ADP

So weve all had one, parked in someone elses slot when desperate for a place to park.

So, I share a house with 3 people, but last night our drive was full(girlfriends staying over). So my housemate decides to park in a slot opposite our house. Its 1 of 2 slots that are bricked , now it doesnt say whose they are anywhere, but weve always assumed they belong to one of the "assisted purchase scheme houses/council houses" over the way. Anyway, my mate parks in it tonight and this morning at 7am on my way to work I see hes got a note ---

"This parking space is for cars at no.35, dont use again, WILL BE TOWED"

WTF!!!! No one minds getting a note, but "WILL BE TOWED" not very neighbourly for a 1st time offender is it? how does fck off tow my car and Ill have you for criminal damage/theft/whatever I can do you for?

Really puts your back up that kind of note. Anyone know where you stand if they did tow your car? ie could you call the police etc??

Andy


[Edited by ADP - 12/13/2003 7:57:16 AM]

47 NAT

I've seen a lot worse happen over a parking space. Its amazing how touchy people can be over one ....

Nath

ajm

It may have been your housemates first offence, but it was probably the 1000th time someone had parked in the blokes spot!

I know how it feels, used to live in a house with an access lane round the back which was the only way to get my car in and out. People used to regularly park across the lane leaving me stuck in. When I found the gits I would lay into them, and they would be like "calm down mate, I've only done it the once"

I would then have to explain that whilst he may have done it the once, add up all the other ***** that have "just done it the once" and you end up pissed off like this! [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

Got my own garage now so I don't have to have violent confrontations in the street in order to get my car out any more!

XT

I have a mate who lives in first floor flat. There are three flats in total and three spaces. His ground floor neighboor knows that my mate doesn't have a car. One day i visited him(my mate) and parked my car in his(my mate again) space. Stayed there for two hours, when i got back there was a note STUCK WITH GLUE on my windscreen saying: 'This is a private car park, next time i'll be deflatting your tyres and police will be called'. This happened 1 1/2 year ago. Needless to say that astraboy's revenges are childish compared to what i did to the TO55ER, who i really hope to burn in HELL.

ADP

lots of other places on the road, it wasnt blocking anyone at all its a quiet cul de sac, I cant imagine anyone was put to any inconvenience

talizman

iTrader: (1)

Bit of a mine-field this one......

If the car is parked on private land, ie driveway, or privately owned parking space, then the matter is civil between the owner of the land and the car owner.

The police have no powers to remove the car, nor instruct the owner to move it.

If it is causing an obstruction and is parked on public ground, the police can act.

I've seen cars clamped for parking in private areas with a "charge" payable for release of the car.

IIRC, this amounts to the common law crime of extortion...

If your car goes missing (towed elsewhere) then obviously you'll be phoning the police to report it "stolen".

To constitute theft, it must be proved that the person responsible intended to deprive the owner of the car, permanently, which probably isn't the case in a tow-away.

The matter is a nightmare to deal with and usually culminates in civil proceedings as the matter is not criminal, but bottom line, if you call the police and someone has towed your car away, personally, I would ensure that the car was returned and leave the folk to sort it out through lawyers if required.

ADP

thanks talizman..............its not my car, and I dont want a big thing to be made over this, what with my car being parked on the drive and it being by far the nicest car in the road......just wait for the keying of the shiny car ie mine if it all blew up........just nice to know where you stand incase they decide to go mental over it, which I hope they wont, but you never know, one of them wears a burberry basball cap........nuff said

AllanB

If it is a private car park then yes it can be towed as strictly speaking your are tresspassing. I know as where I live we have a real shortage of parking and we are getting our own clamping and towing company to clamp non authorised cars and the idiots who park infront of peoples garages so they can't even get in and out !

We've had similar things with notes and indeed I've left some myself and it does become very tiring and its quite easy to get pissed off and use colourful language !

However if its not marked as being private and give no warning of cars being clamped or towed then I don't think anything can be done.


AlalnB

Crapaud62

I had a problem once with someone blocking a space on private land. Police refused to get involved.

I used a trolley jack to very carefully move car out into middle of road. Police then got involved as car was causing an obstruction on a public road. I of course had no idea how the car managed to roll off my drive officer, hand brake must have failed, do him for that as well!

mart360

Had the same thing happen to me,,, turns out our local council sold the land that was the play area, and the associated parking, which was open to everyone, and built houses on em, and part of the deal was they all got one allocated parking place......the rest of the original house owners had to go jump... trouble was these new house people didnt want to park in there allocated slots,, but outside our houses,,, so when we did the same to them they got all shirty....

the old bill were cool though,,as they made the b***grs use the parking which had been allocated to them.. cos by using the other spaces, they were causing an obstruction....


Mart

*Sonic*

Where I used to live we had a courtyard to park our cars in, and it was our land, on our deeds to the houses, as they were essentially drives, but not directly in front of our houses (cept mine was, cos I had the end house )

We got fed up with workmen etc parking in our places, that we almost went out and bought some wheel clamps and some signs

In the end the workmen bu66ered off, after several warnings

Apparently we were quite within our rights, as it was private land

Brendan Hughes

Sorry ADP, I'd just grin and bear it - your mate was in the wrong, end of story. As said, it was his first time, but you don't know how tired the other neighbours are of other people using their space.

Just had some tosser park across my driveway, totally blocking my exit. He didn't notice I have bullbars on, and WILL use them...

NACRO

We had a similar problem with a55holes repeatedly blocking our garage in Brighton. In the end I did a deal with a local recovery firm and every time some pr1ck parked in the the space and I was around I'd ring them up and they would turn up pronto and tow the nobbers car. I believe the release fee was £140+vat and storage fees for anything over a day.
As an interesting aside this was in the days before I owned an Impreza and therefore had no idea what damage they could have caused by towing away the RB5 that blocked the garage. They winched it up and left towing it on 2 wheels! I imagine (hope) that the person who owned it got a nice big bill for a new diff as well as paying the recovery fee.

A note on the windscreen sounds great compared to what we arranged for illegal and anti social parkers.


edited to add: I've never had a note on my windscreen, or a parking fine mainly because I'm not a selfish, anti-social a55hole who parks illegaly, never have and never will.

[Edited by NACRO - 12/15/2003 9:46:11 AM]

Mungo

If spaces are allocated, there should be signs to warn visitors of the fact - you can't expect people to be psychic.