Is my neighbour allowed to do this?

[stavroshamster]

New people moved in across the street a couple of months ago, and have erected a yellow sign on their front wall (right next to the road) which says "Parking for number 15 only. Please do not park here" along with another "no parking" sign in their window further back from the road.

Now, we live on a narrow street where it is often difficult to park in front of your own house. However, I've been living here nearly 4 years and I have NEVER had to park on a different street as there is usually space at the end of the street at least. There are NO parking restrictions apart from a couple of places where people have driveway's onto the street.

I know that he is a taxi driver, so I can understand that he might not want to bother walking up the road to jump into his car (although that's just laziness as it would take 30 seconds), but I am still a bit pissed off about the arrogance of their actions. I also found a (semi-polite) note stuck to me car windscreen about a month ago when we went on holiday for a week, telling me to move my car because I was parked in front of his house.

Apart from the arrogance of it, it makes a bad impression to others of the "neighbourhood friendliness rating" of the street, which can only be a bad thing, especially as it's a very friendly area by all accounts.

I am a pretty non-confrontational person, and have no intention of getting into a barney with a neighbour over something pretty trivial (although it irritates me quite a lot - perhaps I shouldn't be so uptight). I know I have every right to park there if I want, but at the same time I don't want my car keyed. Clearly other's feel the same as the sign does seem to have resulted in his desired outcome annoyingly.

My question is, is there anything anyone can do about his "no parking" sign - is he legally within his rights to have it there, even if he obviously can't legally enforce it? I suspect he has the right to put a sign up if he wants to, but I may be wrong...?

[Mithrandir]

As far I know if it's on the public road, no they're not exclusively entitled to that space. If there were bay areas then thats another matter.
I think it's something to bring with the local council really.
However, I have no idea on this issue on the legal side of things.

[Behemoth]

I think its just a case of he's a lazy pain in the rear end. Legally you can't expect to park outside your own home. He's just being very unfair and un-reasonable.

I'd park outside his house now just to prove a point.

[santa claus]

The cheeky sod. Report him to the Council. If that doesn't work you have to make a stand or this will irritate you for as long as you live there....

[Gerrard]

My understanding would be that if there's no parking bays or road markings/signs, then he can put the sign up if he likes but can't enforce it in any way. It's a public road, and as long as you don't block it or someone's driveway (although I've heard various rumours about being allowed to park in front of dropped curbs irregardless), then I would believe it's completely fine from a legal point of view. I wouldn't go out of my way to aggrevate him just because he put the sign up though, but if needs must...

[Funkstar]

I was about to post pretty much exactly what Gerrard said

He can put as many signs up as he likes.... actually, I wonder if there might be some local by-law about that... but I'd love to see him try to enforce it. Both the council and the police would laugh at him.

[stavroshamster]

I think its just a case of he's a lazy pain in the rear end. Legally you can't expect to park outside your own home. He's just being very unfair and un-reasonable.

I'd park outside his house now just to prove a point.

I am quite tempted. Trouble is he knows it's my car as I helped him jump-start his taxi when he first moved in (before I realised he was an idiot, and before he put his signs up), and as I said I don't want to have unfriendly neighbours as I know people who have fallen out over something fairly trivial and ended up with neighbours from hell. Given that he has the audacity to put the sign up in the first place I wouldn't want to rate my chances on him being a reasonable person who would understand my POV and concede graciously.

[stavroshamster]

I was about to post pretty much exactly what Gerrard said

He can put as many signs up as he likes.... actually, I wonder if there might be some local by-law about that... but I'd love to see him try to enforce it. Both the council and the police would laugh at him.

That's pretty much what I thought. The irritating thing is that at the moment he doesn't need to enforce it as people don't want to cause trouble and just obey.

[santa claus]

Given that he has the audacity to put the sign up in the first place I wouldn't want to rate my chances on him being a reasonable person who would understand my POV and concede graciously.

Quite. To quote Rambo, "he drew first blood" and clearly fancies his chances against wimpy neighbours. Don't let him get away with it. Unless you want him taking other privileges too.

[stavroshamster]

Quite. To quote Rambo, "he drew first blood" and clearly fancies his chances against wimpy neighbours. Don't let him get away with it. Unless you want him taking other privileges too.

Now I come to think about it, our cat somehow got "stuck" up their tree the other day (luckily we got her back via their nice neighbour's garden as the tree overhangs). The plot thickens.

[Dareos]

Glueing cats to a tree is not nice, this means WAR!

personally i would stick a sign up at the end of the road promising free tea and cakes at his house, if he can stick up a sign, so can you


or Free Taxi Service, and his phone number

[stavroshamster]

Glueing cats to a tree is not nice, this means WAR!

personally i would stick a sign up at the end of the road promising free tea and cakes at his house, if he can stick up a sign, so can you


or Free Taxi Service, and his phone number

I was thinking of printing out some signs and distributing them to the other neighbours to put up in all the houses with something along the lines of "We are nice people and this is a nice street, please feel free to park in front of our house if there is no space in front of yours".

[matty-hodgson]

Think that's bad? All of those cars apart from the black taxi belong to one house. There's usually a Toyota Corolla and a Ford Focus there as well. Absolutely ridiculous.

[Lanky123]

That's pretty much what I thought. The irritating thing is that at the moment he doesn't need to enforce it as people don't want to cause trouble and just obey.

So what's the problem? If he can't enforce it and you have no intention of obeying it you now have a guaranteed parking space just across the road.

[stavroshamster]

Think that's bad? All of those cars apart from the black taxi belong to one house. There's usually a Toyota Corolla and a Ford Focus there as well. Absolutely ridiculous.

That is pretty ridiculous. But presumably if you ever manage to park there they don't complain, because you are entitled to. And presumably they are entitled to as well? Although it's probably worth checking as that does seem a bit extreme???

[matty-hodgson]

That is pretty ridiculous. But presumably if you ever manage to park there they don't complain, because you are entitled to. And presumably they are entitled to as well? Although it's probably worth checking as that does seem a bit extreme???

I got asked to move my car by one of their boyfriends once (the one who drives the Focus) because "I'm not very good at reversing".

So not only do they park 7 cars outside there every night, they ask me to move my car so they can reverse :S.

If I was you I'd do that "park in front of our house if you like" sign thingy . That'll be funny!