How to report Japanese Knotweed in neighbour's garden

Clarita

Hi


We rent a ground floor maisonette which has a small garden and the neighbouring garden (which belongs to the maisonette above us) has quite a lot of Japanese knotweed in it. Last year a few sprouts grew up at the edge of our garden so I sprayed them with the right stuff and they died and I disposed of them once they were fully dead.


Our neighbours are very antisocial, never respond when we ask them to clear up their rubbish at the front of the house, etc. Although it isn't our flat, we don't want our landlord to get stuck with a knotweed problem in her garden because they haven't done anything about it. Also, if there is some in our garden whenever we do end up moving out, we don't want to be blamed.


I see in the news that you can be fined for not dealing with it if it is on your land. I can't see anywhere who to report it to though and how to do this.


If anyone knows I would be very grateful.


Thanks

jennifernil

Is there anything in the links here....

https://www.gov.uk/japanese-knotweed-giant-hogweed-and-other-invasive-plants

Cheeky_Monkey

I think you can report it to your local Council

pinkteapot

From the page that's been linked to:

You are not obliged to remove or treat invasive plants, but you must not:

• allow invasive plants to spread onto adjacent land - the owner of that land could take legal action against you

As you're a tenant, I think you should simply tell your landlord and make sure they understand the situation. It's their property and it's then up to them if they want to go after the neighbour. They can take legal advice if they want to pursue action against the neighbour. I think you've fulfilled your responsibility if you ensure the landlord is aware of the situation.

Whether it's up to you or the landlord to destroy knotweed that does grow on your property I'm not sure...

pinkteapot

Also, see this page:

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/sep/08/japanese-knotweed-house-sale

• If your neighbour has Japanese knotweed on their land:
Again, it is not an offence for Japanese knotweed to be present on your neighbour's land but allowing it to encroach onto your property may constitute a private nuisance under common law.
A landowner affected by knotweed growth from a neighbouring property may therefore be able to apply to court for an injunction requiring the neighbouring owner to abate the nuisance. Such a claim can also include a sum of money in damages to reflect the cost of any physical damage to the property and/or the diminution in value of the landowner's property as a result of the nuisance.

Sounds like there's no-one to report it to. It's up to the owner of your property to take legal action against the neighbour, if they want to.

Clarita

Hi, thanks for the suggestions but all information is about what you need to do if you have it on your land, etc. nothing about ways to report someone for not dealing with it on their land.


I had hoped that given this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30110858 I read this morning it would give some info as to how you could report someone to get this process started to show that they show no willingness to sort it out.

pinkteapot

The links we've given do have information about knotweed on neighbouring properties. Local councils only get involved if it's growing on their land. There's no-one to report it to. The neighbour hasn't committed a legal offense unless they actually planted the knotweed. Your landlord may want to take civil legal action against them if they are allowing it to spread on to his/her property.

The story you just linked to talks about proposed changes to the law - not ones that are yet in place.

Tell your landlord about the knotweed and let them decide what action to take.

Mojisola

pinkteapot wrote: »

Tell your landlord about the knotweed and let them decide what action to take.

The landlord will have problems selling the property with JKW in the neighbouring garden - perhaps that will prompt him to take action.

Clarita

Hi again


You're right, the article is about proposed changes, I misread it and got excited! Thank you for pointing that out.


Oh well!


I told our landlord as soon as I spotted it and she had never heard of Japanese knotweed which I was pretty surprised about and wasn't interested at all so you're right we've done what we needed to. In the meantime the upstairs maisonette was sold, renovated and our now horrible neighbours moved in so there was clearly no issue with their mortgage (or maybe they were cash buyers but I doubt it).


Sounds like we'll just have to put up with it. As far as I'm aware, we would be responsible for removing any infestation (be it mice, wasps or Japanese knotweed, etc.) while we are in possession of the property, unless they are pre-existing. The only way to prove this would be if we noticed right at the start an reported it straight away, which is not the case here.


Thanks for everyone's help

stator

Point out to your landlord that it might affect the mortgageability of the house and so might affect the value of it too! That might get her interested

moneyistooshorttomention

Clarita wrote: »

Hi, thanks for the suggestions but all information is about what you need to do if you have it on your land, etc. nothing about ways to report someone for not dealing with it on their land.


I had hoped that given this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30110858 I read this morning it would give some info as to how you could report someone to get this process started to show that they show no willingness to sort it out.

I read that a bit back and my interpretation of that article is "hopefully soon Councils will be able to be forced to get recalcitrant home-owners etc to deal with it". I don't think this is here quite yet - but feel reasonably hopeful it will be in a year or two's time.

Part of feeling reasonably optimistic is that it could potentially be a nice little moneyspinner for cash-strapped Councils to fine recalcitrant home-owners/land-owners.

I know I'm eagerly awaiting it in my rural little area of Wales - ie where I clapped eyes on JK for the first time in my life since moving here and can see quite a bit of it around. The Councils here seem incredibly strapped for cash compared to what I'm used to (so I'm hopeful) on the one hand, but it feels like they are a lot more subject to "personal pressures" of not wanting to upset people on the other hand. Don't know which will win, as my experience of local Councils is pretty wealthy and "whack everyone regardless of who they are" on the other hand - so I don't know which will prevail out of their poverty v. not wanting to upset people:cool: on the other hand.