The car parking space is probably the most contested piece of tarmac in any given road. There is nothing like a battle over parking to really get people’s dander up, and a residential block of flats is probably where the venom is the most poisonous.

Take my two flats in east London. The development is delightful, except that the developers created only 13 parking spaces for 21 properties, which they then flogged at £7,500 apiece.

At the time, it seemed like a lot of money. But once everyone moved in, parking suddenly became a huge issue. The 13 legitimate parkers were forever having their slots pinched by the eight illegitimate ones — and their friends. Sometimes this bunch didn’t even bother nicking an allotted space, leaving their cars up against people’s front doors, in cross-hatched turning spots, anywhere.

Last month, things came to a head. Cars started to pop up all over the place, infuriating just about everyone. Our tenants rang all the time with complaints. “People started sticking notes on the windows of the cars in question. The notes got more and more angry,” says Steve Blower, who lives in the block. “The frustration people feel is enormous. And you feel powerless, unable to regain control of something you own.”

After we went and cried in their office, our managing agents, the Avenue Agency, suggested a variety of ideas. They’ve been here before, you see. How about lockable poles that pop out of the ground? Hopelessly impractical for even a reasonably stable tenant changeover. Someone is bound to go away with the key and then where are you? Locked out of your own bay.

The agency then suggested painting the door number of each flat on the relevant parking space. In bright yellow paint, of course. We obtained the plan of the parking spaces from the original leasehold agreement and the car park was duly marked out. Then, to discourage people from parking in the open courtyard, Blower — who doesn’t own a parking space himself but is co-director of the block — bought large stone planters and popped bay trees in them. They were positioned in key naughty parking spaces. Painting the lines cost £1,800 and the planters came to £620. The scheme has been reasonably successful.

I’m lucky, though, because my block has a gated courtyard. For those whose car parks are accessible from the open street, clamping is the only answer. But that brings its own problems, says Nicholas Phillip, who runs the Avenue Agency. “It really is the most unpleasant business. Tempers get lost in every case. We manage a block in Barnet and people entitled to park there are given permits. If they haven’t got one, they get clamped. Then they get on the phone to you, and it all starts: ‘I changed my car, I forgot my permit, I don’t like putting my permit on the windscreen.’ ” And worse.

According to Phillip, the £99 declamping charge makes people go bonkers. “We get people threatening physical abuse,” he says. “We have had terrible threats. But the residents’ association and freeholders are all in favour of clamping, because there is no other way of policing parking. In an ungated development, the only threat that dissuades rogue parkers is the threat of being clamped.”

If your block is on the street, without private bays, the parking issue can be thrown wholly into the tenants’ court. “As long as they have a six-month assured short-hold tenancy, and if they pay the money, then my tenants can go to the council and get a resident’s parking licence for six months,” says Jessica Brown, who owns six flats in Kensington, west London.

“I explain the situation and leave them to it. If they have a company car, they must have a letter of authorisation from their employer. I do not get involved. I would not dream of getting involved. But most of my tenants don’t want a parking space.”

Rubbish, says Marc von Grundherr, director of Benham & Reeves Residential Lettings. “Tenants do want parking spaces, and car parking is such a contentious issue. Even tenants coming from overseas want parking spaces. Investors ring and ask me whether they should buy parking with their new flat. And I say, ‘For heaven’s sake, do!’ ” They will need deep pockets. Von Grundherr runs through a few prices that squares of tarmac currently fetch in the capital. “At Imperial Wharf in Chelsea, spaces are selling for £15,000, with a £600 annual service charge. At the development at the old Highbury stadium in Arsenal, they are going for £30,000.”

The piãce de résistance is at the Knightsbridge, central London’s swankiest new development, where Knight Frank recently sold a four-bedroom flat for £7.4m and three parking bays at £150,000 apiece. So, its inhabitants clearly have very smart cars that need very smart bays.

“Tenants want parking!” reiterates von Grundherr. “I am about to take on a block in Canary Wharf that has 160 units, but only 20 parking spaces. I don’t know what is going to happen. But investors should always try to buy a parking space. It will add to the capital value of your flat and it will add to its rentability. I don’t think tenants are into the public transport thing yet.” Oh, for goodness sake. What about their carbon footprint?

buytolet@sunday-times.co.uk

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