Selfish developers / Neighbours

[clockworks]

My next door neighbour built a side extension right up to the boundary of my property, the eaves overhanging my side access. This was done about 20 years ago, long before I moved in.
He is now trying to sell the house, and is having problems. Two buyers have pulled out after having this issue come up on their surveys. The last one pulled out just 9 days before completion. They are now living out of cardboard boxes while they look for another buyer..

He now wishes that he'd not been as "greedy" for the extra space…...

[silverthorn2151]

Apart from the eaves detail being simply dreadful and without detailed analysis it is clear that there is way more to this than is being presented.

Where is the boundary is the first question I would ask?

[spats]

While it is done on their land, surely now both houses cannot maintain the walls which now due to the extension are inaccessible.

The Neighbours house is rendered and I know from experience that doesn’t last forever. Plus the facias and guttering will be a mare to sort out in the future aswell. Surely the planning office have some sort of duty of care to make sure essential maintenance can still be carried out by both parties?

Seems ridiculous that I am not allowed to raise a fence to 5 metres along my boundary with the neighbours as their back door is so much higher than ours they over look a 4m fence with ease and that’s all down to planning regs but some bloke can put up a huge extension without any bother at all!

[silverthorn2151]

spats said:

While it is done on their land,

What we see cannot be on both of their land.

[Lost soul]

spats said:

While it is done on their land, surely now both houses cannot maintain the walls which now due to the extension are inaccessible.

Not to mention the mess the pointing must be in on the extension

[spats]

silverthorn2151 said:

What we see cannot be on both of their land.

Ok let me be more clear: Whilst the extension was done using only the owners land and therefore ok in that respect. The fact remains that suddenly if theres a problem with wall of the neighbours property it is almost impossible to sort out without huge problems relating to the newly erected wall.

So on that basis alone, why didnt the planning office tell them to take it down?

[silverthorn2151]

spats said:

silverthorn2151 said:

What we see cannot be on both of their land.

Ok let me be more clear: Whilst the extension was done using only the owners land and therefore ok in that respect. The fact remains that suddenly if theres a problem with wall of the neighbours property it is almost impossible to sort out without huge problems relating to the newly erected wall.

So on that basis alone, why didnt the planning office tell them to take it down?

I do appreciate that. Let me also be more clear that the boundary of ones land extends vertically upwards.

In this case, one or other, or both are trespassing. The roof lines overlap and there can be no other conclusion. How it is will be the question.. There are countless examples of where consent is granted for something that is difficult to maintain. Stupid and pointless it may be, but it still happens.

[andy43]

Munter said:

I think there are more building control questions than planning ones...

I'd love to see how they dug the foundations to current standards without a party wall agreement with the 30's house next door. Looking at the way the two houses appear to lean in towards each other I can only imagine.
It would have needed underpinning of the White's house, under the shallower older foundations surely?
Maybe the building control dept is as 'lax' as the rest of the council?

[Mr GrimNasty]

silverthorn2151 said:

spats said:

While it is done on their land,

What we see cannot be on both of their land.

It's possible (very usual actually) that when the development was built, the house on the right's wall was the boundary, and it was built with the eaves hanging over, thereby having an automatic right to continue. So the house on the left, may have built entirely within his own land, despite undercutting the eaves on the other house.

[motco]

226bhp said:

Council probably scared of being called racist init.

I was about to ask if they had transferred down from Rotherham Child Protection Service. Same pussyfooting attitude...

[Chrisgr31]

andy43 said:

I'd love to see how they dug the foundations to current standards without a party wall agreement with the 30's house next door. Looking at the way the two houses appear to lean in towards each other I can only imagine.
It would have needed underpinning of the White's house, under the shallower older foundations surely?
Maybe the building control dept is as 'lax' as the rest of the council?

I was pondering whether there should be a party wall agreement.

[groucho]

Hackney said:

It's horrible. I can't understand the point of doing it, not only affects the neighbour's house but who would buy the house with the extension like that.
What's a surveyor going to say when he sees the guttering on the roof.

Sad state of affairs when someone feels they can build without approval and also build something that hasn't been approved.

More to the point, how is anybody going to fit the guttering?

I imagine they would have to put a lead box gutter in place which means work to the neighbour's house.

Edited by groucho on Saturday 13th September 08:07

[Foppo]

I stopped my ex neighbour building the same type of extension.Theirs semi ours detached.

He moved house.

[motco]

Foppo said:

I stopped my ex neighbour building the same type of extension.Theirs semi ours detached.

He moved house.

I failed to stop my neighbour (semi) bringing his house to within a metre of the boundary where my (detached) dining room window was only a further metre from the same boundary.

I moved house...

[98elise]

motco said:

Foppo said:

I stopped my ex neighbour building the same type of extension.Theirs semi ours detached.

He moved house.

I failed to stop my neighbour (semi) bringing his house to within a metre of the boundary where my (detached) dining room window was only a further metre from the same boundary.

I moved house...

My neighbour stopped me from building within a metre of my boundary because his dining room window was 3 metres from the same boundary (so 4m total). They wanted us to move it a further metre to make 5m in total. This would mean we couldn't fit a door through to the new extension. We finally agreed on 750mm which just left us enough space to fit a standard door.

[motco]

98elise said:

motco said:

Foppo said:

I stopped my ex neighbour building the same type of extension.Theirs semi ours detached.

He moved house.

I failed to stop my neighbour (semi) bringing his house to within a metre of the boundary where my (detached) dining room window was only a further metre from the same boundary.

I moved house...

My neighbour stopped me from building within a metre of my boundary because his dining room window was 3 metres from the same boundary (so 4m total). They wanted us to move it a further metre to make 5m in total. This would mean we couldn't fit a door through to the new extension. We finally agreed on 750mm which just left us enough space to fit a standard door.

Move to South Bucks District; they'll allow it, no problems!

[226bhp]

spats said:

While it is done on their land, surely now both houses cannot maintain the walls which now due to the extension are inaccessible.

The Neighbours house is rendered and I know from experience that doesn’t last forever. Plus the facias and guttering will be a mare to sort out in the future aswell. Surely the planning office have some sort of duty of care to make sure essential maintenance can still be carried out by both parties?


Seems ridiculous that I am not allowed to raise a fence to 5 metres along my boundary with the neighbours as their back door is so much higher than ours they over look a 4m fence with ease and that’s all down to planning regs but some bloke can put up a huge extension without any bother at all!

Put a Mosque up to block the view, you won't have any problem with planning for that.
As for not being able to get to the wall for maintenence, well it won't be seeing any degrading weather for the foreseeable future so it doesn't matter.

[elanfan]

I'll bet in building that they have dropped mortar down the gap such that the damp proof course will be at risk.

A stand really should be taken against such things - a start would be to express your disgust to the Planning Department or to write in support to the White's MP and insist on action being taken

[e-mail]

[rich83]

Inconsiderate wan****

[Swoxy]

.. or another way of looking at it is that both houses are now built up to the boundary.