Landowner Trying To Make Us Pay To Park In Shared Courtyard Which Is Public Right Of Access

Location: United Kingdom, County Durham

We live in a courtyard off a main road that has 3 houses in it, one being ours, our joined neighbour and a house on the other side which is occupied by an old couple.

Upon moving in 2 months ago, the old man flagged me down and told me that my husband and I cannot park in the courtyard (we have 2 cars) because we are causing an obstruction. First of all, my 3 door car is parked right in the corner with 2/3 of the car parked on our piece of land, and my husband tucks his car up at the side of our house with about 5cm to spare, so he couldn't park any closer if he tried. There is plenty of room in the courtyard to turn cars around, so we are not causing any issues.

The old man told us he owns the courtyard and we should look at our deeds, to which I told him we are renting and don't have access to any property documents, and our landlord and estate agents had not informed us that we cannot park outside our house in the courtyard.

After this happened, we wanted to do some research ourselves and paid for a copy of the land registry, and we phoned HM Land Registry for advice, as we discovered the courtyard is public right of access, including for vehicles, and we wanted to understand if this also included parking. Upon speaking to someone at HM Land Registry, they didn't confirm we can park, but they did say it SHOULD include parking. We also phoned the estate agents, who had not heard of this issue, so they got in touch with our landlord and they also did not know about any parking issues, and he has had previous tenants.

A little while later, we bumped into the old man who, again, told us we can't park in the courtyard, and we explained that we have spoken to the government and our landlord and should be within our rights to park. Turns out even he doesn't know because he told us he needs to speak to his "sister" about it, so he is just the middleman. He mentioned that if we're going to park there, he will charge rent, so his story suddenly changed from "you can't park there because you're causing an obstruction" to "you can park there if you pay me". Funny that.

Fast forward to today and the old man knocks on our door wanting our names so he can write a rent agreement. I just want to understand what rights we have given the courtyard is public right of access and there are no rules/laws/policies written by the landowner or governing body to state we have to pay to park there.

We are going to get in touch with HMLR again for further advice, as we cannot afford a solicitor to help us right now.