Neighbour & Garden Problems

Eejay

We get on with both of our neighbours reasonably well - one side slightly better than the other, but everything seemed to be going okay. However, they show a complete disregard for planning permission and the impact that their 'ideas' will have on us.

We live in a semi-detached house on a bit of a slope. The drive slopes down to the house, and at the back of the house there are steps up to our back doors. The height to the bottom of our back door is 115cm, and this will be almost identical for the neighbours. There are then a few steps down from a 'patio' area onto the grass, and the gardens slope gradually down towards the neighbours at the back of us.

The neighbours attached to our house ('A') have swapped their back door for patio doors. The neighbours not attached to our house ('B') are swapping their dining room doors for patio doors. Both want to build raised decking; neither want to seek planning permission. The 'patio' areas are already around 75cm above the top end of the grass, so with the additional 115cm they will need to get the decking level with their kitchen/dining room, they're going to be sat nearly 2m above our grass, leaving our daughter with no privacy when she plays outside. (I've taken these measurements as we are planning on doing our garden up too, but without changing the height of anything.)

'B' is also planning on levelling the garden and putting up a 6 foot fence on top of gravel boards. At the bottom end of our garden, this could leave us with a fence that is around 8 foot high. The fence is shared, but we are letting them choose the design for the fence at the back and we are replacing the wall that separated our driveways with a fence - in that sense, it's fair, but when I mentioned the height he assured me they'd deal with it but now seems to have backtracked when speaking to my husband. The neighbour one along from them has already raised their garden and their fence sits on top of a number of gravel boards, so I'm worried our neighbour is going to try copying so that their garden looks good. We have no intention of levelling our garden so I'm not sure how they are going to solve this problem.

Finally, 'A' has decided to remove their outhouse to build their raised decking. It is attached to ours, and we plan on keeping it as it is useful storage space and we really don't want it leaking. They have done all of the DIY in their house and it is not to a high standard, so I'm worried the edge of our outhouse will be left in a poor state. I'm not particularly clued up on party walls, but I've been told they are supposed to have given us notice. If the outhouse is left in a poor state, we can't afford the repairs - what can we do to ensure they have to fix any damage they may cause?

Coincidentally we all moved in within a few months of one another - even the neighbour at the back - which is why all the work has fallen at around the same time. The houses were built in the late 1920s but I feel that the neighbours either side would have been better off with new builds with all of their tree-chopping, garden flattening ways.

I don't want to destroy our relationship with either set of neighbours, but I also don't want to feel like we can't use our garden through a mixture of them having an unobstructed view of us and us having no sunlight due to excessively high fences in certain places! What can we do?

phil24_7

Speak to them about your concerns and agree, in writing what will be done.

A 6ft fence is fine, anything higher and they will need planning permission (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong). Any decking above a foot or so will need planning permission for the exact reasons you state. Planing will likely tell them to build a fence at the edge of their decking so they cannot look into your garden!

phil24_7

The knocking down of the outhouse will need a party wall agreement but in all honesty, they will probably do it without!

They will be liable for any damage and without an agreement it will be up to them to prove they didn't cause the damage.

Regards
Phil

phil24_7

Perhaps you neighbours could be convinced to go thirds with you on decking for you so you will all be in the same boat?!?!

Eejay

Thanks for replying

If they built a fence at the edge of their decking, could that mean a 3m or so fence at our side (with permission from the council)? I don't know where they are planning on building up to, but one side is presumably building up to the outhouse which is right on the boundary. A fence would then block out loads of our light into our garden and back room (funnily enough we swapped to use our back room as a living room for more privacy...).

We bought this house because of the lovely back garden - a rarity in this part of our city - and the neighbours are taking all the joy out of it

Eejay

I don't want high decking, I want to look across at our own garden - not everyone else's lol It seems silly because currently there are three foot fences right round, but there was a huge tree sheltering us from one side which they've since chopped down, and last summer nobody apart from us used the garden. Now the tree is gone and we've lost that privacy, and then the outhouse will be gone from their side, losing even more privacy... privacy we won't be able to get back even by building fences right round.