Neighbours and Parking!!!

[nutcracker]

I hope someone can advise me. I'll try and explain the problem as clearly as I can.
We live in an end terrace on a main road, we have a walled back garden and directly behind the back garden on the right hand side there is a car port. The car port nearest to our back garden is ours. There are also 2 more next to ours which belong to the 2nd and 3rd house next door to ours.

Our next door neighbours consistently parks his car outside his back gate, even though the car port provides parking for 2-3 cars.

Every time he does this, I have to pull onto the drive at an angle, and when my husband comes home in his van, he really struggles to park.

It also causes a problem when try to reverse off of the drive, as the wall (our back garden wall) runs parallel to the car ports, therefore there is no way we can swing to the left to pull off the drive so have no either choice but to reverse in a straight line. Totally impossible when you've got another vehicle parked 3 metres behind your drive.

Despite asking him not to park there, he still does, and it's got to the point where it's driving me nuts.

Where do I stand legally on this? By parking outside his gate and blocking access / making it hard to pull on and off our drive, is he breaking the law?

Please help

[Colortec]

It's all a bit difficult to visualise. Nevertheless, as long as you have 'reasonable' access, I would say your hands are tied. Is your nieghbour approachable? Try talking to him again. It might be difficult to break the ice. Try to get him on your side - say you are terrible at parking (Lie a bit) and he could help you out by not parking his car where he does.

Alternatively, you could bulldoze your back garden wall and create a driveway.

[SSSharon]

if its a communal area legally there is nothing you can do. something similar happened in our estate the only way to sort it is to play him at his own game and go out of your way to make his parking difficult for a couple of weeks worked for us. good luck!!!

[stevie-p]

i know the feeling,,there are some people you just cant reason with.

[CT]

Yes, I think i'd agree with colortec. If you say you're bad a t parking he may give you more room to avoid getting his car pranged.

[gazzawazza]

Awkward g**s like this really do my head in. It's as if some people like to annoy others. Why???

[nutcracker]

Thanks everyone! Nice to know I'm not going bonkers! Am going to go round and approach him again tonight so wish me luck! I'll update you tomorrow! x