Neighbours extension being built across boundary in my garden

lwhiteman88

martindow wrote: »

PWA won't apply as the council owns both of the houses and can do what they like. It doesn't allow tenants to start disputes.

That's not how it works. An obvious example is a freeholder of a block of flats needs to serve notice to leasholders etc. Under PWA adjoining owners are not defined by land ownership. Its defined as someone with interest longer than 12-months. I believe this includes tenants (I am not an expert in this, and neither are PW surveyors half the time).

As I have already mentioned the PWA would not have likely prevented/stopped what has been built but may have checked the boundary line etc.

leespot

Wait until it's built, put a nice bit of trellis over the gap and put something nice to look at in a planter beneath it. No gap, no problem.

davidmcn

lwhiteman88 wrote: »

That's not how it works. An obvious example is a freeholder of a block of flats needs to serve notice to leasholders etc. Under PWA adjoining owners are not defined by land ownership. Its defined as someone with interest longer than 12-months. I believe this includes tenants (I am not an expert in this, and neither are PW surveyors half the time).

As I have already mentioned the PWA would not have likely prevented/stopped what has been built but may have checked the boundary line etc.

From the Act:

“owner” includes—
(a)
a person in receipt of, or entitled to receive, the whole or part of the rents or profits of land;

(b)
a person in possession of land, otherwise than as a mortgagee or as a tenant from year to year or for a lesser term or as a tenant at will;

(c)
a purchaser of an interest in land under a contract for purchase or under an agreement for a lease, otherwise than under an agreement for a tenancy from year to year or for a lesser term;

DoaM

Translation please? I can't tell if that supports or contradicts the point being made.

davidmcn

DoaM wrote: »

Translation please? I can't tell if that supports or contradicts the point being made.

I'll add some punctuation:

a person in possession of land, otherwise than as:

• a mortgagee or
• as a tenant from year to year or for a lesser term or
• as a tenant at will;

So a secure tenant is an owner for the purposes of the Act.

moneyistooshorttomention

Lyndylou wrote: »

Last year the council built an extension to the back of my property as the kitchen was deemed too small.

...............We were thinking of putting in for the right to buy at some stage

I think it's the juxtaposition of these two sentences in the same post that is causing the harsh responses.....:cool:

Lyndylou

Davesnave wrote: »

If you were ever to market the house you haven't yet bought, the potential purchasers would only see what's there; not how things were originally.

They'd probably realise there is a kink in the boundary line, but that's quite common with older property. Provided the title documents accurately reflect that, there would be no problem.

It's a row of 4 terrace houses and what I think the pictures are not showing is the extension is clearly out of line with the property party wall by roughly a foot, it's this that I think would cause problems If we were to ever buy and later re sell.

Doozergirl wrote: »

It looks to me, based on the position of the corbel above, like they're building a true party wall, straddling the boundary, which is why you appear to lose some patio slab.

If you think about it, the walls inside your house are built across the boundary. The true boundary is halfway through the wall and both properties make use of it.

It's actually how yours should have been built, with the neighbour's extension then sharing the wall.

That tiny gap between the two is ridiculous. It would have been cheaper and better to build off your wall, even though yours is really the one in the inconvenient place.

The line down from the corbel is the party wall, however the extension wall is a foot over to the right, something I think that's not clearly showing in the photos.

The man from the planning dept said ideally my extension should have been built up to the party wall boundary, then there would have been just one wall like the rest of the house.

Lyndylou

Thank you for all your helpful replies.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Are you still under the impression that anyone has to, or ought to, give a damn about the implications of this on you if you should ever buy the house?