Fire escape into my garden (undisclosed when bought house)

moneyistooshorttomention

How about combining two suggestions - G_M's one of something in front of the fence and the bolt. Fit a bolt to it inconspicuously from OP's side and put in a large-ish ready-grown tree or shrub (prickly variety?) literally inches in front of this fence panel/gate. As the tree/shrub grows it "accidentally on purpose" grows up over the whole panel and looks like its been there forever.

Which could maybe be followed by replacing that section of fence panel in between this neighbour selling up (whenever she does) and the next person moving in??

Red-Squirrel_2

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

How about combining two suggestions - G_M's one of something in front of the fence and the bolt. Fit a bolt to it inconspicuously from OP's side and put in a large-ish ready-grown tree or shrub (prickly variety?) literally inches in front of this fence panel/gate. As the tree/shrub grows it "accidentally on purpose" grows up over the whole panel and looks like its been there forever.

Which could maybe be followed by replacing that section of fence panel in between this neighbour selling up (whenever she does) and the next person moving in??

...and hope there's never a fire?

LandyAndy

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

...and hope there's never a fire?

I've been hoping my neighbours didn't have a fire for 35 years.


Seems to have worked so far.

moneyistooshorttomention

Yep...confirmed that there has never been a fire anywhere in my vicinity for....ooooh....that would be more than 60 years.

Now ceilings coming down on the other hand....and that's happened twice....

kiffer8501

Thank you for all your replies. Some interesting ones, especially the one telling me to calm down!! :rotfl: I hadn't realised I was angry :T. This is a strange place at times

I was merely trying to get some clarity on the situation, so I appreciate all of your input. To answer the question, yes there is another way out from my garden, but not hers. Its quite a complicated layout. I am not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill either, just trying to establish whether I should've known about this, because I did have stuff in front of the escape, which in the event of a fire, could've have left me liable if something awful had happened to her if she couldn't escape.

To be honest, I still feel like I've been misled. Having chatted to the lady in question, it seems that she had a long running dispute with the vendor of my house over the fire escape, and some other matters. The vendor of my house appears to be somewhat of an oddball, the decoration inside the house when we bought it also backs that up. We are happy to leave it as is, i'm quite a reasonable person really. I had plans to use that part of the garden for a shed, so its a good job I hadn't got round to it yet!

If it was me selling the property, I would've notified the buyer about such an arrangement, but there you go. I can certainly live with it.

Thank you

:beer:

steeeb

kiffer8501 wrote: »

Thank you for all your replies. Some interesting ones, especially the one telling me to calm down!! :rotfl: I hadn't realised I was angry :T. This is a strange place at times

I was merely trying to get some clarity on the situation, so I appreciate all of your input. To answer the question, yes there is another way out from my garden, but not hers. Its quite a complicated layout. I am not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill either, just trying to establish whether I should've known about this, because I did have stuff in front of the escape, which in the event of a fire, could've have left me liable if something awful had happened to her if she couldn't escape.

To be honest, I still feel like I've been misled. Having chatted to the lady in question, it seems that she had a long running dispute with the vendor of my house over the fire escape, and some other matters. The vendor of my house appears to be somewhat of an oddball, the decoration inside the house when we bought it also backs that up. We are happy to leave it as is, i'm quite a reasonable person really. I had plans to use that part of the garden for a shed, so its a good job I hadn't got round to it yet!

If it was me selling the property, I would've notified the buyer about such an arrangement, but there you go. I can certainly live with it.

Thank you

:beer:

It seems like either:
- Said 'escape' is a load of xxx hence why your oddball vendor had a disputed about it.
- Your vendor kept quite about it intentionally and if said escape does legally exist should have mentioned it to you. Said disputed should have been mentioned also - I think it's a standard question on the questionnaire they have to fill in.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I've never heard of fire escape routes between neighbouring gardens. Is it really a legal requirement for a certain type of property? And wouldn't you have to declare it on your buildings/contents insurance as another access point?

fluffy70

"If there's a fire, she can knock" - that tickled me...

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

robotrobo

kiffer8501 wrote: »

Hi all

Looking for a bit of advice. I bought my house back in Feb 2014, and have discovered in the last few weeks that a neighbours adjoining property, a ground floor flat, has a gate into my garden. The gate looks like an ordinary fence panel, albeit a narrow one, hence not noticing this before. It was only when she popped her head over the fence recently that we realised it existed.

She is adamant that it is for means of escape only and that the council approved this when the flat was built, circa 2003 (I am awaiting someone from Building Control to confirm this). The flat has a garden, so I also query whether a secondary means of escape is required for a ground floor flat with a small garden?



To be clear, I have no problem with her using the fire escape in case of emergency, however I do feel like I have been misled by the vendor, as there was nothing about this written on the property information form, nor was it picked up by my solicitor, or the homebuyers survey.





My main question is, should the vendor of the property disclosed this in the property information form? I am concerned that this may affect the saleability and value of my property in the future. If so, should I pursue a case against the vendor? Obviously I will be consulting a solicitor about this once I hear back from Building Control, but I am interested to know what other people think about this?

Thanks for any advice, it would be much appreciated.

I'm glad you live where you do.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Mossfarr wrote: »

Its all well and good whilst you have a nice neighbour but what if she moves? You could get a family with 12 urchins who insist on playing in your garden or sending their dog through to crap in your garden.
Sounds far fetched doesn't it? but nope - this is exactly what happened to my elderly grandmother (well, maybe not 12 urchins - there were 4 plus crapping dog)!!
We blocked the gateway as there was no mention of it in the deeds.

If such people moved in they could just tear the fence down and sit in your garden. In both cases they would have no legal right to do so and you'd have to take action.