Non-coupon related Drivel Thread 10

CouponWoman

Morning kerri, red and Jeferey.

I thought the objections might be more from the nephew than the old lady but we are wrong. My ds spoke to our new neighbour on the other side and he said he has lived there for over 20 years and had to idea who lived in the other house, he has never seen her. Then my ds went to the shop and an old lady in the street facing asked my ds how are the renovations going and he told her and she knows the old lady from the past and said she is the neighbour from hell, she is awkward, and it really didn;t suprise her at this attitude as she has always been like that. Then my ds spoke to the neighbour the other side of the old lady and she said she is always like this and there will be no budging her, she is really difficult and awkward. This other neighbour, well all these old ladies moved in at the same time when the houses were new in the 1960's so all got to know each other then, so have known each other for over 50 years now. Well this other neighbour said my new neighbour has loads of conifers around the garden and they pushed her fence down and she was supposed to pay half to repair them and then wouldn;t.

God knows what we are going to do now. We have to wait to hear from planning and if it goes through we might have to take her to court, but how do you sue a 93 year old woman..... She is the neighbour from hell indeed but no one says they ever see her.

Hope your garden makeover goes well kerri, all I can say is get the best you can afford, even if it means waiting a bit longer, as its a waste of money getting something that "will do" because it will just annoy you in the long run.

Hope you have a lovely Easter

CWxx

kerri_gt

Argh, want a nightmare situation CW from what you say though about the renovations you need to do, there doesn't sound any real reasons why the planning would be turned down, the thing about more water into the drains is a load of carp IMO. The access of course would be more difficult, but, builders can be creative (the guy who may be doing our garden has just done another where they had to remove the back wall of a garage to get machinery in to dig the back garden they needed to access, there are ways and means). Given the fact she sounds a right PITA I'd raise the point about her gate / fence being on your land. I know she's 93 but she sounds like she's been a pain all her life there.

I remember years ago a neighbour over the road from my mums objected to the house next door (both semis) wanting to add a massive extension to the end of their house as the neighbour said it would pretty much turn the two houses into a terrace and devalue her property. The planning still got approved.

For our garden we really want it done for the summer as it will make a massive difference to the house overall downstairs. Although we have things to do upstairs it's all mainly cosmetic. The compromise on the paving means we should be able to then put in the features we want. To have the original paving we looked at was just more than we could justify cost wise, but I agree, even though it's still a lot of £ with the changes, we are doing it once and once only. I don't want to sit for 5yrs wishing we'd done something else, and then pay to have it all redone because it wasn't what we wanted in the first place.

CouponWoman

Morning kerri.
I would save up like mad, do car boots to get rid of anything I could and generally scrape together the money to do the garden as you want. It would grate on you to accept second best kerri and ultimately cost more too. If you really cannot afford what you want then I personally would do something as cheap as poss and just put up with it till I could afford what I really want.

I saved up for years to get my bedroom redone exactly how I wanted and it cost a fortune but it was worth it. The annoying thing is just after it was done is when I hurt my knee and now we do need to move to a bungalow. I have to be so carefuly with my knee as it cannot be repaired and there is nothing I can do, its still unstable and painful. The only thing is at least the new bedroom has added value to my house.

Busy today but tomorrow I might try and go and see this silly old woman and see if she is going to see reason. If not I might have to track down a party wall expert to get advice.

Take care


CWxx

kerri_gt

I know what you're saying about the garden CW but we also have had to put our sensible hats on regarding the size / what we're having done vs the cost - or rather the places we want to channel our budget into rather than spending arms and legs on the paving and labour. We have a decent budget so are trying to spend it sensibly.

Best not talk about bedrooms, I had a couple of quotes for fitted wardrobes just to get some ideas and they came back quoting £4k for one room - gulp!

Fingers crossed the neighbour is more accommodating when you speak to her face to face.

CouponWoman

Good morning kerri and anyone else who might pop in.

Things are still difficult atm. I went to see the old lady, don;t know if I satisified her that we won;t make a mess of her path if we go ahead and rebuild the garage, won;t know until after the 12th May if she is going to complain again.

So I rang the leaseholder (most of the houses around here are leasehold) only to find out our solicitor who did the conveyancing had never notified them we bought the house as they had not been served a Notice of Assignment............I was fuming, contacted the solicitor who unfortunately is on holiday, on Monday got hold of her assistant who checked the file and also found out they had overcharged me by £260. She sorted out the Land Registry as that also hadn;t been completed.........I think fate is conspiring against me to tell me I should not have bought the bungalow. I now have to wait for my money, etc.

kerri re your wardrobes. I waited over 15 years to get the wardrobes I wanted. I saved up and got them 2 years ago, just before I hurt my leg/knee. They cost £5500 but I love them. I got them from Hammonds, they had a sale on and should have been £8500, I love the quality of them. I haven;t decided if I should have them taken out and put in the new house, if ever we get to move, as it would mean redecorating the bedroom here and the carpets then wouldn;t fit either. Not sure what to do yet. Just get your main bedroom done in the cupboards you like, leave the other ones for now.

Good luck with your garden too.

CWxx

CouponWoman

Good morning guys
Bank Holiday today so hope you all get a lie in.

I have been up since 5.30 am, can;t sleep for thinking about my house wreck. The problem continues unfortunately. The new neighbours nephew has now written to my architect to complain, moan, moan, moan, about the build, its a flippin new garage not the taj mahal. I have been advised we are going to get planning permission so its now a civil matter between us and the neighbour. got to go around again, I was told to ask for a meeting with this flippin trouble causing nephew and see if we can resolve matters but he hasn;t answered my email and the woman didn;t answer her door so got to try again today. I can;t keep delaying as the building work needs to be done in the summer months.

Hope you all have a good day

CWxx

kerri_gt

Hi CW what a parlarva about the house regarding the transfer and your solicitor - although it doesn't surprise me, we only recently got our share certificates for the road and completed almost a year ago.

I do hope that the garage gets sorted for you. Not being 100% familiar with these kind of things is it a case of if planning is granted and the neighbour's objections are dismissed you can proceed regardless? I know it would be much better to have her (and her family it would seem) on board but frankly they sound a right miserable bunch to deal with.

CouponWoman wrote: »

kerri re your wardrobes. I waited over 15 years to get the wardrobes I wanted. I saved up and got them 2 years ago, just before I hurt my leg/knee. They cost £5500 but I love them. I got them from Hammonds, they had a sale on and should have been £8500, I love the quality of them.

Good luck with your garden too.

CWxx

We had Hammonds quote for the work just to get a ball park figure and it came out something like that - basically to add one wardrobe space, and put door / new inners on existing spaces and bring the front out a bit. Tbh I wasn't inspired with the guy who came round, I felt that I was the one pushing ideas when I was looking to him for solutions. It basically confirmed that what I had in mind in the first place is prob what we'll get done. However we'll prob get a carpenter to do the work - but that's not even in the planning until next year.

Garden first (finally got a date) - just went to order the water feature we have decided on and it's OOS until June :mad: so gone with one that is the same but a different finish - sure it will be ok, I'm trying not to get upset about it as there's nothing I can do and working on the basis of 'someone somewhere' suggesting the one I've ordered will be better in the end.

Hope everyone else is ok and just busy with RL. x

CouponWoman

Good morning guys, hope your all well.

We should get planning permission from the council on Friday all being well. Unfortunately we cannot proceed until we get a party wall agreement signed and they won;t sign it.

We had a meeting on Friday, lasted over an hour. We proved the garage has to come down as its leaning, got cracks and is in a really bad way. They said they understood but waffled on that they now want a meeting with my architect. I said he isn;t the one to answer the questions they had, ie how long will it take to rebuild the garage, what impact will it have on next door etc. All of which is irrelevent as they know the new garage is going on the same footprint exactly and the only difference is a real roof not a flat roof.

The architect won;t come as he would charge us and he also said its the builder who needs to answer those questions. I can;t instruct a builder as I have no idea when they could start because the neighbour won;t sign the party wall agreement. If this keeps going I have to pay a party wall solicitor and surveyors for both sides to try and resolve this. So lots of money wasted for nothing.

If I was brave I could demolish the garage and rebuild and put up with possibly being sued by next door but I am not brave enough to risk it.

So it drags on, no chance of us moving in this year at this rate anyway.

Your garden will be lovely kerri even if the water feature is not your first choice. Sometimes things work out better by having a slight change forced on you and you end up preferring the substitute. What a pain re Hammonds, hope you find exactly what you want in the end.

CWxx

CouponWoman

Wow, they don;t make it easy to find this thread. Loads of waffle, tells me to sign in. If it aint;t broke don;t fix it mse.

Morning guys

not checked in for a while now and see I was the last person on here. Oh well, looks like everyone has gone now so I shall turn the lights off

Take care if anyone does check in

CWxx

kerri_gt

CouponWoman wrote: »

Wow, they don;t make it easy to find this thread. Loads of waffle, tells me to sign in. If it aint;t broke don;t fix it mse.

Morning guys

not checked in for a while now and see I was the last person on here. Oh well, looks like everyone has gone now so I shall turn the lights off

Take care if anyone does check in

CWxx

I'm still here CW - sorry, been a bit caught up in RL - again. Garden is still under construction here and 101 other things all being juggled.

How are your plans progressing? I do hope you've managed to get the old biddy to agree to something amicably. x