UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi all,

I rent a large three bedroom maisonette which has a small private garden and a driveway, half of which is mine and half of which is my neighbour's - or so I was lead to believe.

When I viewed the property, they showed me the driveway and told me which half was mine. All fine. My lease includes both the garden and "a parking space"

Unfortunately, my landlord seems to think that he can just use the driveway as he pleases. He owns the whole building and all six flats in it, so whenever he is visiting he just parks in my space. Quite often, sometimes every day in a week, the driveway is completely full of work vans and cars because he is doing work on a flat, so no space for me or my neighbour to park at all. This is a town centre property so parking without a driveway is extremely difficult. We would never have chosen to rent a property in the town centre without adequate parking.


I have tried talking to my landlord and he just gets angry and gets his secretary to talk to me instead. They genuinely cannot see what my problem is and seem to think I'm just being difficult for the sake of it. They just say well, they are working on the building, so they need to park there, where else would they park? and anyway, they own the building and can park there if they like. If I need to park there I should just ask them to move.


The way I see it is this:


Yes, the own the drive, but they rent it to me. They own my home too, but I don't expcet to come home and find them sitting on my sofa.

The orignal advert stated "own parking space". They showed me around and showed me the parking space. My contract says "parking space". Why have they advertised a property with a parking space they intend on using themselves?

I shouldn't have to ask them to move. I just want to use my space without hassle. If I wanted to be on my way home worrying about wether or not I iwll be able to park or how far I am going to have to walk with the kids, I wouldn't have bothered going to a consdierable amount of effort to find a home with private parking.




Please tell me I'm not going mad here because I just don't see how I can be in the wrong. I'd even offer it to them if they wanted to borrow it, they just have a total lack of respect in my eyes.


Thank you!

You're not going mad: if exclusive use of the parking space was part of your rental agreement then exclusive use is what you should get. In practical terms there's not a lot you can do about it: you could sue, I suppose, but the monetary value of occasional loss of the space isn't going to amount to much and you can pretty much guarantee your landlord will end your tenancy at the first opportunity. If you like the property apart from that then it's probably easiest just to ignore it.

When you let a property to a person you still own it, of course you do... but it's generally accepted (and hardly needs writing down, really) that you no longer have use of it. That your Landlord takes the approach they are doing makes me infer they don't understand this very, very basic principle. What practically could you do is the question. You seem to have had the conversation most reasonable people would respond positively to. So, whatever you elect to do now, seems like it's going to be an escalation of some kind.

Although you do not have the legal right... you could start withholding a small portion of the rent... see if that gets their attention. Or you could suggest that as a plan / idea - it might focus their attention when their income is affected... of course, it's not the outcome you want, you want the drive... so you don't want your bluff called.

You could do whatever is possible... potentially by getting yourself on the drive and then avoiding travel for a few days or a week (tough, really tough, I know) to send a message - if they simply can't park there they'll have to find somewhere else and then may get used to it - to take the space back by force (continued presence).

Lastly, it's not totally clear, but have your joined forces with your neighbour to address the situation together, or are you a lone voice at this moment in time?

Your bigger problem here is that your Landlord doesn't have what we'd call a professional attitude to you and your tenancy - you are the Landlord's customer - you are supposed to be kept happy, not antagonised... this Landlord probably has a superiority complex and considers all of his Tenants beneath him. Many Landlords act like this.

Thinking that this is just an indicator of wider issues... I would start to look elsewhere, you don't need the continued hassle... hopefully there are other options.