Can our neighbour’s young relative learn to drive unaccompanied on our park?

• Monday, 26 January 2009
• Amy Hodge
• 0 Comments

Can you throw some light on a problem we have on our park? Is it legal for a youngster who is learning to drive to go around our park unaccompanied? The adult relative, who lives on site, can see no wrong in this. Also, another youth is often seen riding about in a relative’s invalid carriage! What happens if there is an accident of some kind and somebody is injured or someone’s property is damaged? The police were informed two weeks ago and said that they would look into it but so far we’ve heard nothing. This does not surprise me, considering the negative attitude of some forces. We have not contacted the owner about this as he is not somebody who is willing to listen to reason.

Answer

Putting aside any likely police action, this is an issue between the occupiers and the site owner. Normally, site rules will contain a clause to the effect that cars must be taxed, insured and driven with a full licence.

I would suggest that the first thing you do is check to see if your site rules contains anything to the effect of the above.

If there is a clause in the site rules then it is up to the site owner to deal with. If he fails to do so he will be in breach of his own site rules and therefore court action can be taken against him.

If there is nothing in your site rules in connection with this issue there is a statutory provision in the Mobile Homes Act 1983 that provides that: ‘The occupier shall be entitled to quiet enjoyment of the mobile home together with the pitch during the continuance of the agreement . . . ’.

‘Quiet enjoyment’ is not limited to an absence of noise; an interference with your ‘quiet enjoyment’ could be, for example, the site owner withholding or withdrawing some of the park’s normal services that residents have been using for many years.

If your site owner does nothing to prevent the ‘quiet enjoyment’ of your mobile home from being interfered with then he will be in breach of the statutory provision to do so. So, it is in his interest to sort out this problem.