Boundary disputes
Discussion
DoubleD said:
cgauk said:
The house we are renting......
Worth some kind of dispute?
That should answer your question.Worth some kind of dispute?
Edited by cgauk on Thursday 5th December 00:13
hutchst said:
Encroachment?
The neighbour has resurfaced over land that isn't theirs. Does that, if not corrected, cause some issue down the line with ownership? Is the ownership of the land itself not 100% 'safe' due to the neighbouring house being built in the wrong place...? The line of the plot follows the line of a fence, which has been there since new, but the corner of the neighbouring house is on the border when it should be ~1m further back. Are plans in deeds meant to be accurate or approximate?
Should relative be doing something to safeguard anything?
Right. Are we sitting comfortably kids?
Imagine the scene.
You've not long bought your new house and your neighbour is the same. I should start that at the time this happened i rmember reading that the fences that are installed, and therefor the boundaries set ar 3metres from one house and 1 from another.
So the small fence that is installed on new build estates is exactly 3m from my house and 1m from the neighbour.
But.
The neighbour chose to have a chimney installed that addes half a metre to the house, reducing the clearance at the widest point to half a metre before the fence but maintaining the 3m from mine.
I decide i want a 6 foot fence and make it happen, and i did this after speaking with the neighbour but at this point they didn't click that the chimney would narrow the gap
I arrange it all, blokes turn up and get started then i get a call from the fencer to say neighbour is going tonto. I arrive and sort it out but i don't budge on the placement as all the holes are dug and fence is pretty much built.
fast forward a year and i go about my garden maintenance and want to paint the fence. I approch the neighbour to let him know i'll be painting the other side and he says "fine but you'll be painting the fence on the other three sides as it will look odd. None of these fences are his.
I laugh, thinking he is joking but this just flicks a switch and he goes nuclear. Cue a toe to toe barrage of threats and chest puffing.
I leave it well alone and paint my side of the fence anyway.
I've since been quite awkward as to be honest he just wound me up. I have since painted the fence again and rather than ask his permission again i removed each and every slat from my side, painted them and leaned through to paint the posts and straps and put it all back together. Childish, i know.
The stand off continues. We have run out of things to compete on these days so we try and out think each other in the summer and cut our grass first as there are no fences at the front. Yet.
Told you it wasn't that exciting..
I shall await the flaming, all of it absolutely deserved as i should have been the bigger man. But ho hum.
Imagine the scene.
You've not long bought your new house and your neighbour is the same. I should start that at the time this happened i rmember reading that the fences that are installed, and therefor the boundaries set ar 3metres from one house and 1 from another.
So the small fence that is installed on new build estates is exactly 3m from my house and 1m from the neighbour.
But.
The neighbour chose to have a chimney installed that addes half a metre to the house, reducing the clearance at the widest point to half a metre before the fence but maintaining the 3m from mine.
I decide i want a 6 foot fence and make it happen, and i did this after speaking with the neighbour but at this point they didn't click that the chimney would narrow the gap
I arrange it all, blokes turn up and get started then i get a call from the fencer to say neighbour is going tonto. I arrive and sort it out but i don't budge on the placement as all the holes are dug and fence is pretty much built.
fast forward a year and i go about my garden maintenance and want to paint the fence. I approch the neighbour to let him know i'll be painting the other side and he says "fine but you'll be painting the fence on the other three sides as it will look odd. None of these fences are his.
I laugh, thinking he is joking but this just flicks a switch and he goes nuclear. Cue a toe to toe barrage of threats and chest puffing.
I leave it well alone and paint my side of the fence anyway.
I've since been quite awkward as to be honest he just wound me up. I have since painted the fence again and rather than ask his permission again i removed each and every slat from my side, painted them and leaned through to paint the posts and straps and put it all back together. Childish, i know.
The stand off continues. We have run out of things to compete on these days so we try and out think each other in the summer and cut our grass first as there are no fences at the front. Yet.
Told you it wasn't that exciting..
I shall await the flaming, all of it absolutely deserved as i should have been the bigger man. But ho hum.
cgauk said:
Strange that they'd have an issue with a gap that they've narrowed due to their own chimney.. did they want you to give you some of your garden to make up for it? Are you sure that's what they have a problem with..?
Yes, maybe they wanted a little chicane built in. Quite sure. 
ScotHill said:
However, there haven't been any for months and the last few never had any closure, i.e. the guy whose neighbour cut down his trees and built a fence on his land.
Regards.
This sounds like might be me Regards.
Ok a recap for others. Our bungalow sits on a hill and backs on to a detached house which is much lower than ours, around 15 feet or so. Gary has lived in the house for 34 years and that, quite naturally, means he owns the street. Years ago a previous owner of ours built an 8 foot retaining wall due to landslip (others have done the same - old slag heap) which was about 8 feet from Gary's rear wall which sits on the boundary. Between owners the house sat empty so Gary decided he would clear this land between the walls and cut down all the conifer trees plus those of his adjoining neighbour. He sent his wife round to tell my elderly neighbour to cut down the sycamore tree in his garden even though its not near the boundary and is in fact holding back a concrete retaining wall in his garden. He refused and they fell out.....
Anyway, Gary then cultivated this land and planted some nice shrubs, plants and flowers so that when he looked out of his patio door he could look up to see his 'raised' garden. He put some delightful pots and even some
Gary was very happy except that to access the 'garden' he had to use ladders and his wife was not best pleased. In their 34 years they have extended their standard 60s 3 bed into a 6 bed monster (as they are foster parents) so now there is no driveway, virtually no front garden and a very small back garden. The original concrete garage was cut off and Gary used it for storage.
Gary likes to be busy so he built a concrete sectional wall on his new garden midway between the walls ("to prevent landslip" he says) and to give a nice backdrop to his colourful 'raised' garden. One of the foster kids likes all this so he asks if he can grow some plants. No problem says Gary and cultivates the land between his new concrete wall and the retaining wall. He now occupies all of the land outside his boundary. More nice plants are installed but foster kid wants to grow tomatoes. Gary obliges and drills lots of holes and fixes row upon row of battens over our entire retaining wall using plugs and screws.
Now at this point we buy the house (which had been empty for well over a year) and did not notice what was going on (it was a renovation job) initially. However, Gary was very helpful, telling me what he had done. He complained that access was difficult but he would soon address that. Within a few weeks he started building a raised wooden decking on top of the garage roof in his back garden. This is adjacent to his neighbour and overlooks them so she complained to the council. The council tells Gary he needs planning permission but Gary does not as he's lived here for 34 years and so on. He continues to build. The deck covers the garage roof and he fits a balustrade around it so all the family can go up there and look into the neighbour's bedroom window (it is level with the rear bedroom windows), sitting room and garden. He spends £2,000 on wood and a joiner to make a 'proper' stairway that Kevin McLeod would be proud of.
The neighbour is furious and big rows ensue. Gary puts a CCTV camera on top of a 20 foot pole and this watches their every move at the back. They retaliate and fix a microphone to their wall closest to Gary's front door and presumably eavesdrop. His other neighbour complains to the council and they visit. Gary must get planning permission. He pays for architects to draw up the plans retrospectively and submits them. He tells me he will carry on as they can't refuse him. He now builds a full on bridge between the garage roof and his rear wall. Now he and all the family can visit and look after their 'raised' garden in comfort. His wife is a keen gardener and spends a lot of time up there. All is going well for Gary.
We are now plagued with foster kids coming over the bridge then climbing our retaining wall and wrecking our rear garden. The council very kindly send me Gary's application complete with boundary plans and drawings. Would I like to object? Studying the plans and realise Gary has been a very naughty boy so send him a nice letter advising he has in effect pinched our land. I give him a month to remove it all. As a resident of 34 years standing he ignores it. In the meanwhile, all the neighbours submit objections and Gary is refused planning permission. He simply cannot understand it and feels he is being victimised. But he is not beaten, oh no. He pays another architect to modify the plans and resubmits them. While we wait, disaster strikes.
One of his foster kids, 14 year old lad, skipped off school so Mrs Gary drove around the area to find him. She located him, grabbed hold of him and a lady passing in her car saw the struggle. She believed the lady was being mugged/robbed so stopped, then reversed her car at them to scare him off. She got it all wrong and mowed down Mrs Gary, killing her. She was given a suspended sentence and a driving ban due to the 'unusual circumstances' of the case.
Two months later, Gary came round to see me about the land dispute and this was when I learned of the 'accident'. I told him not to concern himself and to leave it. He said he was hoping to get £100,000 from her death and my wife was absolutely shocked as he spent more time talking about an insurance payout than his poor wife. The dispute was left for now.
The second planning application was, much later, refused. Gary had resumed gardening on the disputed land. His decking was finished and the family used it for sunbathing and relaxing on. The council enforcement letter gave him 2 months to remove it all. He ignored it. The neighbour complained regularly so the council kept at him. Meanwhile, Gary kept complaining that when we were sat in our garden we could watch what he was doing on his decking and that we could see into his rear bedroom windows. He had raised this many times so I had planted some 20 conifer trees along the retaining wall after removing his tomato garden, battens and shrubs and plants. He was not best pleased. Pointing out that he had caused the issue by cutting down our trees in the first place was ignored.
Now the council issued a court summons. Gary was devastated. So he slowly removed the balustrade, the bridge (woohoo) and the stairs being very careful not to damage any of it. Perhaps this story might continue? Oh yes. He refused outright to remove the deck as he was appealing to the Secretary of State. Sure enough, last week the council sent me his appeal application. The main grounds for his appeal were that the council were picking on him and that he was coming to terms with his wife's 'murder' (as he put it) and he should not have to put up with all this.
Having finalised my garden plans I went down to the 'raised' garden and removed some plants and some sections of the concrete wall. While doing so, a lady of Malaysian/Thai/south Asian appearance began shouting at me from Gary's garden. I had never seen her before. 'This our garden. Why you not discussed this with us? You can't just take it all down.' It seems Gary has a new lady in his life and she wears the pants. Eventually Gary comes out and pathetically asks why am I doing this. Neither of them were willing to listen and were hell bent on a row which I had managed to avoid for the last 2.5 years. Gary's parting words were, 'Do what you like, I don't care'.
So, I enlisted the help of a retired (Royal Institute of Chartered) Surveyor who measured everything in detail, using Gary's plans, the council's and ours. His calculations revealed the boundary was indeed Gary's garden wall (which aligns with his neighbours) and that the land in dispute did belong to us. I doubt Gary will take notice of any of it and the appeal will not be heard until February at the earliest. In the meantime I will remove the remaining plants/shrubs and the concrete sectional wall. I may well have to erect a fence of some kind to put an end to this saga.
Edited by N7GTX on Thursday 5th December 21:17
That is good stuff. I didn't see the twist coming with Mrs Gary, or Mrs Gary 2.0. Did Mrs Gary (the first one) definitely exist? Or was it a pretend wife and death? Like when a roofer/builder/kitchen fitter/other can't finish a job "because my wife just got mowed down due to being a victim of being saved from a suspected mugging (that went wrong)"?
That's a proper boundary dispute that is.
I do like a good neighbour boundary thread, but I have to say a picture paints a thousand words on some of them!
Yes my garden is at the end of the road, to get to it i have to go through my neighbours kitchen. Which is in the garage. Upstairs.
I do like a good neighbour boundary thread, but I have to say a picture paints a thousand words on some of them!
Yes my garden is at the end of the road, to get to it i have to go through my neighbours kitchen. Which is in the garage. Upstairs.
N7GTX said:
This sounds like might be me
It was DanSkoda but consensus is that he's probably under his neighbours patio by now: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...Thanks for that, got me through a bacon cheese burger and chocolate milkshake. I don't drink alcohol or coffee and cycle to work so the money I save on that goes on lunch - I could buy a loaf of bread and a packet of ham on the Monday and time it so I finish it on the Friday but what kind of a life is that?
Edited by ScotHill on Friday 6th December 13:46
For some reason I cannot upload photos directly now so using this hosting site. One click on each picture and it magnifies them so much better
Anyways,
Photo 1 shows the rear view from our bedroom windows. The house directly behind is Gary's and the decking with balustrade is visible under the right hand upper window (as you look).
https://ibb.co/B4Z6vxb
Photo 2 shows the land in dispute. Our retaining wall with conifers growing nicely. To the right is Gary's rear garden. In the middle foreground are the stumps from the cut down conifers. He took up the rest to put in the concrete wall. Then the start of his concrete sectional wall. The bridge can be seen too resting on his wall.
https://ibb.co/tpNkVQ7
Photo 3 is taken from the opposite end. This shows to the right the conifers and retaining wall and the remains of a large tree. In the middle is the concrete sectional wall. To the left is Gary's rear boundary wall with in between, plants and pots (gnomes are hiding), and the bridge in the distance.
https://ibb.co/PN2Qptt
This is the link to the tragic accident.
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire...
Anyways,
Photo 1 shows the rear view from our bedroom windows. The house directly behind is Gary's and the decking with balustrade is visible under the right hand upper window (as you look).
https://ibb.co/B4Z6vxb
Photo 2 shows the land in dispute. Our retaining wall with conifers growing nicely. To the right is Gary's rear garden. In the middle foreground are the stumps from the cut down conifers. He took up the rest to put in the concrete wall. Then the start of his concrete sectional wall. The bridge can be seen too resting on his wall.
https://ibb.co/tpNkVQ7
Photo 3 is taken from the opposite end. This shows to the right the conifers and retaining wall and the remains of a large tree. In the middle is the concrete sectional wall. To the left is Gary's rear boundary wall with in between, plants and pots (gnomes are hiding), and the bridge in the distance.
https://ibb.co/PN2Qptt
This is the link to the tragic accident.
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire...
Edited by N7GTX on Friday 6th December 14:56
I got contractors in to replace the fence between gardens.
Once all is done, neigh rolls up with 2 DVD's one for me and one for the fence installers. He had filmed the whole thing. Sneakily
I thought, "that's nice..bit odd, but fair enough". Never watched it and put it in the bin, obviously.
It's reading these threads that I realise he was most likely collecting evidence in case of dispute.
Once all is done, neigh rolls up with 2 DVD's one for me and one for the fence installers. He had filmed the whole thing. Sneakily
I thought, "that's nice..bit odd, but fair enough". Never watched it and put it in the bin, obviously.
It's reading these threads that I realise he was most likely collecting evidence in case of dispute.
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