HELP! 'Shed' with people living in built against my wall - no PWA

Flyboy152

Doozergirl wrote: »

If there is a habitable room propped up against a neighbours wall it will need planning permission. There is no permitted development, from my recollection for a building within 1m of a neighbouring boundary.

Everything about the shed is just wrong. If it's been built up against a garden wall and has pretty much appeared, there is not a cat's chance that it meets BR either.

Think the advice is there - LGO sounds like a great idea, and I hope the MP, local councillors idea is also helpful.

The advice about home insurance is poor. First thing they will do is check when this started and see from the record of her complaints to council etc. that it pre-dates any claim.

Not sure that's right.

macman

The lack of a PWN is now irrelevant, since the development has been completed. Non-service of a PWN is purely a civil matter anyway, the council have no jurisdiction on that. The only way to prevent such a development on those grounds is to get an injunction to stop the work when it is still underway.
I think that the absence of PWN is probably the least of the OP's problems here...
Tried your local councillor?
Dob them in for non-payment of council tax on this dwelling if it's not listed.

cappyston

Flyboy152 wrote: »

What a horrible position to be in, my sympathies are with you.

First off, building controll is correct in that they are only concerned with standards of build. It is the planning department who are the ones who need to give permission on whether the structure meets its intended use and construction. I am flabbergasted at their attitude to your requests, whenever I have work done to a property, I can't get rid of them. You'll have to let me know which district they are in. Joking aside the main issue seems to be, should he be allowed to build directly onto your wall without your agreement: Without your express permission, on a party wall award, the provisional answer would be, "probably not." This alone is what the local planning department should be concerned about. What steps have you taken to force them to act? When you received notice, how long after did work commence and did you raise any objections at the time?

Hi Flyboy

I notified the council when I could hear coarse rubbing noises, like sanding on my back wall. I have two means of access out onto my single storey extension (kitchen skylight and bed window), got out an looked over to see he was well underway (wish I'd thought to take a picture now and emailed it). I called the council there and then thinking they'd want to be right on it. They just kept saying "what do you mean? what's he using it for? describe it again." I kept saying "you just need to come out / get here" to no avail.

I've since learned that if you send a complaint coupled with a freedom of information request in, they hate it but have to respond.

macman

You will find that phoning/texting/emailing is rarely effective.
Put your complaint in writing, send it by RD and create a paper trail-then they are far more likely to respond.
By all means cc it to your MP and councillor.

cappyston

panchenlama wrote: »

I think you need to find out who owns this wall. It will be on the plans for your house and should be clear to you when you review them. If it's yours then he needs your permission (I would suspect) to attach anything to it. If taht is the case then add legal cover to your home insurance (if you don't have it), leave it a short while and then get in touch with that sevice and ask them to commence proceedings against the neighbour. You'll need to think about what you want as an end result though i.e. do you want the structure taken down etc.

Re planning, he won;t necessarily need permission depending on dimensions etc.

If the wall is a 3rd party wall i.e. one side his one side yours then I suspect there will be little you can do (assuming he doesn't need planning permission). You could be awkward and ask for surveyors to assess the risk to the wall (and thus your property) e.g. whether the foundations etc are deep enough but if he is classifying it as a 'shed' they are very unlikely to have been sunk lower than yours etc. If you progress this though it would be a nightmare and unlikely to end well.

if you want to get awkward with him you could presumably report him to other parts of the council e.g. council tax offices etc (as people as resident there) but again this would be hard to prove if they are transient. Another option if you want to be really awkward would be to start to enjoy loud music right next to that wall very early in the morning and late a night and see what happens....

Thanks Panchenlama

My main outcome is to know the risk / cost of this added building to my property if I wanted to sell. Even if no-one is living there, the fact he's gone over my airblock is not right. What about fire risk, for example?

He has already been granted permission. But to complicate matters, around the same time he rebuilt his kitchen extension (not affecting my property), so to be honest, I'm not sure what building the permission relates to. Even months later when I went to the council, they admitted that he had permission for part but not all building works.

I would imagine - but am checking - that I own the wall since it was built on my property in what used be my back garden. He and I are not side-by-side terraced neighbours where there might be more clarity on party wall /ownership issues.

Anyway, I've now started engaging a surveyor.

cappyston

macman wrote: »

You will find that phoning/texting/emailing is rarely effective.
Put your complaint in writing, send it by RD and create a paper trail-then they are far more likely to respond.
By all means cc it to your MP and councillor.

Yes, lesson learned - woe betide my neighbours wherever I next move - my PC / printer will be on constant standby! Thanks Macman.

Flyboy152

cappyston wrote: »

Hi Flyboy

I notified the council when I could hear coarse rubbing noises, like sanding on my back wall. I have two means of access out onto my single storey extension (kitchen skylight and bed window), got out an looked over to see he was well underway (wish I'd thought to take a picture now and emailed it). I called the council there and then thinking they'd want to be right on it. They just kept saying "what do you mean? what's he using it for? describe it again." I kept saying "you just need to come out / get here" to no avail.

I've since learned that if you send a complaint coupled with a freedom of information request in, they hate it but have to respond.

What I meant was, how soon after receiving the letter from your neighbour, did work commence and when you received the notice, did you raise any objection at the time?

cappyston

Flyboy152 wrote: »

What a horrible position to be in, my sympathies are with you.

First off, building controll is correct in that they are only concerned with standards of build. It is the planning department who are the ones who need to give permission on whether the structure meets its intended use and construction. I am flabbergasted at their attitude to your requests, whenever I have work done to a property, I can't get rid of them. You'll have to let me know which district they are in. Joking aside the main issue seems to be, should he be allowed to build directly onto your wall without your agreement: Without your express permission, on a party wall award, the provisional answer would be, "probably not." This alone is what the local planning department should be concerned about. What steps have you taken to force them to act? When you received notice, how long after did work commence and did you raise any objections at the time?

LB Waltham Forest by the way. Just as bad seeing them in person. Went down to speak with them and saw building controls first who left to get their planning colleague. I was left in reception for about half hour. I thought they were studying the file or something. When I chased it up with the receptionist, they called out the planning officer. She then appeared and started a sentence pretty loudly and defensively with "The thing is Miss C...as my colleague told you...you're confused...the facts are" words to that effect, as if I'd accused her of something when all I needed was their help and information. This, in a crowded reception!

So I lost it, telling her not to speak to me as if we'd met / spoken before and said that months after useless appeals by phone I'd arrived to find they were worse in person. I started talking about complaining - and only THEN - did she agree to get the file, sit down with me, look through it and admit that things looked wrong.

Not good.

cappyston

Flyboy152 wrote: »

What I meant was, how soon after receiving the letter from your neighbour, did work commence and when you received the notice, did you raise any objection at the time?

Right. Didn't raise any objection at the time of receiving the letter for reason I said in the OP. And to be perfectly honest I can't even remember now whether he'd already built it and the application was retrospective. Another neighbour's planning application - a landlord - was going on at the time too and I was keeping an eye there, too (joys of living at the end of the street). Simply naive (maybe now costly) inexperience in these things, plus lots going on for me then - had not long come out of long term unemployment.

Flyboy152

cappyston wrote: »

Right. Didn't raise any objection at the time of receiving the letter for reason I said in the OP. And to be perfectly honest I can't even remember now whether he'd already built it and the application was retrospective. Another neighbour's planning application - a landlord - was going on at the time too and I was keeping an eye there, too (joys of living at the end of the street). Simply naive (maybe now costly) inexperience in these things, plus lots going on for me then - had not long come out of long term unemployment.

That's all pretty standard stuff with planning departments. But I still need to know how long after you received notice from your neighbours did the work commence and did you raise any objections between the time you were given notice and the time work commenced?