How have things gone with the annoying neighbours?.... Well, from bad to worse, though they'd argue otherwise.
A turn up for events, which gave us hope they'd seen things with a modicum of empathy they started to park one of their cars in front of their house, not in front of ours. The other one remained where it was, but remember we'd been told they planned to clear the garage out and move one car into their.... So we were under graces that there'd now be one car out of sight and the other in their own double garage.... NO MORE CARS ON MY LAND....
Except, immediately, this meant they had one car parked and a space.... or what everyone coming to their house took to be a space... and they had a slew of visitors, ranging from a few hours to overnight stays, all coming and going too-ing and fro-ing using the right hand end of my drive as their parking spaces.
It struck us immediately that they've only moved the car to free up a space and please themselves, it was NOTHING to do with empathy for us.
We've tried to speak to them, we've sent them a nice letter setting out a few rules and granting basic permission so long as they tow the very thin rules, but to no avail, we've tried to mediate and let them but giving and inch simply seemed to see a mile taken.
It was solicitor time.
We actually spoke to our solicitor in July, he's asked us to just sit on the topic, see if it was a one off and to be stern with ourselves to ask "are you being unreasonable", but then these visitors started and then th eguy began using the area as a place to drill out and nail length of wood - nails or gawd knows what potentially going down the hill onto my drive - and then with the doors open on thei double garage all summer as he's been "working" in their... it became apparent it was a joke, they'd unilaterally decided to convert part of their buildings for another use and their solution to parking was to just park on my land.
So, our solicitor did his thing, and he turned up an interesting covenant from the original construction of the houses..... That the occupants of that house can not do anything which disturbs or which causes a loss of environment for occupiers of my house.... This was set out in 2002 when they were built. There is apparently an auxiliary list of things, like not parking a vehicle in front of the garages, no vehicles, caravans, storage units or other unsightly items to be stored unless explicitly agreed and not for more than reasonable for the purpose of access... So, lets say they were moving house and they hired a huge van, they could ask and I would reasonably say it could be parked there maybe over night, or for a few days whilst they moved... see... but not for ever, not the norm.
Our solicitors letter was quite to the point and polite. We know it was sent yesterday.... it clearly just arrived.
The woman from next door is literally out stalking the street telling anyone and everyone who'll listen of her plight. I'm sure she's making something up about her being old and their having been reasonable, and it being us whom are unreasonable.
What she doesn't quite get is, I'll hear all this, I'll hear what she's been saying, I'll extend my solicitors instructions on any defamation occurring. And that we're in the right, we have all the photographic proof of cars routinely being there and coming and going, visitors, family and their own... Which are not just for access, but are to park literally occupy that end of my drive way, in full or part the cars are parked on my drive that's the point.
And you may recall my attempts to speak to them:
* Moving in day - totally overwhelmed me, gave them verbal permission to carry on as we saw no harm.
* Easter 2019 - verbally he approached me to check whether being "so far your land" was acceptable - for you and your wife yes - and he immediately had visitors, a camper van thing and then his daughters parking all the time, they'd even go so far to move their own car down onto the road to make space for the vistors to park (and these aren't infirm visitors, these are fully able bodied people - before that comes up).
* Camels back - The incident of my asking them not to park cars there and the guy went crying at me, then crying at the other neighbour, and then later his wife came over and when I asked about the cars not parking there, especially the large camper van thing she said "Camper van, do you not know how much that cost?" - I don't really care love, move it.
* The massive blow out - their visitor had completely blocked the drive the day my Rabbit needed vetinary care, utter nightmare... But they didn't even have the decency to talk to me about it. This was when the next day, I stopped to just heads up about it, I was even going to say "That's not your fault he'd parked there, just ask them to move, no biggy" - and the guy just literally moaned at me and waved his hands as he could not be bothered with me...
Solicitor time, done, lets see what the idiots say, we've been basically advised if they've got a large double garage and have found a space besides their property for a car anyway, they shouldn't be parking at all in front of mine ever and a judge would essentially conclude they have adequate parking and their repurposing the building shouldn't impact on the use, enjoyment of environment of our property.
This whole thing is long since due, as we understand it, the vendors who sold to us; very sneakily not mentioning these issues; moved partly because of this issue, except they themselves had enflamed the problem by blocking the right of way... Instead of talking and checking their rights, the old fella who lived at mine before me just pulled his cars forward to completely block the road... which put him himself at a loss.
So, here we are just shy of a year of moving in, finally getting it down official, don't park on my land kids, go park on your own or the road, enjoy!
