Neighbour refuses us access to build our dream office

double-slit

Dear All,
The background to my question is I had a dead tree in my stepdaughter garden and I arrange to remove it due to the danger of it falling on the neighbours gardens and the safety of children playing.
The only access is though the neighbour garden (she rents from the council), my stepdaughter terrace house (she owns) is very small and we cannot get material though.
I had her agreement and inform her before we started and she was ok with that, the tree surgeon removed the tree a (12 hour) job.
I also inform her of our intention to build an office/storage building) in the back of the garden were the old tree was. She is now self-employed, working 7 days a week to provide for her family.
Now the builders are ready to start work she has totally refused access, because we did not thank her at the end of that day. But we were going to and also give her a personal gift at the end of the work.
I am funding the project with my life savings; I and my stepdaughter hope and dreams now lie in shatters due to the neighbour indifference.
Any advice on how to proceed.

ValHaller

You cannot force her, you can only encourage her.

Funky_Bold_Ribena

Does your stepdaughter have official access through the neighbours garden as part of the deeds of the house?

double-slit

I am not sure is there a easy way of finding out,her mortgage is with Nationwide.

ValHaller

double-slit wrote: »

I am not sure is there a easy way of finding out,her mortgage is with Nationwide.

You need the title register document from the Land Registry which will summarise access rights. You can download documents at £3 a time - make sure you use a .gov.uk site as there are others with similar names which will provide the same service by front ending the official site - but will charge you much more.

keystone

As Val said. Mortgage providers don't hold deeds anymore. Methinks neighbour has had a lightbulb moment subtitled compo. Shame really.

Cheers

DigForVictory

While sadly agreeing she may have her eye on your wallet, do try & talk to her a bit more? Perhaps with a neutral third party like the vicar along? To ease what may look like belated gratitude & support the doing your bit for the community?

1jim

Could the OP get in touch with the council (the landlord) and see if they can grant access and perhaps liaise with the tenant (neighbour) to smooth the way

anotherbaldrick

Reading your post as written , you asked permission to access via neighbours garden to remove dangerous tree, which was given and work done. You then stated you intention to use the same access to construct in you daughters back garden and were refused .
Diplomacy malfunction ?

Mojisola

double-slit wrote: »

The only access is though the neighbour garden (she rents from the council), my stepdaughter terrace house (she owns) is very small and we cannot get material though.

I had her agreement and inform her before we started and she was ok with that, the tree surgeon removed the tree a (12 hour) job.

I also inform her of our intention to build an office/storage building) in the back of the garden were the old tree was.

Now the builders are ready to start work she has totally refused access, because we did not thank her at the end of that day. But we were going to and also give her a personal gift at the end of the work.

I think you should have given her a thank you gift after the tree was removed. The two jobs are quite separate.

If you didn't show your appreciation of her co-operation during the first job, I can understand her getting a bit miffed.

Forget all the emotional pressure that it's your life savings and your SD is working seven days a week to support her family - they are irrelevant to the neighbour. What matters is that she gave you permission to go through her garden to get one job done and now you want her to allow builders and equipment to come and go while the office is built.

If your SD doesn't have a right of way on the deeds, then the neighbour holds all the cards. Take something nice round to her, apologise for any misunderstanding, check that her garden was left tidy after the tree work was done and hope she relents.

I_have_spoken

Do you really need that access?

You can now get mini-diggers, dumpers that go through a standard doorway. You'd need to put up plywood in the hall etc. for protection, but you could barrow all the stuff needed through the house, adds about £2000 to build cost due to extra hours taken.