have no legal redress because you do not own the land, but common courtesy should dictate that the car owner doesn,t block your access.

At all costs, keep it nice and polite - wars of attrition over land are notoriously easy to get into, and very hard to get out of.

If polite notices don' work, you coulf try finding out who does own the car park, and ask them to discuss your access, and how you could get around the issue.

Good luck.

[themas]

You may be able to claim a prescriptive easement giving you the right to go over the car park land to access your garage - but only if you can demonstrate that this use has continued without serious interruption & without permission of the car park owner for at least 20 years.

However, it seems odd to me if a previous owner of your property built a garage with its access from the car park without getting permission from the car park owner to access it. If such permission was obtained it ought to have been recorded & included in your deeds & those of the car park. Have you checked your deeds - or the car park deeds? If not, get copies for a small fee from the land registry - make sure you go to the gov.uk site as a lot of other sites will sell you the deeds for a much larger sum.

Go here for more info. on prescriptive easements:

http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/professional/guides/practice-guide-52

As you can see, it is somewhat complex!