I know that neighbours can affect your view of your property in France. For us the initially empty field opposite our house has been converted into 41 apartments with 71 parking spaces. The whole property is run as an HLM. We initially had problems with noisy neighbours .Several people complained to the Maire and the offenders were quickly moved out. Even though there are 71 parking spaces in the residence the maire told us that they were going to cover over the fosse on the opposite side of the road to ours to make it easier for visitors to park there. Of course it is not just visitors who park there several residents park their cars on the roadside as well, Maybe there is a charge for parking in the residence, or presumably because they find it more convenient. However the worst one is that there are two depannage lorries. One usually parks in the residence and the other parks on the opposite side of the road to our house. Thes lorries often have wrecked cars and bits of cars on the back of them. They are often parked there for five to six days without moving. I have had a brief not amicable discussion with one of the owners who I find very unpleasant and would prefer not to deal with him again.
I have complained to the Maire by email several times about litter, people driving the wrong way down a now one way street but have had no response to any of them. I have yet to bring up the subject of the mobile scrapyard.
Is there anything that I can do or do I just have to accept that he can park his lorry with goods fit for a scrapyard on the back. They have no identification on their lorries so they may not have a company address. My feeling is that they are based in the HLM property, but I don’t know.
Last night they had the two lorries revving up outside our house transferring a broken down wreck from one camion de depannage to the other.
Apart from selling (which is now high on our list) is there anything we can do or is it a further session with Monsieur Le Maire.
As has been mentioned on many different threads, emails seem to rarely get a response from the Mairie.
Why not make an appointment to speak personally with the Maire. Some notes of dates etc and photos showing the lorries and their loads etc etc will illustrate. Do you have any neighbours who are similarly affected?
I feel your pain.
I have had run-ins with neighbours over parking issues at two different addresses in the UK so I know how stressful and disheartening it can be.
I can’t really offer any advice because I don’t know the French laws that are applicable.
But I would advise you to avoid confronting the vehicle owners directly. Talk to your Mairie (as per previous posts) and, if necessary, the police and let them deal with it.
Chin up, and best of luck.
Thank you very much all of you for your comments. I think another meeting with Monsieur Le Maire is the best option although I do not hold out much hope that he will do anything. He wants an easy life. I have invited him round to our house in the past to view the litter problem but he never replied as it was by email. I shall look at the code de la route for inspiration. Unfortunately we are the only house that is affected by the depannage lorries. Every time a lorry with half the contents of a scrapyard appears in front of our house I take a picture of it.
It’s all quite depressing. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to buy the house with a view of a mobile scrapyard from the living room windows. We have a “friend” in the mairee so we will invite her round and show her everything that has deteriorated as a starter.
The local council can’t do much if nothing illegal is happening, they can vote in that the parking spaces are for cars and small vans etc not for Lorries camping cars etc. But that would need to be policed by the Police ou GDs…
I would suggest you talk to the Mairie not just complaining but with possible solutions’ here’s one.
Fence off or to place bollards around the parking and install height restriction barrier. And plant trees or bushes to minimize the unsightly view for the neighbours.
Strategically I would work on minimising the visual disturbance from your property. Generally better to (eg) plant closer to you to block the nasty view - see diagram.
But also see if you can negotiate a a longer plan with Marie to get rid of the nuisance altogether.
When you sell a house you have ro declare problems of voisinage, and far better to be able ro be transparent and say yes there’s a problem but it is being sorted.
As I mentioned above. Some say this only applies if it has escalted to a formal dispute, but if it is know eg to the mairie then seems foolish not to be transparent.
Thanks again everyone for some useful comments. When we spoke with the Maire initially he said that creating parking above the fosse would be for visitors mainly. We told him then that we were not keen on having cars outside our house. He didn’t think it would happen often. I don’t think anyone expected the mobile scrapyard appearing One suggestion would be if he moved it to the opposite end of the newly created parking which would be well away from our house, but not our garden, although we could live with that.
Unfortunately there is not enough space to grow a suitable plant screen.
Juliet the link that you supplied makes fascinating reading. I need to translate it all but it looks like there are restrictions in parking heavy goods vehicles and that the mayor can issue ordinances to address this. Good stuff.
We have legal protection associated with our house insurance. I described the situation to them and they are happy to look into the antisocial neighbour problem when we want them to. In the meantime our friend from the mairie visited our street and asked me to send her any pictures. She said she will bring it up with the council. I think there is a general feeling that the village in general is going downhill since the residence was built. I will post an update if there is any progress.
Communes are obliged to provide social housing these days more and more to help folks rent a home., and so many for every private lotissement created whereby its a mix of private and rented homes but not next to each other in streets usually.They have built two big blocks of apartments at the edge of this new lotissement, both are very well tended, green spaces outside and plenty of overspill parking where designated spaces are not enough or visitors need to park. When I saw how many thousands of people are on the housing list for this commune it was surprising, many trying to get out of the nearby city and salubrious neighbourhoods. There are strict tenant rules and when I was a conseilleur municipal we had to evict a few people from the social bungalows because of unsociable behaviour so it does happen or warnings given but most of these dwellings are built in conjunction with associations and the local Mairie are not the 100% landlords.
