Hi guys, hope someone around here can offer some legal knowledge!

I've just moved into a new flat, which has a small courtyard outside which
is used for parking. There are 4 flats and there is space for 4 cars,
although 2 would be blocked in if it was full - so space is at a premium and
the flats need to cooperate. The owners of the 4 flats are all leaseholders
and directors of the management company.

Next door is a small garage that does repairs and used car sales. They will
often not have enough space for all of the customer cars so will park them
in the courtyard. Often this is just during the day and they will move them
back in the evening, but they have been known to leave cars there over the
weekend. There's currently 2 of their cars there now! The owner of the
freehold is also aware of the issue and has previously spoken to the owner
of the garage about the problem, with no success.

So, what can I do about it? I've come up with 3 ideas so far:

-Block the car in with mine, refuse to move when asked. Wont look very good
for their customers, but I don't want to get into a conflict or risk damage
to my car!

-Put up a couple of folding barriers or a chain with a key. Would probably
cost about £200 to do, but could spoil the look of the courtyard.

-Use a "parking control" solution like this:
http://www.parkingcontrol.co.uk/ticket-intro.html
We put up signs and issue tickets, they enforce them and give us £10 per
ticket. Would cost about £100 for the kit, but I dont know about the
affectiveness.

Ideally would like to be able to call someone and have the car towed, but
not sure where I stand with someone parking on private land not owned by
them.

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated

In message <g9h7kd$9fd$1@aioe.org>, at 18:15:06 on Mon, 1 Sep 2008, Iain 
Dingsdale  remarked:
>-Put up a couple of folding barriers or a chain with a key. Would probably
>cost about £200 to do, but could spoil the look of the courtyard.

You can get bollards that are very similar to the folding ones, but rise 
out of a hole in the ground (manually, of course). One of my neighbours 
has these and they are practically invisible when lowered. If you want 
something that's invisible when raised, that seems to challenge the 
underlying purpose!
-- 
Roland Perry

> So, what can I do about it? I've come up with 3 ideas so far:
> 
> -Block the car in with mine, refuse to move when asked. Wont look very good
> for their customers, but I don't want to get into a conflict or risk damage
> to my car!

I've tried blocking cars in and then going to the pub. You're not there 
for the conflict and can't move the car anyway. Surprisingly it isn't 
actually a very effective technique and is probably borderline legal. On 
top of that the problem car and your car are now in everyone else's way.

> -Put up a couple of folding barriers or a chain with a key. Would probably
> cost about £200 to do, but could spoil the look of the courtyard.

We did this. It proved a real pain having to take the barrier up and 
down and kept scraping on the bottom of cars. Eventually the lock iced 
up in winter, wouldn't open and the whole thing fell into disuse.

> -Use a "parking control" solution like this:
> http://www.parkingcontrol.co.uk/ticket-intro.html
> We put up signs and issue tickets, they enforce them and give us £10 per
> ticket. Would cost about £100 for the kit, but I dont know about the
> affectiveness.

This has been very effective for us at stopping casual abuse (in our 
case much of our problem is with the freeholder using the place as a 
staff car park, and there's not much we can do about that.) We got some 
deal whereby we didn't get any revenue but the set up was all free. In 
two years they've only had to clamp once. The signs do have a tendency 
to blow away and it's a bit of a faff with permits.

> Ideally would like to be able to call someone and have the car towed, but
> not sure where I stand with someone parking on private land not owned by
> them.

The lot we use will tow as well, for a fee.

<a@b.invalid> wrote in message 
news:nJudndQ28eTGkSDVnZ2dnUVZ8t3inZ2d@pipex.net...
> So, what can I do about it? I've come up with 3 ideas so far:
>
> -Block the car in with mine, refuse to move when asked. Wont look very 
> good
> for their customers, but I don't want to get into a conflict or risk 
> damage
> to my car!

I've tried blocking cars in and then going to the pub. You're not there
for the conflict and can't move the car anyway. Surprisingly it isn't
actually a very effective technique and is probably borderline legal. On
top of that the problem car and your car are now in everyone else's way.

> -Put up a couple of folding barriers or a chain with a key. Would probably
> cost about £200 to do, but could spoil the look of the courtyard.

We did this. It proved a real pain having to take the barrier up and
down and kept scraping on the bottom of cars. Eventually the lock iced
up in winter, wouldn't open and the whole thing fell into disuse.

> -Use a "parking control" solution like this:
> http://www.parkingcontrol.co.uk/ticket-intro.html
> We put up signs and issue tickets, they enforce them and give us £10 per
> ticket. Would cost about £100 for the kit, but I dont know about the
> affectiveness.

This has been very effective for us at stopping casual abuse (in our
case much of our problem is with the freeholder using the place as a
staff car park, and there's not much we can do about that.) We got some
deal whereby we didn't get any revenue but the set up was all free. In
two years they've only had to clamp once. The signs do have a tendency
to blow away and it's a bit of a faff with permits.

> Ideally would like to be able to call someone and have the car towed, but
> not sure where I stand with someone parking on private land not owned by
> them.

>The lot we use will tow as well, for a fee.


Thanks for that - how did you go about finding the company you use?

On Tue,  2 Sep 2008 17:20:10 +0100, Iain Dingsdale put finger to
keyboard and typed:
>
>Thanks for that - how did you go about finding the company you use? 

There are plenty of companies which offer this kind of service. Google
for "parking enforcement" or similar terms. 

http://www.nationalparkingcontrol.co.uk/ was the first result when I
tried it.

Mark
-- 
My rather pointless blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
My less pointless stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

> Thanks for that - how did you go about finding the company you use?

One of the residents looked round local car parks and picked a company 
that seemed popular. I've just tried the url on their signs and it has 
turned into an advertising page so they probably aren't in business anymore.

"Mark Goodge"  wrote in message 
news:ac9rb4pq915qh2s6l563hi86jscosslbrn@news.markshouse.net...
> On Tue,  2 Sep 2008 17:20:10 +0100, Iain Dingsdale put finger to
> keyboard and typed:
>>
>>Thanks for that - how did you go about finding the company you use?
>
> There are plenty of companies which offer this kind of service. Google
> for "parking enforcement" or similar terms.
>
> http://www.nationalparkingcontrol.co.uk/ was the first result when I
> tried it.
>
> Mark

One idea posted here before is threaten to clamp with a big notice, then buy 
an clamp and clamp your car in full view of the road.

Perfectly legal and makes others thing twice.

 -- 
Mark BR

On Wed,  3 Sep 2008 10:55:04 +0100, Mark BR put finger to keyboard and
typed:

>
>"Mark Goodge"  wrote in message 
>news:ac9rb4pq915qh2s6l563hi86jscosslbrn@news.markshouse.net...
>> On Tue,  2 Sep 2008 17:20:10 +0100, Iain Dingsdale put finger to
>> keyboard and typed:
>>>
>>>Thanks for that - how did you go about finding the company you use?
>>
>> There are plenty of companies which offer this kind of service. Google
>> for "parking enforcement" or similar terms.
>>
>> http://www.nationalparkingcontrol.co.uk/ was the first result when I
>> tried it.
>>
>
>One idea posted here before is threaten to clamp with a big notice, then buy 
>an clamp and clamp your car in full view of the road.
>
>Perfectly legal and makes others thing twice.

That's a nice bit of lateral thinking!

Mark
-- 
My rather pointless blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
My less pointless stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk