Liabilities/responsibility for trees on your property - neighbour damage

pimento

It does look like the soil is stacked against his wall. Moving it might make a difference.

lincroft1710

It definitely looks like the builder of the idiots' house has encroached on your garden

Miss_Samantha

That's the tree and house?!

That tree has nothing to do with anything. It does seem that the ground level was increased, which might have caused the issue.

I'd remove the ladder.

bouicca21

From a distance it certianly looks as though the damp course has been bridged, and that neither the tree nor the gutters are the cause of the problem.

It does seem that the ground level was increased

Or the house wasn't built far enough above ground in the first place.

KRB2725

If they are going to be so rude as to not even ask permission to access your garden, I would be inclined to ask them to move their guttering.

TBagpuss

Wow. Cheeky beggers.

I'd be inclined to drop a brief note off (keep a copy just in case) saying very politely that you were concerned to see that they or their contractor climbed over your fence and entered your garden without your consent, and that in future, please will they ensure that they (or any contractor) contacts you in advance should they wish to access your property, as you do not appreciate coming home to find someone trespassing on your property.

Article50

Did you take your picture down I can't see it now ?

I looked earlier and I think your neighbour needs to get a surveyor in with a damp meter.

From what I remember of the picture he could easily look over his fence where the ladder is and look at his side of the house.

It would not surprise me in the least if the problem was associated with his boiler.

For a start the flue is illegal as it should be no closer than 60 cm, from what I have read, from the boundary, it is clearly well over the boundary .

There is an air brick very close to it allowing fumes and discharge back into his house which is against regulations.

With those sort of boilers there is also a small discharge pipe to take away the dangerous condensate, that pipe must be inside his house discharging somewhere. ?

Looking at the patch it does not look like a splash patch from a gutter to me and possibly with my comment above there could be water inside the cavity leaking out, there are a lot of green stained bricks which are strange, especially by the brick fencing pillar.

In respect of the gutter and the drain in your garden it might be worth checking that there is actually a drain, it is not unknown for "builders" just to put a pipe in the ground with or without a handful of gravel to give the appearance of proper soak away, if they are still allowed.

As others have said I can't see it is anything to do with your tree, maybe the garden soil but I doubt it.

Tygermoth

yup I took the picture down as I was contacted by someone via PM who realised where I lived (amazing as there was little detail) and cautioned me.


So I removed it - yes I know nothing is really ever deleted from the internet, but thought it best to remove it anyway.


I could only find one air brick on that wall (other than the one mentioned above) and it was the downpipe end - the higher end of the garden. the others I think are under the garden. Also think that our garden is to high up his wall - I think it was built like that - there is no indication on that side that the ground was lower at any point as my garden is flat - his house is just lower than it - if you get what I mean? so for the vents to be cleared my garden will now have to be flat then curve down when it comes to the side of his house.


Is that something they can come to us to do? I would say our garden would need to be levelled downwards to the tune of a few feet!

DaftyDuck

Sensible to take it down, really. It served its purpose. I did actually start to write something similar to Article50 (who I doubt I'd agree with in general...;) ). Then decided the neighbour wasn't worth the effort....

From memory:
There's a small heap of mud to the left; I thought if you wanted to be really nice..... um.... you could flatten and remove it, before there's a chance for more bellyache. It's possible the previous owner had more mud/something piled up in the middle, and tidied up when selling.

The guttering shows no sign of leaking right down the side of the house; no staining, no moss, nothing. The wet patch in the (roughly) middle has a dark lobe below, but a significant mark above, that does not look like a rising damp mark; it's not even, it's shaped, formed.... Either a differing brick/mortar was used in construction (unlikely), or there's a single source for the damp, which is spreading out from that. Given there's a boiler outlet there.... what room is on the inside?

I wsn't convinced I'd got the orientation of their property right. I know there were no loo downpipes visible, and I had the ladder coming from their front garden to your back, so the front of their house would be to the left of the photo, and unlikely to have a loo downpipe. So, have they got an internal loo/bathroom downpipe running down that side wall?


The other thought was that the downpipe may well not have a soakaway - for which they'd need rights to have one... they do have such rights, don't they??? :eek: :D

Frankly, I'd just lay out some landmines, or get a large dog.

Oh, I have to ask... why do you collect black buckets?

Tygermoth

The buckets have tree lilies in them J

They used to sit in a small deep runnel in the garden at the old house – so you couldn’t see the buckets, only the tall lily heads above the parapet (rather pretty). Buckets were 2 for 1 and dirt cheap (49p!) so better than buying planters esp as they couldn’t been seen, just drilled a few holes in the bases – now patiently waiting to be planted in the new garden when the ground unfreezes.

Yes, the soil from the back bed looks to have piled up into the corner and we will move that. Anything more than that will require some significant digging downwards as the rest of the garden is level. I might see about making a channel about a handspan wide, and two handspans deep down the side of his house add a border stone and fill with gravel to let the side of his house have a gap away from the soil.

To help orientate - The ladder was on my left side garden wall - the ladders were coming in from his drive which runs down the left side of my house. The living room is to the front leading onto the drive. Where the boiler vent and down pipe is the kitchen end. The damp patch is where an internal wall splits the living room and kitchen. They advised the damp was in the living room.


Re their down pipe, this disappears into the ground in our garden at the side the house - the eucalyptus tree is there so maybe its sucking up the excess water? lol