Retaining wall nightmare!

Flips

We have just removed a whole load of Laylandii on one side of our garden. Behind them we have found a small nightmare... the neighbours property (built after ours) garden is about 1m higher than ours. A makeshift barrier of sleepers on very rough concrete plinths has been erected at some point with their fence half on it and half off it. It is clear that what has happened in the past is when their house was built the back of the garden was backfilled with building waste and then landscaped over the top of this. However no proper retaining wall was ever built. There is a lot of rubble/ metal work in our garden which we can clear easily however some of it is stuck in the concrete and we would also like to clear this and somehow make it look more appealing. My concern is that their garden is already coming into ours, the barrier is leaning and by doing this we may inadvertently cause our neighbours garden to subside further.

Our neighbours seem very nice but when they came and had a look from our side as from their side there is nothing to see they seemed to think that it was our problem and just asked us to let them know when we were going to do. I have checked our deeds and there is no mention of this boundary/ wall/ non wall at all. On our solicitors property information request from the vendor all we have is that that boundary (several different houses) is a shared responsibility. It's going to be an expensive little job to have to excavate all the rubbish and then have a proper retaining wall done and I don't think we should have to foot the bill, would I have legal rights to get them to foot a percentage of the bill and how much would be fair?

Thanks

brightontraveller

Flips wrote: »

We have just removed a whole load of Laylandii on one side of our garden. Behind them we have found a small nightmare... the neighbours property (built after ours) garden is about 1m higher than ours. A makeshift barrier of sleepers on very rough concrete plinths has been erected at some point with their fence half on it and half off it. It is clear that what has happened in the past is when their house was built the back of the garden was backfilled with building waste and then landscaped over the top of this. However no proper retaining wall was ever built. There is a lot of rubble/ metal work in our garden which we can clear easily however some of it is stuck in the concrete and we would also like to clear this and somehow make it look more appealing. My concern is that their garden is already coming into ours, the barrier is leaning and by doing this we may inadvertently cause our neighbours garden to subside further.

Our neighbours seem very nice but when they came and had a look from our side as from their side there is nothing to see they seemed to think that it was our problem and just asked us to let them know when we were going to do. I have checked our deeds and there is no mention of this boundary/ wall/ non wall at all. On our solicitors property information request from the vendor all we have is that that boundary (several different houses) is a shared responsibility. It's going to be an expensive little job to have to excavate all the rubbish and then have a proper retaining wall done and I don't think we should have to foot the bill, would I have legal rights to get them to foot a percentage of the bill and how much would be fair?

Thanks

Ask a solicitor......

Davesnave

'Legal rights' get expensive and are hard to enforce.

Also, neither of you has a right to expect a wall, regardless whose responsibility it might be.

There are lots of other solutions, such as gabions, or just a slope with planting and a hedge at the bottom.

As usual, the best solution might be arrived at with a proper meeting over tea and cake.

It isn't for you to retain/relocate your neighbour's land and rubbish, but nor can you demand a particular action from them. It will probably be a good old British compromise, tempered by finances and the perception of how much of a problem this really is.

Chanes

We had a shared boundary which also had a retaining wall. The wall retained our garden from our neighbours by about 4' (on average) in height along the boundary we shared. The wall crumbled and we sought legal advice which pretty much concluded that it was our responsibility to prevent our land encroaching onto our neighbours. We spoke to our neighbour who was an absolute star and offered to pay for half if she could choose the bricks. As it worked out it wasn't so expensive so we paid. We made a friend of the neighbour, she was great. Our deeds stated the boundary was shared but that only applied to the land mass and not dividing structures (walls, fences, etc.) I think that is true of all boundary lines. Certainly, speak to a solicitor esp. a conveyancing specialist I'd guess. Deeds and covenants can pop up or precedents could exist where you live. But I would still venture that if they are encroaching on your land they are responsible for stopping that happening, it seems fair to me. But split the cost maybe to keep the peace? Neighbour disputes are seldom worth getting into over such things, it's your place of peace, rest and refuge, it is your home after all.