'Please do not park here'

[Bobton125]

I live down a cul-de-sac in a busy part of town where parking is very limited. There is on street parking and a few private parking spaces owned by a company that you can hire from (around£1k a year per space).

There's a block of garages across the street and next to the garages a small gravel area with bushes (approx 2 car widths wide)

I don't know who owns this tiny piece of land. Traffic wardens don't ticket on it, so i assume not council owned?

The company who owns all the parking spaces in the road doesn't own it. And the company who rents out the garages doesn't own it, so i've been parking on there when there's no where to park on the road.

Some old man who lives down the road has placed a note on my windscreen saying 'please do not park here, this is private property'

Is there any way i can find out who actually owns this piece of land as it's not a parking space, it's just some gravel full of shrubbery next to some garages, i find it hard to believe that it's privately owned by this random guy down the road

[Bobton125]

springfan62 said:

You can do a map search on land registry which will tell you who owns it providing it is registered.

When I’ve looked you can search by property (of which this isn’t one) or it seems you need an account to search land

Unless I’m doing something wrong?

[Bobton125]

sherman said:

Was there maybe once a garage there thats been torn down and is owned by one of the houses on the street.
How many garages v how many houses are there?

No definitely didn’t used to be a garage. There’s houses and blocks of flats down the street

[Bobton125]

Car bon said:

What are you trying to achieve ? It's not clear from the question

You could try asking the guy whether it's his - then what ? are you looking to rent it ? park there for free ? Or just to tell him to mind his own business if it's not his ?

If you know where he lives, maybe look at the land registry entry for his house ?

Sorry if not clear. I want to park there as i can't always get a space on the street.

I basically have suspicions that he's a curtain twitcher who doesn't actually own this piece of land but doesn't want people parking on it either. It's such a random little patch i'm not sure how he would own it, it certainly wouldn't be in his deeds as he lives down the bottom of the street so isn't attached to his property.

Asking him is an option, might be a pointless exercise though

[Bobton125]

h0b0 said:

You do not own the land = You are parking on someone else's land. Your option is to pay the £2.73/day to park on private land.

where did you get £2.73/day from?

[Bobton125]

JQ said:

This - unless you're planning to buy the plot, knowing who own's it is going to make zero difference, you'll still be parking on someone else's property.

It will make a difference, it means i won't have to listen to some busy-body who thinks he owns it.

[Bobton125]

Car bon said:

A wild guess, but £1k / 365 = 2.73

ahh i see.. Well they're actual parking bays with lines that cost that much. This is certainly no parking bay haha

[Bobton125]

JQ said:

There's a much easier way of achieving that - stop parking there.

Helpful response.. thanks for the input

[Bobton125]

Ken_Code said:

It’s a valid point though. Someone’s likely to own it and parking on someone’s land regularly without asking them first if you can is a bit off.

We’ve a guest car park across the street from our house and it gets annoying when it’s full of people who shouldn’t be in there and we need it.

it's not a valid point because it doesn't help the question that I asked. I don't want to not park there due to someone who doesn't have any rights telling me not to park there.. If the land owner tells me not to park there then fair enough. Until then, I'm going to park there, if i can't park anywhere else.

Would you stop parking somewhere if a randomer who doesn't have any say tells you not to?

It's not a space by the way.. not even tarmac

[Bobton125]

nunpuncher said:

How do you know the old man from down the street left the note? Did you watch him do it from behind your won curtains? Did someone tell you he left it there or did he sign it "yours sincerely, the old man that lives down the road"?

Why bother trying to Columbo this? Just go knock his door and ask if he knows who the land belongs to. Be polite, so if he says it's his you can apologise for parking on it, have a light hearted moan about the parking situation and who knows, maybe he'll take pity, think you seem like a decent chap and might let you park on HIS land. On the other hand. If he doesn't own it and doesn't know who owns it tell the old prick to mind his own business and park where you want.

Someone saw him walk up the road, put a note under my wiper and then trott off back down the road to his house again

'If he doesn't own it and doesn't know who owns it tell the old prick to mind his own business and park where you want'

Exactly my thoughts here hahaha

[Bobton125]

Ken_Code said:

You had your answer ages ago, go and knock on his door and ask.

Yeah I know thanks, I wasn’t able to stop people commenting and repeating the same answer

[Bobton125]

boyse7en said:

Yes, but you are keen to skip straight to Step 2 (tell him to mind his own business) with first doing Step 1 (find out if he owns it/has rights over it)

Even if he doesn't own it, someone does and it isn't you, so you need to put some effort in to finding out who it is so you can ask whether parking on their land is OK.

Call me selfish, but I don’t really care who owns it.. if the owner comes to me and says to stop parking then I’ll listen. I’m not going out of my way to find who the owner is for the occasional time I park there when it’s busy if the real owner doesn’t actually care for this unkept bit of land

[Bobton125]

Wills2 said:

I don't think he's willing to do that, he'd rather moan on the internet instead of doing what he should do and knock on the guys door and have a conversation about it to establish the situation.

Moan.. yep exactly what I came here to do

[Bobton125]

98elise said:

As I said above, I own a parking space in an area that hardly anyone uses. I couldn't give a crap if anyone parks there. On the odd occasion I need to use it I just park somewhere else. They aren’t marked as parking bays, and there are no signs so I can't really get to upset when others park there.

I'd be more annoyed if some curtain twitcher was trying to police it!

exactly, that's why i'm choosing to ignore the PH parking police... This isn't even a parking bay haha just gravel full of weeds not near anything

[Bobton125]

snotrag said:

Not your parking space though, is it? You seem to have a bit of an attitude over this. Your lucky you've had a polite request, some people arent so nice.

no attitude, just people on here take things very seriously.

snotrag said:

Not your parking space though, is it?

It's not A parking space

[Bobton125]

Sporky said:

You probably shouldn't park there then.

why not? there's no signage or restrictions there?

[Bobton125]

Sporky said:

But you just said it's not a parking space.

Bit like if somewhere isn't a bowling alley you probably shouldn't chuck bowling balls around.

You don’t park anywhere unless it has designated markings on the ground?

[Bobton125]

Ken_Code said:

It had bushes on it at the start of the thread, what happened to them?

You know those weedy bushes you get? Them

Not something someone’s been growing intentionally

[Bobton125]

Gareth79 said:

OP, have you used the Land Registry map search to look up if it's registered yet? If it is, £3 and you'll have your answer.

I have to no avail.. it only gives me details of the nearest garage of which the border does not include the random patch of land I’ve been parking on. It very clearly only outlines the perimeter of the garage.

[Bobton125]

Car bon said:

Have you spoken to the old guy yet ?

He seems to know enough to be confident it doesn't belong to you......

Not yet but will update when I do/or atleast when I next park there. I haven’t had to recently as found spaces on the street