What can you do if you find a car parked across your driveway? What rights do you have?
This might be a problem for people who live near train stations, major sporting arenas or other areas where parking is at a premium. There is no criminal law against the act of someone parking on your driveway without your consent, according to the RAC.
Because a driveway is part of the property, the driver is committing an act of trespassing. However, trespassing is classed as a civil offence so police do not have the power to make an arrest.
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So what are you actually allowed to do to the offending vehicle? Worryingly little, reports The Mirror.
Charlotte Dixon, solicitor at DAS Law, has previously said: “The first step with any anti-social parking problem is to contact your local authority or the police. However there is little the law can do to support home owners – even if a car blocks your driveway.
“The Highway Code can only help if the parked car is causing an obstruction to the road but not in relation to private land. One option that’s available is to pursue a legal claim for nuisance on the grounds that the driver is interfering with your use and enjoyment of your property – but to do so you’d need to know the identity of the offending vehicle’s driver.”
Even with signage or cameras, people will still try and park on people’s driveways to make their journey easier or to save money. At one point in time, parking enforcement was handled by the police, but after a 1991 law change, local authorities were given the responsibility.
They are able to issue fines and penalty charge notices for any offence on a public highway, including if a car is blocking a driveway while parked on a public road. However, if a car is on a drive, and on private property, the council has no authority to move it.
If a car has been abandoned, the local council is required to move it regardless of whether it is on public or private land. But if the car has up-to-date tax, insurance, a valid MOT and isn’t in a dangerous condition, councils are “powerless” to intervene.
Legal facts about blocked driveways
If a vehicle is parked on your driveway without your permission, they would be trespassing. As trespass is a civil and not criminal offence the police will not always get involved. They can send an officer to try and determine the owner of the vehicle and ask them to move.
A homeowner has no special legal right to park directly outside their property. All road users have the same right to park anywhere on the public highway as long as they do not contravene parking restrictions.
There is no time limit on how long a vehicle can remain parked in the same space on a road. The exception to this is if the vehicle is thought to have been abandoned, in which case it can be removed by the police.
Trying to keep a parking space available outside your home using cones or some other obstacle could be viewed as obstruction and liable to prosecution – unless your local authority has granted you the right to do so for something like a funeral.
If someone has parked on your driveway and you were to block them in, be careful not to cause an obstruction to the public highway as this is a criminal offence. If you do, the owner of the vehicle could call the police on you.
Vandalising a parked car is a criminal act and can be prosecuted. Even if just spraying chip fat on the windscreen or blocking the exhaust, these acts could still be classed as vandalism.
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