How to pinch your neighbours land

outwitted?

We have been outwitted by our neighbour. If you fancy a go, this is how to do it!

Put your fence up on the neighbours land. Don't be worried about trespass and criminal damage. Don't be greedy, just a few inches is best. The neighbours legal insurance will actually help you here. They will tell the neighbour that the courts will give them £2 compensation and a slap on the hand for taking such a trivial matter to court.

So you get off scot free with that one. So next, you build an extension right up your 'new' boundary. Don't stop there. Dig up the neighbours drive and put the footings on the neighbours land, but don't bother with the Party Wall Act. If you don't apply for a Party Wall Agreement then you cannot be in breach of it. Don't bother offering the neighbour a nice gesture or anything for use of their land while building, you don't need to ask permission because by the time neighbours realise what is happening it is too late to do anything. If they request you not to do anything just ignore them. By the time they get an injunction it will be too late anyway. This is your opportunity to grab a bit more land and widen your drive. The neighbours will just have to buy a smaller car. Just threaten them a little and make their lives hell. They will soon get fed up and move out. Of course the dispute may stop them selling their property. That could be a stumbling block for them, but we are OK. It doesn't bother us. It is all the neighbours fault anyway, they didn't tell us not to dig up their drive, they didn't tell us not to put our fence on their land. They have been a damn nuisance with all their complaining. Possession is 9/10th of the law. Once the building and fence are up it is extremely unlikely the law will make you remove it. We are happy to pay the few quid compensation, it is much cheaper than moving. So, take whatever you fancy and to hell with wimpy pensioners. They are such 'easy meat'! Haha, the law has been very good to us!

Rant over! We have been far too trusting and should have totally ignored the law, as our neighbours did, and just get the shotgun out!

bengalknights

if it was me i would have just set there extension on fire...

googler

OK, rant over. What are the facts of the case?

melb

on the "gardenlaw" website there is a very good forum with lots of help for people going through situations like this with bullying neighbours.

outwitted?

The facts are virtually as quoted.
Legal Insurance response as quoted. Our drive dug up and new extension in progress and footings encroach beyond the 'new' boundary. Insurance still not interested. Neighbour VERY angry because I sent a letter saying we would not permit scaffold on our land. The previous letter I sent complaining about the fence encroachment resulted in threats of physical violence, which I reported to the police. Building Control wipe their hands of the problem. Insurance not interested. We either commit ourselves to a massive amount of money taking legal action, or accept it!

susieb1967

I feel for you, outwitted, because we are in the same boat-ish. Made us want to move from our home. I had a planning officer round ( after another of our complaints) and he admitted that after planning permission is obtained the applicants can more or less do what they want and planning office is basically impotent. We are not 'push-over pensioners,' but have been well and truly done over! We do not live in the house that we originally bought anymore but a lightless tunnel created by my neighbours desire to have the biggest and 'the best'.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Nothing stopping you taking the fence down & giving the notice of it.

& then your legal insurance would have to kick in because you are not doing anything illegal..

Gloomendoom

The planning people don't really care who the land belongs to. A planning application was submitted for the plot next door to me where the site plan showed the boundary of the plot overlapping my existing boundary. I informed the planning department that planning permission was being sought for a development partly built on my land without my consent but they still went ahead and granted permission.

Luckily, the issue was later resolved amicably.

outwitted?

Those are the facts. Don't rely on the law, or your legal insurance, to help you. Once anything is in place you are stuck with it.

I posted this as a warning to others. Don't trust your neighbours. We did. We thought they were decent people. They have no conscience. We wonder if there will ever be an end to their greed and bullying behaviour. We wonder what they are going to do next! Why should they stop taking from us when they seem to be immune from any comeback or penalty?

purplejac

outwitted god i feel for you im in a similar situation but to do with drainage and ive now got my lawyer onto it because as you say no one in any dept is interested they seem to look around shrug shoulders and say hmm will need to speak to someone else and get back to you meanwhile the neighbour continues and then you never hear back from planning, enviromental depts, im disgusted with them all. Keep going dont give in find another avenue or as bengalknight suggested burn it down lol you gotta laugh sometimes or you would cry keep the faith !!!!

Mojisola

Neighbours like this rely on you being nice and, because you wouldn't behave like this, you can't believe what's being done to you.

You could have moved the fence as soon as it went up. You could have got an injunction to stop the building work very quickly. You could have made them get PWA solicitors involved. Threats could have been recorded and the police could have been involved.

I understand how a situation like this develops and feel very sorry for you having neighbours like this. The lesson that needs to come from this is to act quickly if your neighbours start causing problems.