Subsidence from next door's garden

Mazz1984

Hi everyone!

I recently moved into a house that needs a bit of work done. The garden lacks fences, there is only a flimsy metal frame around the perimeter. According to DH, getting a fence erected on two of the sides is going to be quite straight forward (albeit expensive), however the issue is that next door's garden is falling onto our garden from the left side. It is a small block of flat on higher ground. It looks like their earth and grass were maintained by big cement slabs but they are now broken and edging towards our garden.

My question is, how do I get to know who owns this block of flat? I imagine that whoever owns the building will have to deal with the garden (build a wall or something). I sent an email to my local council (it could be council flats, I am not sure to be honest) but haven't heard back yet. Then once I know who owns it, is it only a matter of sending a letter expressing my concern or do I need professional/legal advise?

Sorry for all the questions, we are first time buyer and completely clueless about those things. Most of my friends are renting so they never dealt with anything like it before.

Thanks in advance for your help!!

Mazz

marksoton

You really should have dealt with this issue before purchase.

A land registry check will tell you who owns the adjacent property. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll play ball.

Erecting those two other fences may become the least of your problems.

PasturesNew

Look into gabions.... see if you can use those in your garden to shore it up. They're used, structurally, in a lot of earthbank/garden scenarios and might be just the thing.

Wire cage ... fill it with attractive stones.... available in many sizes. Easy to achieve, reasonably cheap (except the filling stones, but you can always just fill the edges and plonk a breeze block in the centre/unseen).

G_M

You'll need to approach the freeholder of the flats.

£3.00 to the Land Registry here.

A polite letter explaining how the disrepair to his garden's supporting concrete is causing damage to your property (your garden is part of your property).

Whether he'll respond and/or take action is a different matter. If he does not, I guess legal action is a possibility (speak to a solicitor or use the Legal Cover from your building insurance), but would cost you and success would be uncertain I suspect.

But a letter is worth try - he may be a good neighbour!

Or just find a way to build a barrier on the boundary as pastures suggests.

Mazz1984

What can I say... We are young and inexperienced with no family in the country and we were given a notice to vacate our flat because the landlord wanted to redo it up. We were out-bided by cash buyers numerous times when trying to put offers on houses we liked and finally got the offer accepted on this one. The subsidence wasn't obvious when we visited as it is behind a rather big "summer house" (a big shed really). We knew a fence needed to be erected, that's all...

Mazz1984

Thanks Pasturesnew, it could be a good idea. I will look into gabions. Looks quite pretty when well make

Mazz1984

Thanks G_M. I will try the Land Registry then.

eddddy

Check your deeds to see if there is a covenant to say who should maintain the retaining wall - you or your neighbour.

If there's no clue there, it kind of depends on who built the retaining wall and why.

• If a previous owner of your house wanted to lower your garden, so built a retaining wall to support the neighbour's garden - the wall is your responsibility. So if the wall collapses, and their garden subsides - they might claim against you.
  
  
• If the owner of the next-door property wanted to raise their garden, so built a retaining wall to stop their garden subsiding into yours - the wall is their responsibility. And you could claim against them for clearing up the mess if the wall collapses.

If you unilaterally decide to repair the wall with gabion cages, that might be interpreted as you accepting responsibility for the wall. Then, if the repair fails...

(Or if it's someone else's wall and you repair it negligently, that could be problematic.)

Probably the best starting point is to discuss it with the neighbouring freeholder.