Neighbourly Relations

[Thorodin]

boyse7en said:

I'm not trying to come across as antagonistic, and I understand the issues you have with the decking and being overlooked, but what is the problem to you if they are doing a loft conversion? Once the inevitable noise etc of the building work is done I can't see that it will make much or any difference to your house or living arrangements. You can approach the council to see if planning is needed or has been obtained, and they will probably require Building Regs to sign off on various aspects of the construction work too, so you could check that this has been done.

You didn't come across as anything even approaching antagonistic!
The opening tale about the decking was merely to provide some indication as to their preparedness to ignore the niceties that most of us hopefully would use. It was only later that we became aware of their business activities and the alarm bells started to tinkle in the distance. The way that was done, especially asking us when and for how long we would be away, fostered the thought about their willingness to dispense with permissions which may or may not be required.

As we are not familiar with this field we can only guess and I thought on here might give us some insight. Indeed it has, too. For instance I was unaware of the 'party wall' situation (thanks for that) and we intend to follow that up. We couldn't care less how people next door live, it's their house after all, but we do care about people taking liberties which might conceivably be against our interests.

We did approach the council about the decking and had photos and dimensions. The planning officer said retrospective permission might be required and did we want to open a complaint. We declined at the time and as the neighbours agreed to modify the structure we accepted that and took it no further.
Thanks for your interest.

[Thorodin]

Esseesse said:

Same happening around me (Bedford), many many 70's bungalows being developed and having extra floors or dormers added. I guess house prices have got to a point that it's well worth it, and also these 70's buildings have decent sized rooms and plots unlike the local rabbit-hutch new stuff.

I can see the attraction of maximising a place and don't blame anyone for doing so. The bungalow was built 1935 and has a 100' garden, garage, three large bedrooms, new bathroom (built by me by taking down the wall between it and the WC) and a dressing room, small kitchen and separate dining room and very large lounge. The elderly (seems to be a lot of them!) chap who bought it from new died in hospital a couple of months before we bought it. The chap had always lived on his own and had nothing done to it, apart from the occasional wallpapering, so all the original tiling and floor tiles, brass/copper door furniture and original hand plastered covings were intact in every room. It was like a time warp and exactly what we wanted - being Art Deco freaks. We just want to avoid problems in the future in the nicest possible way and don't want to prejudice future relationships with our neighbours.