neighbour dispute

5446

i've no useful advice to offer to the OP .... but i can't see why his employer should be contacted and to be honest can't see why they'd be in the slightest bit interested. its nothing to do with his job whatsoever. if my employer was contacted by my neighbour about a private issue like this i'm pretty sure i know what they would do ........ nothing!

20400keith wrote: »

If he's a police officer I'd tell him that if you're unable to resolve this amicably you intend to contact his employer to outline your concerns that he's being unreasonable. Then I'd write to his Chief Constable - set out the concerns and that you are considering legal action but are concerned that he's a police officer and any publicity will reflect badly on the Force.

I'm sure they'll say they can't get involved, but behind the scenes they'll probably tell him to get it sorted.

Of course he'll hate you forever and might seek revenge...:(

Fire_Fox

Not even sure it is legal to contact someone's employer, take legal advice before you do that. That might well be deemed harassment since there is nothing on record of the neighbour doing anything wrong, such a minor dispute is nothing to do with his employment status anyway, it is a civil matter not a criminal matter. You are nowhere near legal action and there is no reason for publicity, negative or otherwise. If the wife still owns half the house any solicitors letter may have to also name her.

gutter1

OK so yesterday we decided to try again. Husband managed to speak to him and he claimed it was our builder who had rerouted the gutter to flow into his garden. We both know this isn't true so we printed out some before and after pictures and gave them to him showing the drain was never on our side. We also explained we would continue to protect our property by moving the overhanging guttering (it's about 6 feet up so easy to get to).

Within half an hour the guttering was back up and overhanging and the photos had been screwed up and thrown into our front yard. So we photographed it (again), took the guttering down and wrote a very civil letter explaining the direction of drainage, that there was now less water flowing into his gutter and the damage it was causing to the wall. On the letter we included photos of before/after our building work and explained that we had already replaced the end cap he had removed during the Summer. We ended with: 'I trust that you will find a satisfactory solution to the drainage on your property that will not alter the original building works or impact on the structural integrity of the wall or out buildings.'

This morning he knocked on our door asking for the gutter back (fine, it was too late to give it back last night) and we asked him to accept the letter - he refused and stormed back into his house whilst the 'lady' of the house shouted 'tell them to F*** off'.

Again he replaced it within half an hour again overhanging in the heavy rain this morning. We have since pushed it back, twice ....

So where do we go from here? How can i get him to read the letter? Take action?

AquaJen

Is there any way you can put up a higher fence panel which would prevent him from doing this? Even if the fence is his, you could put up an extra panel as long as it is within your boundary.

fluffymuffy

Just put a water butt under his overhanging gutter with the overflow from it going back into his garden.

gutter1

Keep the ideas coming:j The deal with the boundary wall is it's a half height single skin brick wall which comes out from the house (originally a coal shed at this point) and then we have the fence on our side from the height of the wall upwards, say a standard 6ft fence panel horizontally on so from 3ft to 6ft up. As it's our fence it's a few inches inside the boundary which is how he can get his gutter to overhang the way he is doing. Where the old gutter used to run the fence has a little square cut out next to the wall and this is what he's poking it through.

We did think about replacing the fence but because of the position of the wall we couldn't get it up to the boundary line and water would still pour onto the wall causing the damage to both wall and our conservatory which is brick built at this point. Likewise we couldn't build the boundary wall up any higher with it being single skin.

somethingcorporate

This sounds so petty.

Can you not invite him and his wife over for dinner and have a chat about it? Seems to be a storm in a teacup that a simple chat about how it can be resolved amicably could fix it.

If you make it formal you will need to declare it when you want to sell the house.

Additionally, contacting their employer is absolutely the worse thing to do. This is a private and civil dispute so dragging their employer into this is a terrible idea.

warwicktiger

Put up a hanging basket on the wall on your side of the boundary where the fixed bracket just happens to block the extention of the guttering?

Fire_Fox

You need a polite but firm letter from your solicitor pointing out that his leaking/ badly fixed guttering is damaging your property and the party wall and requesting he rectify/ repair within a specified timeframe as advised by your solicitor. And superglue the end cap on. If there is actual damage being caused you may be able to involve your insurers who will contact his insurers.

gutter1

somethingcorporate wrote: »

This sounds so petty.

Can you not invite him and his wife over for dinner and have a chat about it? Seems to be a storm in a teacup that a simple chat about how it can be resolved amicably could fix it.

If you make it formal you will need to declare it when you want to sell the house.

Additionally, contacting their employer is absolutely the worse thing to do. This is a private and civil dispute so dragging their employer into this is a terrible idea.

As I said in OP the guy hasn't said a civil word to us in the 6 years since his wife left him - he blames us. Nor has he paid her for her half of the house and it's now with the Magistrates court. I would love to have kept things amicable and we tried very hard for the first couple of years, sadly it was not to be.