I live in a small cul de sac which is tight on parking but manageable if people park sensibly.

A year ago a woman bought a house on the street and allows her boyfriend to trade cars from her house, (5 cars last year) , which makes parking a nightmare as he leaves the cars on the street and does not use the drive or garage.

A while back, I came home to find the boyfriend had borrowed my drive. I told him to shift in a polite manner.

Tonight I came home to find the cars parked across my drive. The Mrs got out and asked them to move so we could park on our drive.

What are the rules on people buying and selling cars / trading from a home address?


Advice welcome...

Not sure about the 'selling legislation', but the cars DO have to be taxed and insured if they're sat on the street!

they can sell up to 12 i think. as for parking across your drive they are allowed to do that too as long as they are not blocking in a parked car

Not sure on what regs there are, the cars when parked on a road are an obstruction.


You have done the right thing keeping it simple and polite, If it were me at my home I would politely point out its irritating and anti social what they are doing. If there decent, they might start respecting you live there too !


There may well be regulations round business at home ie trading, I do not know for sure. However I would strongly suspect their traders insurance may not be valid for a number of vehicles parked on public roads. Are they taxed ? MOT ? etc .....if not the insurance may not cover them.


I was speaking with some Traffic Cops recently, who spend a lot of time investigating insurance policies, which at first appear current & valid, however once the company has been contacted, what has actually been stated to the company by the applicants are rarely correct. Ie parking, no claims, tax, and terms of use as a business trader. If the address is not registered as a business adddress , then again with some digging their insurance may not be valid. IE they have provided some white lies, while submitting their application.


Once this is disclosed then the insurers will shaft them, only way this course of action can be done is with the support of a sufficiently interested Cop. Not the top of their priorities, but possibly so if the rest of the street is sick of them too.


If you know any local traffic cops (is there such a thing) have a word in his ear.

invite all of the locosters over for a bbq and let us know what house to park outside of.

Get us all to come round and block the cul sac out, have a party and barbe Q.. when he comes round tell him to 'go away'

If he's selling cars why not start putting up some adverts for weasels, dogs, send pizza to his house, sign him up for all manner of shhhhht? He might give up trying to sell them if 5 out of 7 calls are about the wardrobe

He borrowed your drive???? as in parked directly on it?

F*ck me, if that was me i would of stuck a clamp on it and fined him

The police apparently DO have powers to remove cars blocking driveways in or out.

I'd talk to the council, i did once and got a very polite helpful reply about this exact matter. There wasnt much they could do unless there is proof (he was using private land and not public road). They can write the person letters though threatening action.

Yes he parked directly on my drive... BBQ sounds like a great idea.. Keep you posted!!

Look for expired tax discs, everytime you see one report it, once a couple of cars have been lifted he will look elsewhere to dump his stuff.

Middle of the night, let all the tyres down.... he'll soon get pissed off with having to pump up all his tyres again and again

How to report an abondoned vehicle

[Edited on 8/1/12 by Ben_Copeland]

If he'd parked on my drive I'd have been more than a tad angry too. In fact I'd be tempted to remove it with a 4x4 and a chain round an axle, then deny all knowledge afterwards.

BBQ me thinks

Inland Revenue may be interested even if it was only 5 cars last year as he may well be selling at other locations .

Have quick looksy on ASKMID and see if any cars have a valid insurance..... Quick call to crimestoppers. He'll soon get the message.

My understanding is that parking across a drive which has an approved dropped kerb is an offence if you are not the occupier of the property. If you have not had your kerb lowered with authorisation by the council you are breaking the law as you in theory have no right to cross the causeway

Post his number and what cars he has for sale and we can all call him at all hours make an appointment to view a car and not turn up saying i could not find the adress then call back appologies for not turning and make another appointment and not turn up again

Get as many of your neighbours involved as possible as your not likely to get anywhere on your own.

It might be worth going round and asking if his cars are insured as no trade policy is going to allow you to park on the road, and it's six points for driving without insurance on the spot so logically he'd be due more than enough for a driving ban.

Stay civil and don't do anything illegal, it's not worth the risk though if the rest of your neighbours feel the same way your not likely to get done for vandalism, though if he's parked on your drive it's a civil matter, And I'd look into having the car impounded as I'm fairly sure you can at his expense.

i'd have parked across your own drive, blocked him in then gone to the pub

Let us all have his number, we can arrange viewings then decline after the event because we couldn't get parked.

But seriously, as others have said, keep an eye on tax discs, call plod for any irregularities, and basically just cause as much grief for him as you can within the law.

I have 2 car salemen working from home next door but one to each other and across the road. There's cars all over, except in front of their own house of course! I've had to stop my Dad from parking under their windows a few times simply to keep the peace. I value having good neighbours and one of the addresses is rented anyway to my knowledge plus the fellas past generally catches up with him and he goes eventually so I bite the bullet in that respect.
I do check his cars regularly for tax which he keeps on top of. I have, before I was a cop, called Crimestoppers regards an uninsured car on the road outside my brothers that was being used daily for the school run. They told me straight out they weren't interested as I couldn't prove anything (ASKmid seemingly wasn't considered good enough).
As for blocking access to your driveway well only a few weeks ago I went to a similar job at work. Ticket on the window and managed to contact the owners boyfriend to find her and get her to move it before I towed it which she did sharpish as I was driving away. She still kept the fine mind it's just utter ignorance to block someone like that.
There is an issue though with someone parking on your driveway in that it's your private land. The police check the vehicles not nicked and then it's your problem to solve in a civil matter. Bit rubbish for the driveway owner but there you go.

check all the cars have insurance or they get towed :O)

MIB will tell you if they do or not....

"You parked your car on my driveway? I assumed it was an anonymous donation to my art collective. It's a central part of a new installation we're calling 'spare parts listed on ebay'"