Brick wall problem

taurusgb

We bought our house in 1992. There is a passageway that divides our house from next door which gives us right of use to access our back garden but the passage itself belongs to the house next door.

Before we bought our house, the previous owner of the house next door (hope that makes sense!!) built a brick wall about 8 foot long to support an archway stretching from one end of the brick wall to the house next door to frame the gate into their back garden. The wall appears to be built on our land - i.e. there is a step up into our garden (about a couple of inches high) and the wall is built along this edge - I would imagine the person that built it didn't want to reduce the width of the passageway and I assume the then owners of our house consented to this.

I am not too bothered about a brickwidth of our land being annexed in this way, life's too short and I've read enough about the horrors of boundary disputes to avoid one like the plaque if at all possible.

BUT, this wall is starting to crumble and look a bit unsafe and I don't want to end up with this costing us money (we don't have a lot and what we do have we would rather spend on something of our own choosing). Can anyone tell me please what our position in this is likely to be? I would also add that the wall and arch in question is of the same colour brick as the house next door, doesn't match ours at all and is obviously something that has been built to add to their property rather than ours.

Hope all that makes sense?

HugoSP

how do you know that the previous owners of your house did not assume ownership of the wall?

There is an arguement that if the wall is on your land then it is your wall and not your neigbours.

This means that you could be within your rights to demolish it and put a fence in its position.

My take would be to approach your neighbour and suggest that you split the cost of removing it at re erecting a 6 ft fence in its place.