Liabilities/responsibility for trees on your property - neighbour damage

Tygermoth

Hi Article 50 - The threads getting a bit long so you may have missed that the Neighbours contractor climbed the fence into my garden and did the repair while I was not home, without asking me if it was ok.


The damp remains however, so I think the guttering issue was hiding a further problem.

elsien

Tygermoth wrote: »

In a totally unrelated conversation with the council she mentioned us being in a conservation area........... (my incorrect train of thought was how could it, you cant conserve something by slapping 150 houses on it, right?)

That made me laugh. Sorry.


Maybe taking ongoing photos and keeping a diary (including the dry weather) if you're not already doing so might be helpful in future.

GDB2222

Tygermoth wrote: »

Hi Article 50 - The threads getting a bit long so you may have missed that the Neighbours contractor climbed the fence into my garden and did the repair while I was not home, without asking me if it was ok.


The damp remains however, so I think the guttering issue was hiding a further problem.

Your neighbour's only complaint against you is that your tree allegedly brought his gutter down. Plus, of course, he was unaware of that, so thought you could have told him.

The gutter is back, and you have applied to trim the tree. Any ongoing damp issue is not your problem.

Tygermoth

Well, we finally got our planning permission and the tree has been lopped.

The guys who came to do it were brilliant - very skillful and impressive as the wind was blowing a goodun and as the tree is thin and whippy he was getting bumped about a bit.

We leveled off the garden some time ago so there is no dirt stacked on the neighbours wall but the the damp patch has not moved or changed.

Its become rather worrying that the level of my garden over his air bricks is the source of his damp - it does seem to get darker and more wet looking after the garden has been rained on (i mean that it looks like its tracked up the the damp spot rather than its juts been wet lol)

I am in two minds about this and i flop flop between:

1. I am a horrible person who is potentially causing damage to someones home. How would i feel if some one was doing this to me?

2. This is not of my doing - could be really expensive and become an absolute minefield combined with the fact they are not the easiest people to deal with - let them bring the issue up and until then - let sleeping dogs lie.

One interesting thing to note - i have seen my identical house on rightmove but flipped (we are arranged as a quad - so there is four of my style of houses in each corner) as you can see they have the same issues guttering and flues coming into the garden - however they have added a patio that would totally block any air bricks - i cant see someone knowingly building a patio that would cover these. In light of this I think the builders covered up the bricks when they were finishing off and doing the gardens.

(you may have the right click and open in a new page - i cant get it to show correctly)

David_Aston

How difficult would it be to expose their airbricks by digging back in your garder Tyger? I ask because it occurs to me that if down the line they do employ someone to look into it, it might be more expensive, and possibly fractious than it is now.

Chanes

Tygermoth wrote: »

Well, we finally got our planning permission and the tree has been lopped.

The guys who came to do it were brilliant - very skillful and impressive as the wind was blowing a goodun and as the tree is thin and whippy he was getting bumped about a bit.

We leveled off the garden so there is no dirt stacked on the neighbours wall but the the damp patch has not moved or changed.

Its become rather worrying that the level of my garden over his air bricks is the source of his damp - it does seem to get darker and more wet looking after the garden has been rained on (i mean that it looks like its tracked up the the damp spot rather than its juts been wet lol)

I am in two minds about this and i flop flop between:

1. I am a horrible person who is potentially causing damage to someones home. How would i feel if some one was doing this to me?

2. This is not of my doing - could be really expensive and become an absolute minefield combined with the fact they are not the easiest people to deal with - let them bring the issue up and until then - let sleeping dogs lie.

I cannot solve your problem, but if a house next door to me came up for sale I think you'd be a great neighbour.

Tygermoth

Hi David,

In essence It wouldn't be too difficult.

In actuality the garden is not that big and we would have to slope it down a good few feet all along the wall - dig a trench and then add some kind of drain?

That would require some earth moving, loss of land likely have to re turf and a garden that weirdly sloped down for its size and the depth of the walls round it.

(in the photo i have shared above our garden it about the same size however the house at the end of the garden is higher as such the air bricks are as far under the patio as the height of the wall surrounding the seated area - for some context) so it would be quite dip down.

however if i do get the works done i am worried i would be opening a can of worms as noted earlier in this thread, and some other concerns mentioned in this one:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5639377