Neighbour has a room under my house!

flashnazia

Regardless of whether it would have identified the problem your excuse for not having a survey done was a bad one especially being an older house more likely to have problems! For future reference what you should have done in that case was to have made an offer "subject to survey" and asked the vendor (via their estate agent) for the house to be taken off the market in order to secure your offer over it. If you had lost the property it wouldn't have mattered (though annoying all the same!)...perhaps a case of needing to not get too emotionally attached to the property your buying?

The house wasn't on the open market so getting the estate agent to take it off was not an option. I even got gazumped once (had to pay more to get it back).

Having a survey done would have meant losing the house and also losing me the ability to get on the property ladder; I literally purchased just before the housing market went bonkers.

Mostly good advice but I was only 21 and very inexperienced.

Anyway, I feel a bit better after finding out a bit about flying freeholds. (Thanks to Wallbash for the enlightenment!)

Apparently it's quite common to have parts of neighbouring property under/over, especially in older properties.

And I'm sure it's always been that way (their cellar underneath mine). The property was leasehold until the mid 70s. Then owner bought the freehold. My guess is that the solicitor didn't bother/know about the cellar underneath.

wallbash

Apparently it's quite common to have parts of neighbouring property under/over, especially in older properties.

As my post No 6

Google ..... flying freeholds,

Mojisola

LandyAndy wrote: »

Nothing to say that the party wall doesn't extend into the cellar and this is an additional room is accessed through it.

It's just that the OP said "my neighbour's cellar runs slightly into my cellar" and that didn't sound enough space for a room.

Thanks, wallbash, for the flying freehold info - I learn a lot through of new stuff through MSE.

Steve_the_fitter

yeah she just said that

flashnazia

It's just a bit of a bummer knowing someone is lurking underneath my hallway.

The main problem is that it's really cold. I heat my cellar rooms to keep my house warm but my neighbour doesn't. To top it off yesterday he removed the ceiling in that basement room so it's just joists and then my floor. My central heating pipe runs under that floor so I lose a lot of heat into his room!

Old houses eh?

angelavdavis

Your neighbour is not allowed to carry out works which might undermine the foundations of your property just because "he has consulted an engineer who knows what he is doing". This is not sufficient and he at least should be sharing that info (see below).

As has been suggested, it sounds like you have a flying or creeping freehold. I am surprised you are not aware of this as it can affect the terms of your mortgage.

You need to seek advice asap as to whether a party wall agreement is required for him to carry out such works (it certainly sounds like it is).

Your neighbour would then need to instruct a surveyor, who submits the plans to yourself and you are allowed to challenge. The neighbour would then have to pay for your surveyor to oversee the works. A party wall agreement affects works where "Excavations within 3 metres of a neighbouring building where the excavation will go below the bottom of the foundations of the neighbouring building."

I would move quickly if I were you. If you notice issues later as a result of your neighbour undermining the foundations to your property, it will be more difficult to resolve.

flashnazia

I'm not sure if what he is doing is undermining the foundations.
He was smashing up a raised concrete and brick platform in the basement. He showed us the engineer's report stating it was safe to do so.

At the moment they are being ok and apologetic about the noise.
I don't really want to antagonise them and make the situation worse.

I'm just a bit concerned that there was nothing in the deeds, (so mortgage wasn't affected as they didn't know).

I suppose it all boils down to me not getting a survey done. Can't blame anyone else for this.

I just wanna move now

angelavdavis

With the current market as it is, I don't know if that is likely to happen super-quick for you.

If you don't want to start trouble, it might be worth buying a roll of thermal foil insulation (such as this) and asking him if you can have access so you can staple it to the underside of the joists supporting your floor, point out to him that unfortunately, since he has removed the cellar ceiling, the drafts are coming up into your property. I can't see that upsetting him too much.

The flying/creeping freehold should have been raised as part of the searches done by your solicitor - not the survey. Have a check through the documentation, it may well be that the solicitor didn't do their job properly if it didn't come out as part of that.

vinr

Could this situation indicate that flashnazia could be sued for damage to the neighbours effects if a flood occurred in the hallway and flooded the room underneath? also, are there health risks that could affect both parties - gas leaks, fires etc. occurring in either properties.