Sleeping in your van on the drive

[J9withdogs]

Barney123 - 2010-03-08 7:44 PM

 

I dont know what you lot are worried about, I received a letter from our local council 2 weeks ago and here is the gist of what they wrote to me

It has come to our attention that you have a motor home parked at the side of your house.

On checking our files we have no record of an application being submitted by you for this second home. In accordance of bye line 7 paragraphs 19 of the housing act of 1985 it is stated that “all dwelling homes must have planning permission allocated”

As this home is in full view of the public road it is necessary for ground rent to be paid on this motor home. The fee for this is calculated at £3.57 per day. We would be grateful if you could send in the total fee for this rent to cover cost to date, additional fee to cover remaining days that this motor home will be parked on this space.

Back fees for previous usage are also necessary as it has come to light that this motor home has been parked in this area previously. An invoice for same will be sent to you as soon as costs have been totalled to include late fee interest.

We would also be grateful if you could let us know details of the sewage system that the occupants of this motor home are presently using at the moment and in all previous occasions as you have failed to apply to this office for mains sewage for this motor home.

Failure to comply with these requests can and will lead to you incurring a fine of up to £1,500 or imprisonment or both.

We would be grateful if you would supply us with the above as soon as possible

 

 

Where do think I stand then ????

 

Are you absolutely sure this isn't a wind-up, Barney?

[Mel B]

We have a bungalow in Scunthorpe that we rent out which is on a corner plot at the bottom of a cul-de-sac with the parking/drive at the front of it (see picture below). Being a new estate, and being aware of the restrictive covenants that can be placed upon new properties, before we bought it one of the first things we stipulated was that we would only do so if we were permitted to park our motorhome on the drive. :-)

 

The restrictions placed on these new properties were that it was okay to park a car, van, trailer or caravan on the drive so long as it was behind the building line - fine for all the 'normal' properties with the drive at the side of them as the building line was in effect 'drawn' at the wall at the house front. With our property having the parking in front, however, the drive was in effect outside the building line ... hmmmm Houston we have a MAJOR problem!!!! 8-)

 

We overcame it by having a 2 metre fence built at the very front boundary, along the edge of the drive, which moved the building line from the front of the bungalow to the fence line. But before we spent more money, having only put down a £100 reservation fee, we insisted this was confirmed with the builders and their solicitors (and ours), and would therefore allow us to park our motorhome on the drive - this was duly confirmed and we have it in writing ... kept very safely tucked away! This also made sure the neighbour opposite would not have any complaints about looking out on a 'big white box' too - as the fence was built before that opposite property was sold, the new owners were aware of the fence so no problems came forth. However, had we not taken these measures, we could easily have problems.

 

We probably won't be moving to the bungalow now as I don't think we'll fit! But, paying a small amount of money to have the fence built has ensured that anyone else who may be interested in buying it when we come to sell it, won't have any problems either and it could easily be a positive selling point as it is one of only a few properties with a drive where the vehicles can move on/off inedependently of one another (ie not having to move one to get the other off the drive) ... it's also got the biggest garden on the whole estate! :-D

[creakyknee]

teflon2 - 2010-03-08 8:02 PMI think you will find that this only refers to caravans as they are classed as trailers. Motorhomes which are taxed and insured are not included. Our deeds ban the parking of trailers and caravans in the front area of the property. Our local plod paid me a visit recently bcause of a complaint from a person living localy (I couldn't find who) and the policeman admitted that I was causing no problem and had every right to have it where it was even thouigh it was overhanging the ramp by about 60cm, I was washing the motorhome at the time before returning it to its storage place. He then went round moving all the cars that were half on the footpath. His parting comment was the complainer should get a life. *-) John.

 

 

It's a vehicle parked on your own land. Not a Police matter, civil matter. If the complainant wants to take it further how does he get to look at your deeds(with any covenant in). Tell them nothing, they can assume your deeds are the same as their own, on an estate but they don't know. Would cost to find out. Make a charge of £200 for any letter of reply,same as solicitors, usually stops the buggers.

 

[The Decorator]

Barney,

 

There are two suggestions.

 

1. If you are a member of the CC contact their legal department.

 

2. The council have made a technical error in that the vehicle is a Motor Caravan (read your documents) and is not a Motorhome. Don't tell them but its a techincal error and therefore the document is invalid.

 

And therefore does not apply to this vehicle

 

They have made a statement and will not be pleased but be polite and stand your ground. A Motor Caravan is a vehicle that you convey to a site by whatever means and live in for a period of time. A Motorhome is a vehicle that can be lived in permanetly (not your vehicle).

 

Get advice from the CC and go to court to defend you corner.

 

Jon

 

 

[Mike88]

Barney somebody is having you on. But its very funny and even funnier because you seem to have fallen for it. :-D :-D :-D

[Minstrel]

Well, I seem to have opened up a can of worms.

 

Some people use their mtorhome as a form of everyday transport so they must be allowed to park on their property..

 

My understanding of covenants is that they are put in place by builders so that prospective buyers aren't put off by seeing caravans etc parked in every other driveway. by the time the estate has been in place for several years, the developers don't care and it surely would be a civil matter, so who is going to spend money to try to get your motorhome removed.

 

Anyway, you are as entitled (or not) as anyone else to park a vehicle on the highway , surely most people would prefer it out of the way on the drive.

 

Going back to the sleeping issue, if you use the m'home as an occasional bedroom, who's going to know?

[teflon2]

Creaky the point was even though my motorhome was overhanging the access ramp ie. footpath I was not illegal whereas the cars half on the footpath were. John

[Guest Tracker]

Covenants can be tricky things and if you are in breach there is often some resident who will be offended - if for no other reasons than jealousy or pedantry.

 

I am not a legal expert but I have come across covenants from time to time and the following is my understanding of how they work. I would be indebted for anyone who knows better to correct me where wrong.

 

A covenant remains in force in perpetuity unless the owner of the covenant repeals it or unless it was set up with a time limit.

 

This often means that when land is sold for development the original seller of the land - often a farmer - could well be the covenant's owner, and if not him/her then probably the developer or builder.

 

It starts to get really complicated when the ownership of a covenant passes to any 'successor in title' either following sale, death or bankruptcy and it can sometimes be impossible to get a covenant removed - even when everyone agrees that it should be removed - because you simply can't find the owner of it.

 

 

 

[Mike88]

Finding someone to enforce a covenant is even more difficult. In many cases the covenant was placed on land by an owner who is now long gone or by a Company that went out of business many years ago. There are covenants on my land for example dating back to 1926 although the house was built in the early 1970's.

 

In general, the only people who are interested in enforcing covenants are local authorities where they sold the land to a developer; otherwise nobody wants to know. I would not advocate parking a motorhome on a drive however where this is detrimental to neighbouring properties. I have seen some shockers in my locality where motorhomes are parked blocking neighbours views of the sea. Its not very pleasant when all a neighbour can see out of their window is somebody else's motorhome.

 

If you park your motorhome on your drive and the original owner of the land cannot be found to enforce the covenant nobody will do anything about it. This is the advice I have received as I want to enforce a covenant

condition unrelated to motorhomes which is being breached but have been told I have no chance as the original land owner cannot be found. Even if you want to object to a planning application which breaches a covenant the local authority will disregard it.

[Petra]

We've just bought a new bungalow and made it clear from the outset to the builder that we wanted to park the motorhome on the drive. There was a covenant in the contract which we got taken out, or so we thought! When we went to sign the contract we found an alternative version had been inserted stating the motorhome had to be parked behind the building line! This was not possible as it would stick out about a metre. Our solicitor told them to remove it, the builder's solicitor refused but when we said we would not proceed with the purchase lo and behold they changed it to allow us 10ft in front of the building line, amazing what a big fat cheque can do! It still does not allow caravans and only one motorhome, are motorhomes better class?

 

We have not moved in yet so not sure what the neighbours will think.

[Minstrel]

I thought I'd just say, we'd like to be able to keep our motorhome on our drive but we wouldn't have any access for my husband to get his beloved scooter out as we have a wall each side. The farm where we keep Helga is about 7 miles away and very secure, with about 150 other vans and caravans.

[Mike88]

When I was selling my house I placed my motorhome in storage. I had great difficulty finding a site acceptable to my insurance company. They insisted it was kept on a CASSOA Gold site. Before placing a motorhome in storage check with your insurance company first.

[Minstrel]

Mike

 

Going to our storage facility gave us a better price on insurance than keeping it at home.

 

[kontiki]

At the time we were buying our house (almost 30 years ago) there was a covenant not allowing caravans ( no mention of motorhomes) to be parked in front of the building line. We used this to get the builder to give us enough space to park a caravan at the side of the house :-D . Not quite wide enough to get the motorhome down though. Since we've lived there many of the neighbours have had caravans parked on their drives & nobody has complained. As said it would cost somebody money to try to enforce a covenant & even then it is doubtful they would be successful.

[Petra]

Mike88 - 2010-03-10 11:01 AM

 

When I was selling my house I placed my motorhome in storage. I had great difficulty finding a site acceptable to my insurance company. They insisted it was kept on a CASSOA Gold site. Before placing a motorhome in storage check with your insurance company first.

 

When we put our motorhome into storage over the winter our premium went up (Saga Insurance) as they said it only depends on the postcode and class it as being parked on the road, even though it was secure CASSOA Gold Indoor storage.