Neighbour issuing parking tickets!

krisboats said:
bit of a tangent but does anybody know the rules on dropped kerbs? I half of a street is dropped kerbs do they still count as dropped? I thought they had to fit certain criteria for being allowed a dropped kerb however i parked in front of someones house a while back and came out to a very grumpy note on the car stating its illegal to park on a dropped kerb. Now, his drive was completely unblocked and the dropped kerb ran from 2 houses past him one way to the end of the street (10 houses length the other way) I parked in front of his building which literally is road - pavement - house wall. Cars park all down that road and the relative i was visiting has a car parked in front of their house all the time, despite still being a dropped kerb so i didn't really think anything of the kerb height in all honesty. Is it a case of being technically against the highway code, but as it's not blocking access or a crossing point it doesn't really matter?

EDIT: For context i have a feeling the whole length of street was a stables/grounds parking for a large manor house on the end that has since been converted to offices. Small houses have been built on the grounds but it looks like the pavements/kerb was untouched during the rebuild so left dropped.
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Thing is, it's not up to you to decide how much of someone's drive they get to use. You don't know who's coming and going, or when they need access. My wife regularly works weird hours and does emergency on-calls, and she needs to be able to get in and out whenever she has to. And you can bet that if you're parked (illegally in my area), it won't be long before someone sees that and parks as well. It happens down my street all the time. I had one woman say to me "you got such a big drive, I thought it would be okay to park over half of it". She was too lazy to park properly under the tree outside and only leave half her massive Mercedes estate over my drive, so she basically took the ****. It's not her call, and someone puts a car at the other end and I'm blocked. At that point, everyone all round starts getting ticketed.
 
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dowie said:
well I'm not going to claim to be a legal expert but how do you know it is a public road - if his property line goes all the way to the middle of it then maybe it isn't? The bit of road outside my flat isn't technically a public road, it is privately owned and we've got clearly markets parking bays on either side of it and a parking company that comes along regularly to check all the vehicles have a valid resident's permit, it isn't behind a gate though and others can drive along it
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From the sound of what the OP says, the road is not managed or maintained by any of the residences, as his property boundary is similar. To me this sounds like some guy is taking the boundary lines in his title plan and claiming anything up to that point is his but reality is that highways maintained at the public's expense are listed as public highways and the council controls the surface as well as a reasonable space above it.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
From the sound of what the OP says, the road is not managed or maintained by any of the residences, as his property boundary is similar. To me this sounds like some guy is taking the boundary lines in his title plan and claiming anything up to that point is his but reality is that highways maintained at the public's expense are listed as public highways and the council controls the surface as well as a reasonable space above it.
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do we know for sure that is the case though re: the council maintaining it - if it hasn't been handed over to them then I don't see why they'd have anything to do with maintaining it
 
dowie said:
do we know for sure that is the case though re: the council maintaining it - if it hasn't been handed over to them then I don't see why they'd have anything to do with maintaining it
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Malt_Vinegar said:
We are not responsible for the upkeep of the road though, so it seems to be a very unusual situation.
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Public highways are registered to the local council when built who are then responsible for their maintenance. It is a fairly common thing to have general property boundaries go to the middle of a road or a river.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
Public highways are registered to the local council when built who are then responsible for their maintenance. It is a fairly common thing to have general property boundaries go to the middle of a road or a river.
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nah that would be unusual AFAiK - you'd generally get the road adopted by the council if they are to take over maintaining it
 
platypus said:
Councils can enforce parking tickets, under the traffic management act 2004.
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The legal system (legislation) is contract law, and is completely unenforceable until you are in breech of an actual contract, which they can then use against you in court.
Take a minute and learn how legislation works, or how it doesn't work rather, it's a very easy thing to learn.
A council parking notice is not an agreement, it is a demand, or an invoice. Same goes for school term holiday, littering and dog **** fines. In no way are the council due any compensation for your actions.

I've been through it, and the most I got from them was a sweaty roid freak come knocking on the door trying to scare me and say I owe him money. I told him where to go and never heard from them or saw him again.
Not once did I ever fill out their forms or sign their agreements like everyone does. I gave them no physical evidence to "lawfully" enforce it.

Now if a Judge and his jury ever signed a parking charge into common law (which they never will because it could be classed as slavery) then it would be a completely different story.
 
People parked and blocked my drive a few times where i used to live as it was close to a train station.

Must have been a really dodgey place to park as they kept getting flat tyres. Never saw the same ones again.

Councill yellow lined the street in the end as it was getting so reduclous that even the bin lorry couldnt get down the road, was a pita as no space for visitors if everyone was home but nice to see the councill actually do somethinf usefull
 
dowie said:
nah that would be unusual AFAiK - you'd generally get the road adopted by the council if they are to take over maintaining it
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Copied from a pdf FAQ on private streets and public highway rights obtained off some local council site (seems to be pretty much on most council websites with slight rewording):

Who owns a Highway?
With very few exceptions highways that we maintain are not actually owned by the Council. The only exception is where a piece of land was specifically purchased in order to build a road, etc. The law assumes – unless there is evidence to the contrary, that a highway is owned by the frontagers on each side up to the centre line of the highway. The presence of highway rights automatically means that landowner rights are not able to be used . However in the case of a privately maintained highway, the landowner retains rights to decide who may enter that land for the purpose of laying pipes, etc and other non highway related activities.
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Because the whole road is not a privately maintained highway, the neighbour cant say it is trespassing to park there and really has no right to issue those fines. Having a portion of the pavement and road does not make that portion a private part of the highway.
 
I had a few minutes spare this afternoon and called the council.

They are VERY interested, the road is council managed and they think he is misinterpreting the boundary.

They have given me a reference number, and have claimed they will do a "drive by" to check the signs and check on the legality of what he is doing.

Watch this space!
 
Avenged7Fold said:
Because the whole road is not a privately maintained highway, the neighbour cant say it is trespassing to park there and really has no right to issue those fines. Having a portion of the pavement and road does not make that portion a private part of the highway.
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ah you're right, I guess I learned something new today, I thought when roads were adopted by the council the ownership changed

yup, this guy has no rights to issue tickets if the council has adopted it then

Malt_Vinegar said:
They have given me a reference number, and have claimed they will do a "drive by" to check the signs and check on the legality of what he is doing.

Watch this space!
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nice one :D

am actually quite interested in how this turns out, presumably he's going to be told to get rid of the sign rather quickly
 
dowie said:
ah you're right, I guess I learned something new today, I thought when roads were adopted by the council the ownership changed

yup, this guy has no rights to issue tickets if the council has adopted it then



nice one :D

am actually quite interested in how this turns out, presumably he's going to be told to get rid of the sign rather quickly
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I am quite interested to see if any "tickets" he issued in the past will have to be refunded if they find him in the wrong!
 
He wont if they paid him off but if he worded his tickets in a way that suggests that they are legally required to pay him, then his contracts are void... Well that is my wild guess, i dont know the law but pretty sure making money by saying you have to pay something when you dont is illegal.

The idiot should have just contacted the local council and put in some request for no parking markings for the sake of safety/resident access or any other reason that the councils love to eat up.
 
Your neighbour sounds like a nutter! Well done for calling the council, I can understand that parking causes all sorts of stresses, but quite frankly he needs to grow up and get over it if he's ticketing a public road with no restrictions.

There used to be no end of problems around Haywards Heath hospital with people parking in residential streets. One colleague resorted to keeping an electric tyre pump in his car for when the residents used to let their tyres down on a daily basis. Another had his windscreen sprayed black!
 
stopper said:
The legal system (legislation) is contract law, and is completely unenforceable until you are in breech of an actual contract, which they can then use against you in court.
Take a minute and learn how legislation works, or how it doesn't work rather, it's a very easy thing to learn.
A council parking notice is not an agreement, it is a demand, or an invoice. Same goes for school term holiday, littering and dog **** fines. In no way are the council due any compensation for your actions.

I've been through it, and the most I got from them was a sweaty roid freak come knocking on the door trying to scare me and say I owe him money. I told him where to go and never heard from them or saw him again.
Not once did I ever fill out their forms or sign their agreements like everyone does. I gave them no physical evidence to "lawfully" enforce it.

Now if a Judge and his jury ever signed a parking charge into common law (which they never will because it could be classed as slavery) then it would be a completely different story.
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I should have guessed you as a freeman of the land. Adorable :)

Good job OP - let us know when the fireworks kick off!
 
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