Working on someone else's house

simonineaston

I live in an inner city suburb. The houses in the street adjacent to mine are perpendicular to my street. This means the gable wall of the nearest house forms the boundary of my garden. As I look towards the back of my garden the gable wall dominates my view. The wall is in poor condition and the render is falling away in places. Its is not painted. What legal requirements should I consider when considering my options for working on the wall?
I will of course start off by contacting the homeowner to offer them the opportunity to inspect the wall and decide what to do. (It's not visible from anywhere in their property). But assuming they don't do anything constructive, or else tell me about any plans, can I take matters into my own hands? I don't have anything in mind other than patching the loose render and then painting the whole wall with Sandtex.

martinsurrey

simonineaston wrote: »

I don't have anything in mind other than patching the loose render and then painting the whole wall with Sandtex.

In short you have no right to do anything at all.

If you came home and someone had painted the end of your house without your agreement, would you be happy?

the best you can do is pray they agree.

Aylesbury_Duck

simonineaston wrote: »

I live in an inner city suburb. The houses in the street adjacent to mine are perpendicular to my street. This means the gable wall of the nearest house forms the boundary of my garden. As I look towards the back of my garden the gable wall dominates my view. The wall is in poor condition and the render is falling away in places. Its is not painted. What legal requirements should I consider when considering my options for working on the wall?
I will of course start off by contacting the homeowner to offer them the opportunity to inspect the wall and decide what to do. (It's not visible from anywhere in their property). But assuming they don't do anything constructive, or else tell me about any plans, can I take matters into my own hands? I don't have anything in mind other than patching the loose render and then painting the whole wall with Sandtex.

I don't think you can do anything without their consent. You could probably force them to take action if you could prove that there was something dangerous about the state of their wall, but it sounds like it's a cosmetic problem.

Hopefully, once they see the state of the wall and it's pointed out to them the potential problems that might arise from its poor condition, they will engage a suitable contractor and ask to be able to access it from your side. Alternatively, they may give you permission to have the work carried out at your expense but I'd be reluctant to do that for two reasons. Firstly, it will cost you a lot of money to improve your view and you'd be paying to fix your neighbour's house. Secondly, should any damage occur during or after the works are completed, your neighbour will be pursuing you for a resolution.

TadleyBaggie

You were selling up 4 months ago, change of plans?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5627125

phill99

You can't do anything. Struth.


It could easily be classed as criminal damage.

Davesnave

TadleyBaggie wrote: »

You were selling up 4 months ago, change of plans?

I suspect that the enquiry is being made because the OP feels the end wall, being so prominent, is devaluing his own property.

After all, it can hardly have jumped into view overnight.

The answer is, of course, that something green and pleasant should have been planted to hide the wall......a long time ago.

Geoff1963

Could you get a quote from a reputable tradesman ( don't go over ), and offer to pay to have it done ?

Davesnave

Geoff1963 wrote: »

Could you get a quote from a reputable tradesman ( don't go over ), and offer to pay to have it done ?

The problem is, a reputable tradesperson isn't going to do a cheapo job.

Once rendering starts to fail and fall off, the answer is to take it all away and re-render, which on a gable end wall isn't a small task. We are talking large quantities of materials skips, scaffolding and at least 4 seperate operations on each m2.

macman

I don't want the OP to be disappointed, but my gable wall could do with some repointing. If the OP would like to get in touch I'd be happy for them to repair it at their expense. And of course they'd be welcome to come and view it from the road any time they like.