Extended Party wall extension with overhanging soffitt

Aylesbury_Duck

I’m afraid I agree with the above. Precedent is irrelevant if your neighbour objects. If you can persuade them to ignore it you might get away with it until they or you move and it crops up in a survey. If it does, you may have to put it right or pay something at that point. If they persist, you have two choices: pay whatever ransom they demand to make the problem go away or correct the roof. If the former, I’d advise seeking legal advice to see if it can be done in such a way as to not be a problem in future.

Jonah01

Our neighbours were good enough to not complain about our extension during planning and they also let us scaffold across their garage roof.

I made it crystal clear to the builder that there should be no overhang onto their property.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/54Ff588Dp6UbmfhE8

It does devalue their property as it will put off potential buyers and also restricts them from building up to the boundary.

In reality architects, planning , building control etc don't care about these issues.

Does the planning app show it overhanging?

shaun_from_Africa

I used to own a semi detached bungalow and the neighbour in the adjoining property was to put it bluntly, a total ar5e.... (Loud music all day and all night, loud screaming arguments with others living with him etc).
One time whilst I was working away, he decided to put up a conservatory on the rear of his house and this came right up to the boundary fence.
When I returned, I noticed that when opened, the two side windows he had on the conservatory came over the fence and into my garden and the downpipe from the guttering on the conservatory discharged water directly into my garden.

I asked him to rectify these two things and he refused, (It's my house, I will do as I like"), so I got the local council involved.
He had to replace both windows with non opening ones and spend a lot of money to have a soakaway put in his garden.

If he had simply asked me about these things before going ahead and wasn't such a poor neighbour then I would probably have lived with them but as he simply assumed that he could do as he wished, I made sure that he couldn't.

moneytorques, get the problem sorted now for two reasons.
If your neighbour takes action then you will have to do it anyway and if there is a dispute with them, you will have to declare this if you are considering selling at any time in the future.

moneytorques

Jonah01 wrote: »

Our neighbours were good enough to not complain about our extension during planning and they also let us scaffold across their garage roof.

I made it crystal clear to the builder that there should be no overhang onto their property.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/54Ff588Dp6UbmfhE8

It does devalue their property as it will put off potential buyers and also restricts them from building up to the boundary.

In reality architects, planning , building control etc don't care about these issues.

Does the planning app show it overhanging?

https://ibb.co/Wnw2PjB

The above image does show the overhang on the plans which were not appealed, we have a Party wall agreement in place.

Doozergirl

moneytorques wrote: »

https://ibb.co/Wnw2PjB

The above image does show the overhang on the plans which were not appealed, we have a Party wall agreement in place.

Speak to your party wall surveyor if you like. Someone's going to have to mediate if you're refusing to budge. You have one or were your neighbours just trying to be nice and didn't question you?

It did not have to be built like that. It could and should have been designed with the gutter on your side - even a valley within your boundary against the party wall, discharging to the back.

moneytorques

Doozergirl wrote: »

Speak to your party wall surveyor if you like. Someone's going to have to mediate if you're refusing to budge. You have one or were your neighbours just trying to be nice and didn't question you?

It did not have to be built like that. It could and should have been designed with the gutter on your side - even a valley within your boundary against the party wall, discharging to the back.

We have a common party wall surveyor acting for both parties, the neighbours are housing developers and initially came and spoke to us about the plans as they didn't understand why we wanted to build on a relatively new property, but following conversations said that they didn't want to object.

Doozergirl

What does the award say about it?

Aylesbury_Duck

Have you had any further conversation with your neighbour? If so, what was the outcome?

It doesn't matter that the plans show the error and weren't objected to at that point. It's still an error and still a trespass. As advised before, if your neighbours insist the overhang be removed, you have no choice unless you can come to some sort of legally drawn-up financial arrangement that suits both parties. If I were them, I'd be taking advice on what it might cost for you to retrospectively change your roof and using that to inform what the price would be to shut up and ignore it. e.g. £20k to reprofile the roof? £15k to permit the trespass, please, plus legal costs covered.

moneytorques

Doozergirl wrote: »

What does the award say about it?

The award clearly states it must be built as per the Planning Application and references the drawing number.

The only relevant clause is
"That nothing in this award shall be held as conferring, admitting or affecting any
right to light or air or any other easement whatsoever."

Aylesbury_Duck

moneytorques wrote: »

The award clearly states it must be built as per the Planning Application and references the drawing number.

The only relevant clause is
"That nothing in this award shall be held as conferring, admitting or affecting any
right to light or air or any other easement whatsoever."

I think that's the key element. IANAL but I read that as confirmation that the award does not confer the rights to use the neighbour's property, which in this case is the airspace above it. It's there to protect against the sort of error that's occurred in your plans and to ensure that the error cannot override the neighbour's rights.