Neighbourly Issues

[romeogolf]

We're having our garden done and since planning the works have kept our behind-neighbour informed as for ease of access the guys doing the job wanted to make a delivery over our rear fence. He verbally agreed to it and was easy going until this weekend. I texted him at the weekend to give him the heads-up that work was starting today (Monday) and could the guys doing the work liaise with him about when they needed access.

He replied to say "I'm sure you said they'd try to get the machine through your side gate so only if they can't do that will I give access over my property. If that is the case it'll only be for that brief moment as last time they did all the fence work from this side so that definitely won't be happening this time." and this morning has refused all access at all over our rear fence.

A few months ago we replaced our fences, again keeping him informed, and this is the first time he has ever mentioned what they did as being problematic. I'm in the office but asked my partner to go over and reason with him on the basis that I'm less likely to keep my cool. Our sideways neighbour has a gate from their garden onto his drive (red circle) which is less than a metre from the panel we need removing (blue circle).



When my partner pointed this out, his reply was "they have a legal right over my property. You don't. When you did your fences I was on holiday and you snuck onto my driveway and disturbed me because my security camera kept sending me notifications". Meanwhile my inbox...



So my question really is what would you do? Our landscapers are sucking their teeth and making very expensive noises about the extra effort, and I'm not sure if there's any other way to persuade him. I'm quite disappointed as it feels like all neighbourly friendliness has been removed by him despite our best efforts.

My suggestions of repainting the fence without telling him to move his car have been rebuffed by my partner....

ETA: Partner has even offered to have his driveway jet washed at the end of the works to clear up any dirt, but this was refused. Apparently his issue is that the delivery truck might make his driveway sink if it's too heavy. Additional cost is circa £800 for another day and a half labour carrying everything around the long way.

Edited by romeogolf on Monday 6th July 10:23

[romeogolf]

TA14 said:

Do we take it that the only right of way into your back garden is through your house or parachuting in?
Is £800 to handball bulk materials through your house?
A claim for damage to the neighbour's drive might be more than £800.
It might be as well to screen the car when painting your fence panel. Is it difficult to remove it, paint it and then replace?

We have a narrow side gate which isn't large enough for the digger to fit through, so the additional cost is for doing the work by hand and carrying any deliveries through the side rather than having them deposited directly into the garden.

The comment about the car was that we've always been neighbourly and when painting the fence have told our neighbour so he could move his car just in case of splashes. I (jokingly....) suggested painting it again without notice to spite him.

[romeogolf]

BobSaunders said:

Are you sure that it's all his driveway? It looks to be only the bit where the car is parked in the image? Outside of his parking space it appears to be public land.

Remove the fence panels and scoot this 'machine' through that. If he's not willing to move his car, then he's a d**k, and there is wider issues a foot. There appears to be enough room to scoot around it.

From above, his driveway/our garden marked out:



We've previously checked land records for this and it's definitely his land. He's even gone so far as to paint a white line over the end to make sure we all know...

I don't want to be a d*ck and we'd chatted to him several times about this before, so today's change of attitude is a real 180. With all other works done (removing a tree, replacing the fence, painting the fence) we've let him know well in advance.

Our first encounter with him, the day after we moved in, was him popping his head over the fence while we were in the garden and proceeding to tell us about all the disagreements he's had with various other neighbours so we went above-and-beyond to be friendly and avoid being in his bad books. Alas no luck, it seems!

Mr Pointy said:

It's that sort of perceived attitude that's pissed the neighbour off already & hence no second chance for the OP.

OP; if you want to be a dick after all this is done you might want to enquire of your neighbour how far, if at all, his CCTV coverage extends outside his property. For now, can't you take out a panel next to the small side gate?

Our side gate is adjacent to next door's sidegate with a concrete post between the two, so nothing to be removed there, unfortunately.

[romeogolf]

superlightr said:

?? eh?

Is this the correct summary?

You have a rear gate to your garden.

Are you saying that your contractor wants to park their lorry on your neighbours parking space to use a crane /host to move the materiel into your Garden?

Your neighbour doesn't want the lorry on his property.

If the contractors have to carry the materials it will cost an extra £800?

It's the summary which excludes the conversations we've had with said neighbour about agreeing access via our rear fence/his drive, but yes.

Edited by romeogolf on Monday 6th July 12:21

[romeogolf]

bristolbaron said:

I’d be having a chat with the guy, explaining that the additional cost is £800 and you’re happy to give him £400 for access?

I suggested this to the other half just now who replied with this photo. He's moved his car halfway down the drive just in case we dare think about using it for access anyway.



Ultimately I don't think he's the type to be reasoned with, sadly and I can see why he's fallen out with so many other neighbours. We'll have to suck up the £800 and hope we don't have any reason to need a favour from him in future. Some neighbours just aren't very neighbourly!

[romeogolf]

DanL said:

Lateral thinking - you state your neighbour with the gate has right of access. Could you go via their gate and a side panel from the fence, rather than an end panel?

We suspect this is why he moved his car down his driveway, to stop us doing that. We're not sure they have a legal right of access although I'd be surprised if their garden gate (the only access to their garden) was via someone else's land with no right of access. But then I'm not a lawyer, I'm just a shmuck who bought a house with a dodgy neighbour

[romeogolf]

Bill said:

Ah, he's an utter cocksocket then.

Would removing the first fence post and panel of the fence help with getting everything between the houses?

They've managed to squeeze the digger in with millimetres to spare apparently, but the delivery will need to be wheelbarrowed down the side of the house rather than being deposited straight into the garden, which will take time/cost - although fingers crossed not the full £800 now!

The guys doing it have been absolute gems, to be honest. They couldn't get our first choice of paving stones (thanks COVID) but have agreed not to charge extra for the replacements despite them being pricier. If any bottles of plonk get purchased for favours, it won't be for the neighbour!

[romeogolf]

Mr Pointy said:

I'd ask for a breakdown of the additional £800 charges though & check if getting the rear access was a condition of the original quote.

It's for 1.5 days' labour for the two workers and yeah, access was part of the initial quote so we knew from the get-go that we needed to ask for the access (which until yesterday hadn't been considered a problem!).

[romeogolf]

Iwantafusca said:

Hang birdfeeders on each of the 4 concrete posts of your rear fence :-)...

Oh, he has bird spikes across the roof of his house. Because of course he does.

[romeogolf]

Narcisus said:

I would paint the other side of my fence day-glo orange ...

I always assumed the reverse of your fence is for the neighbour to do? We've painted our right-hand fences which belong to next door and we offered both behind and adjacent neighbours to paint the reverse of the panels when we were doing our sides but both declined!

[romeogolf]

roadsmash said:

Send him a link to this thread OP.

Just so he knows loads of people think he’s a raving .

I'm mostly just relieved that most people seem to have agreed with us on this. Always the risk of it going the other way if you're not too sure!

[romeogolf]

TwistingMyMelon said:

Also couldn't a lorries crane clear that fence from the road?

Bit of an ask , but surely it could almost do it?

I think that conversation was had and the answer was no because it's on a corner with thick bushes etc. I'm getting this third-hand as I'm not at home today.

[romeogolf]

bennno said:

Op - is there a bit more to this? you mentioned you offered to jet wash his drive etc, said it was just for digger and unloading, but them mentioned barrowing stuff out down side of house. Did you intend to bring materials in & digger in / take waste out etc all over his drive? Do you have a skip or is it being loaded in to a pick up - either way did you expect to put either there?

Rightly he might be a bit peeved about being sent numbers or his number given to others to organise access with, you might have spoken to him in person and organised this. While you are at work, theres a risk he's needing to supervise delivery drivers, unable to park or move his car, left with damage and mess over driveway.

Personally Id have asked him very nicely, if that didnt work I'd have shared that it was going to cost you about £500 more in labour and asked if he'd grant access if you'd split that with him, or if he'd do so if you donate the value to a local charity + offered to supervise deliveries to ensure no damage.

Nope, nothing more to it than is written here. The agreement was to bring a digger in on day 1 (and out at the end) and then to have paving slabs lifted in and rubble lifted out with a crane-lift over the end of the garden. We assumed his issue when he refused was because of dirt, so offered to jet wash the whole drive to ensure he wasn't inconvenienced, but he said his concern was the weight of the truck.

His number hasn't been given out - The guys doing the work knocked on his door today to chat it through in person after his dodgy text to me yesterday, and my other half is at home and also went round to speak with him. My other half will be home the full time as he's working from home during the lockdown.

This is in addition to various conversations we had over the last few weeks while we were in the garden chatting over the fence about the job. At no point did he raise an issue until yesterday.

All rubbish would be in our garden in those skip bags that get lifted out at the end of the job. Instead of that, they'll now need to wheel it up and down the side of the house.

I think we asked him nicely, indeed the first chat about it was very much "the guys mentioned it would be easier if they had access over this fence but we weren't sure if that would be alright by you..."

[romeogolf]

bennno said:

So you spoke with him to ask if it would be alright by him - how did he respond?

Point being its not just materials being lifted in, its a digger being brought in and removed and all the waste being removed over his drive.

You can understand that he might consider it an imposition and given risk to damage of drive and potential mess that he'd not unreasonably decline?

He didn't have any issue with it, he just wanted us to make sure they put all his gravel back along the fence and didn't hit his car!

As I say, the dirt clearly isn't the issue as we offered to tidy it and I'm sure we could have found a compromise with the drive if he'd been more amenable. The guys doing our garden did our drive and would have been happy to repair damage if caused, but he just wasn't open to the conversation.

There are two issues at play: The facts about the risk of damage or inconvenience, and the emotion behind it and how he approached it. Despite us being (as far as I can see) friendly and chatty about it, he's become defensive to the point of moving his car halfway down his drive and seems to have changed his mind overnight. Between the first conversation and our text yesterday, nothing changed except his generosity. Had he been adamant from the start we'd have made plans months ago when the fence was done and not had a concrete post intalled between the gates!

[romeogolf]

bennno said:

had you spoken to him about it in the interim to confirm dates and that it was def ok from his perspective - or just a text last night?

The last time we spoke was in May I think when we were painting the fences and asked if he wanted to move his car to avoid splashes. He asked about when the garden was being done as we'd originally told him about it being started in March, but lockdown delayed things. We raised it last summer when we had the fence done and said we'd likely be doing the garden in the next few months, then we got the quote late 2019 and checked with him again following the conversation with the guys doing it.

The works weren't a surprise to him.

[romeogolf]

ahas said:

The fact he's moved his car down is a dick move.
I think you've done all you could, informing in advance and if you knew he wouldn't have allowed access from the get go I'm sure you'd have got a quote to reflect that.
You've assumed he's OK with granting access as he didn't say no initially.
...

But given the access I wouldn't have truck on my drive anyways, I wouldn't be happy (but I wouldn't say no, I'd have asked for the drive the be covered with 11mm OSB board or the like during the works).
...

As a side landscapers will have had these kind of issues on previous jobs and I'm sure they'll be carrying some kind of board which they use to protect drives / paths etc.

(1) Yup, I think our main gripe is the change of heart seemingly overnight.

(2) Again, yup, the offered to board the drive, sweep all debris, be as quick as possible... But it was a hard no, no negotiation.

Anyway, it is what it is. My rage has subsided and we're getting on with it, but he won't be getting any favours in the future.

[romeogolf]

InitialDave said:

He asked the neighbour, who agreed, and then later changed his mind at the last minute and said no, buggering up OP's plans.

If he said no when first asked, or changed his mind with more time to plan around it, people would likely take his side more.

In a nutshell, yes. Our first conversation about it was "the guys said coming over this way would be easy, would that be an issue for you?" and he was very amenable and open to it. Right up until the day before works started when he changed his tune for no given reason. Had he said, at the get go "Sorry, mate, my driveway is sinking/weak so I'm concerned" we'd never be having this conversation.

Amusing additional development is that he now moves his car half way down the drive every day when his wife leaves, just to make sure we don't try our luck. Yesterday we had a power cable run up the garden and at the far end it was propped up against our fence with about 30cm sticking over the top. Last night he pushed it back over into our garden and balanced it over the fence post so it wasn't sticking over at all to his side.

You can decide for yourselves what kind of person he might be!

[romeogolf]

acer12 said:

I normally reserve judgement when only hearing one side of the story, there are two other sides after-all.

I am not doubting that you are not telling the truth, but it may be as you see it, from a neutral (and non emotional) perspective yes its sh!tty that he changed his mind, but could it be that after having a think through it (and the previous experience of the fence) he simply decided it wasn't worth it. You need to remember that he did allow you access the last time so he can't be that bad.

Can you for sure say that the tone and message that your wife and builder used when they visited him on separate occasions to try change his mind hasn't escalated things to such an extent that its causing him to move his car?

My (male) partner is the mildest mannered person you could hope to meet. I've never heard him so much as raise his voice in the years I've known him. Equally, we picked these guys to do the work for similar reasons. They're not the "laddish" labourer types, very well spoken and easy going, which stereotypical as it may be, as a gay couple is something we look for to feel more comfortable having them work in our home.

It's obviously hard to relay tone over a forum post, but my partner described our neighbour as being "smug" when telling him he wouldn't allow it. There was no discussion, negotiation, or possible way around it. It came out the blue and he was smirking about it.

In the few years we've lived here all our conversations have been friendly. We sat and smiled politely as our neighbour relayed stories of the mishaps he'd had with previous people living here, other neighbours on the street, even the story about calling the police because there were children playing loudly outside his house when they lived on the "other side" of the estate (ie, the social housing side) and how proud he was that he "soon put a stop to that". We even kept polite the evening he knocked on the door to say "my misses saw through your windows that you've got a new glazed door on your living room. Where did you get that?" although we did take it as a polite hint to close our curtains earlier in the evening...

But this is by-the-by. My post was a reaction to his overnight change of heart to see what options people might suggest to change his mind or ease his concerns, but during the morning on Monday it became clear nothing would appease him so we've let it go and moved on. While this thread has turned into a slight analysis of his character, from my point of view now it's just mildly amusing that he seems to be bothering himself enough to move his car every day and push a few inches of wire over the fence.

[romeogolf]

TA14 said:

romeogolf said:

We even kept polite the evening he knocked on the door to say "my misses saw through your windows that you've got a new glazed door on your living room. Where did you get that?" although we did take it as a polite hint to close our curtains earlier in the evening...

I wish I were joking, honestly.

[romeogolf]

DaveCWK said:

However you get the materials in OP, when the day comes definitely leave one of your fence panels half way up - he will be twitching at the windows all day, going nuts.

I think I'm more enjoying that he's going nuts already and we've moved on from the issue so to speak. I've no doubt he's refreshing his camera feeds every five minutes this week.