Rogue mechanics who illegally repaired cars to sell on AutoTrader are hit with £150K court bill after row over parking with ice cream man neighbour

An Italian family who ran an illegal car repair business in the lane behind their neighbour’s house have been hit with a £150,000 bill following a legal battle.

Rocco Grasso, his siblings Vito Grasso and Rita Palmieri, and cousins ​​Michelle Viscido and Loredana Di Spirito tried to stake a historic claim to parking in the lane behind the terraced houses they own in Arnos Grove, north London.

Their application was opposed by next-door neighbor Raffaele Raimondo, who has a garage down the street that houses his ice cream van and another vehicle.

Mr Raimondo, who has been in the ice cream business for the past 40 years, claimed he and his family had been denied access by Rocco, his brother Vito and nephew Massimo Palmieri, who repaired cars on the strip before selling them.

This set the stage for a legal battle that culminated in an absurd seven-day court battle in the First-tier Tribunal Property Division; here the case brought by Mr. Grasso and his family dissolved spectacularly.

In salacious scenes in court, Italian-speaking witnesses presented ‘similar if not identical’ written statements in English they did not understand, and these statements had to be read back to them line by line in their native language.

And the rejection of car sales was undermined by photos of broken cars being delivered and screenshots of newly repaired engines appearing on Auto Trader.

The family denied they were running a commercial business from the garages and claimed they were seeking an ‘easement’ to park there as they had been parking behind the garages regularly since the 1970s.

But trial judge Ewan Paton said the applications probably stemmed from Rocco Grasso’s “desire” to repair cars; this was evidenced by the rejected planning application and enforcement notices served by Enfield Council for car repairs.

The five applicants will now also have to pay Mr Raimondo’s costs, understood to be £150,000, after a protracted trial in which the judge despaired it had “got out of control and out of proportion to the matters at stake”.

Massimo Palmieri was seen kneeling next to a car in the lane that sparked a legal dispute

When Mr. Raimondo bought the lane and hired private traffic wardens, Mr. Grasso and his friends responded by disguising their license plates with Italian vulgarities.

The dispute dates back to 2013, when Vito and Rocco Grasso allegedly began repairing cars on the strip with Mr. Palmieri.

The court heard this made it difficult for Mr Raimondo, his wife Carolina and their children Luisa, Vincenzo and Michele to navigate the lane and made it impossible to make a three-point turn.

During this time, Rocco Grasso was unsuccessful in his bid for a change of use on the lane that would have allowed him to operate a commercial vehicle business and was cited by the city for building an unpermitted curb in front to facilitate parking.

Enfield Council also issued two enforcement notices in 2014 and 2020 after they continued to repair cars anyway.

Seven years later, Mr Raimondo bought the deed to the lane for £7,500, which gave him the right to keep control of private parking to ‘police’ the lane.

This It sparked a tit-for-tat response from Mr. Grasso and his family, who covered the license plates of cars parked on the strip with duct tape and a bed of vanity plates Italian vulgarity ‘stu cazzo’.

Mr Grasso, who was said to have repeatedly tried to get his way in court, then applied to the Land Registry to claim a historic right to park on the land, known as an ‘easement’.

His cousin Michelle and sister Loredana applied for a similar easement for the land behind their house next door.

Mr. Raimondo objected to this, suspecting that the applications were a smokescreen to pursue illegal mechanical activity on his territory.

The road is located behind a row of terraced houses in Arnos Green, north London, where families have lived for decades.

The lane with cars on one side outside the garages; including without rear bumper and wheel removed

Massimo Palmieri photographed with Rocco Grasso’s father, Giuliano Grasso – the court ruled that he made a statement supporting the park proposal in “legal” language that “was not his own”.

Both applications were made under statute of limitations and the common law doctrine of ‘lost modern grant’: essentially, Mr Grasso and his family claimed they had long had the right to park on the land as they had been doing so for over 20 years.

But in shocking scenes, seven supporting witnesses, including Michelle Viscido’s father Gerardo, had to have their statements read to them in Italian due to doubts about the accuracy of their statements.

Mr. Grasso’s father, Giuliano, claimed in his statement to the court that he had been parked on the strip since 1976, but rejected Mr. Raimondo’s claims that the van was normally parked in front of the Harvester bar across the street.

But the statement was written in what the judge described as “legal” language, which I do not think is his own.

The judge stated that ‘the short witness statements were probably prepared by his children or on their instructions’.

Michelle Viscido’s father, Gerardo, gave a statement claiming he had parked behind the house next door to his house since 1980, but like other witness statements the ‘very short and general’ passage had to be read to him in Italian through an interpreter.

Lawyers acting on behalf of Mr Grasso and his friends were forced to give up relying on a key witness when it emerged that he did not read English to a significant level. They were not told this before the seven-day hearing began.

Mr. Grasso’s other supporters in court included his father’s former school friends and acquaintances or business associates; They, too, did not always state their personal connections in their witness statements.

This nonsense led Judge Paton to question whether the statements were ‘really these witnesses’ own words’ or whether they had been ‘fed’ into them.

Meanwhile, Loredana, who had not spoken to her sister for years, did not testify at the court hearing, even though she was one of five people who applied for the right to park behind houses.

The judge said this was ‘striking’ and gave credence to the theory that the applications were largely driven by Mr Grasso.

A car being delivered to the lane on the back of a flatbed truck

Mr Grasso denied repairing cars for commercial gain, despite receiving enforcement notices from the council about this (pictured: a damaged Alfa Romeo)

The same Alfa Romeo that appeared on Auto Trader after being repaired on the strip

Although the legitimacy of the business was not important to the case, it was ‘clear’ that Grosso and Massimo Palmieri used the road as a mechanic’s garage, evidenced by photographs, and that they sold the cars on Facebook and Auto Trader.

Mr Palmieri, despite evidence to the contraryAt the hearing, it was claimed that the cars were for ‘hobby’ and ‘personal’ use.

Mr. Raimondo, on the other hand, had several neighbors whom neither he nor Mr. Grasso knew; these included a man who had lived nearby since 1959 and said he had never seen cars parked on the strip until the mechanic trade took off.

Tribunal Judge Ewan Paton noted that both parties had ‘exaggerated their positions’ but ruled in Mr Raimondo’s favor because the parking space behind the garage was ‘occasional and often temporary…temporary at best’.

In his written decision, he said it was ‘clear’ that Mr Grasso and Massimo Palmieri were working on cars in the lane and that the application for parking on the site ‘could be traced’ to previous planning applications for a change of use.

He also concluded that the Grassos and their wider family would eventually ‘kick out’ Mr Palmieri from the strip if they were allowed to park there; which the law could not allow.

The judge added: ‘I consider that (Rocco Grasso’s) desire to establish this right to park where other attempts have failed colored his evidence and also influenced others who were registered to support the application.

‘In no case can the rights alleged in this case exist as easements in law.’

Judge Paton also lamented the size of the case; approximately 47 witnesses were called and a large amount of evidence presented in what amounted to a parking dispute.

‘From one perspective, the proceedings have gotten out of control and become disproportionate to the issues at stake,’ he wrote.

‘It is deeply regrettable that a dispute on such a massive scale over parking rights in a lane between two very close-knit, hard-working and successful families of Italian origin, who own attractive properties with large gardens and garages, is deeply regrettable.

‘I conclude by expressing my wish that, despite the length, cost and pain of this dispute, the parties will be able to live together and cooperate as neighbors to the best of their ability from now on.’

The Daily Mail attempted to contact each family at their home in Arnos Grove. Michelle Viscido told our reporter that the family will respond in due course; He did not respond to a request for further comment.

Mr. Raimondo’s family declined to comment when approached.