By William Coleman
Accommodation comes in all shapes and sizes and parking is not always guaranteed. It also seems as though parking spaces are on a rapid decline let alone extra space to store your caravan or motorhome. So, if you own a leisure vehicle and you live in a flat or freehold, what are the parking rules?
Recently I saw a question posted online that I could not answer, without Googling or assuming, but it did get me wondering, what are the rules of parking your caravan in your allocated parking spot instead of your normal day to day car?
This is something that I had never considered before, or in fact comes across in the years that I have been dealing with leisure vehicles.
Without doing any research I automatically assumed that if it is your space you can park what you like there, as long as it does not cause any issues for your neighbours or property. But one should never assume, especially when it comes to dealing with neighbours.
I can see why some people may take issue with you keeping a caravan in a parking space. First of all, some people who do not use caravans can have a little bit of a negative view of caravans, based on personal experience. They feel they are a bit of an eyesore and that parking spaces are for cars, vans, 4×4 etc etc.
So aside from what a neighbour may feel on a personal level what are the legal rules and regulations of parking a caravan on land you are a freehold owner of?
Leases of residential flats will include certain restrictions, as a precautionary measure, to ensure that each leaseholder can enjoy their property without experiencing any annoyance or unrest from their neighbours.
These terms will include various parking restrictions that actually state how you may, or may not, use available or allocated parking spaces that belong to the property.
For example, carrying out maintenance on vehicles parked there may be prohibited; the parking of commercial vehicles such as work vans, and the parking of boats and caravans, is also unlikely to be permitted. This does not mean it is a rule set it stone, so do some research of your own.
I would suggest having a read, if you have not already, of the terms of your lease to see what, if any, restrictions apply to your parking space/area.
In the event of your lease detailing that you are not permitted to park your caravan in your space you can always ask your fellow neighbour if they mind. Usually people can be quite accommodating but there are a few out there who can sometimes be a bit less…, shall we say… “neighbourly”.
As I am sure you all know that neither myself or anyone else on the CaravanTimes team are part of any legal council, but I saw this topic and wanted to discuss it a bit more and maybe clear this up should any of our readers come across such a situation.
In any event where your paperwork says you cannot it is usually best not to. I have heard of situations where neighbourly disputes over parking, or storing vans/caravans, have become quite ugly and can be costly should one party go down the legal route.
