Neighbours garage issue

Simon20203

Hi, our detached property has a back yard that is set into a steep hill. Our yard has a thick wall incasing it and there is a separate garden up top of this wall. From the front of our property there is a small dividing wall which separates us with our neighbours driveway. When you follow the small wall up you can clearly see that the thick back retaining wall is off to the left, it does not follow the centre line. We believe it was built like this as many people add a garage to their property and if we wanted to do that the garage would sit exactly where the thick wall is placed and the space to the right of it is obviously for overhang of spouting.

Anyway our neighbour has built a garage about five years ago as tight to us as possible, it even looks like he has encroached on our land by a few inches just looking at it by sight but this was fine to us as its not very much.

 He is now saying that his inside garage wall is suffering from damp on the side that is tight to our wall. This is where the land is coming from the high level behind our properties and tapering down to the small wall. There has always been soil here and the land tapers down the same way on the other side of our property which we have stones laid and use it as a graduating path down from our top garden. The back of our neighbours garage is also built into the ground so I don't understand why the little space of ground we have on the side that boarders our property is the bit causing him bother. He wants to put slabs down in this space and I imagine angle them towards our wall away from his garage wall which may leave me with a problem later on. And he has suggested I can set plant pots on top of these slaps to grow greenery (I currently have an ornamental Bush and strawberry plants growing in this area and usually plant a few bedding flowers every summer in here) nice pots are expensive and I like my little flower bed running along my wall. . Is this my problem that his garage has a damp wall.....

He had the option of building a cavity wall in his garage or doing proper damp proofing knowing he was building his garage into ground (it's about three feet of ground on our side and graduates up to about five feet of ground at the rear of his garage. He could of left the little wall that was there with a fence on top of it (may I add that this fence didn't seem to suffer from severe damp next to the little bit of soil I am referring to and I was here 5 yrs before him) and built his garage over a bit but he removed the fence and the wall and built right next to our boundary and was alway aware this space much like the rear of his garage would be touching soil, but obviously wanted to have as much yard space as possible.

 Is there anything I should consider regarding the fact that his garage wall has damp inside it due to his own placement of the garage. I do not want water diverted into my wall and cause me problems. Any insight and advice on how to handle and also politely tell him no thanks to the slabs would be appreciated. 

dimbo61

Very hard to read 
Just say No thanks we don't want anymore improvements to our garden/property from you.

jimbog

It was too hard to read without paragraphs but from what I can understand the best response would be 'thanks for the offer but we're not interested'

AdrianC

If his builder failed to take account of high ground levels and properly manage predictable ground water, that's no reason for him to now encroach further onto your land.

I doubt the slabs would make the slightest difference to his damp penetration. The slabs may be a small step, but what's next?

princeofpounds

Paragraphs are your friend...

What you wrote is very long and a diagram will help your audience understand the layout more than a convoluted description will.

But the basic thing is that you have to be clear what the boundary feature is, and if he wants to make any changes on your side just refuse. 

Because your land has historically drained that way you do have a right of drainage as long as you don’t further direct the flow.

However I’m not sure that you get to entirely ignore the problem. There has been a what is called a measured duty of care established in some circumstances. How it applies to you I’m not sure. You may want to try gardenlaw forums flooding section - it’s not super active but some specialists do hang out there.

https://www.lyonsdavidson.co.uk/measuring-measured-duty-nuisance-claim/

Simon20203

Thanks for the input. My neighbour actually put a drainage pipe from his top garden and had it angled through this passage way which I believe caused part of my driveway down below to erode. He built the garage himself and in my opinion essentially botched the job. I can understand the reason behind the 'measured duty of care' however his suggestion of slaps I believe will end up causing damage to my wall and I can't see how it would rectify the problem unless he angles it towards my side which can't be fair as this is not the natural flow of drainage. I think he shld build a cavity wall within his garage to correct the problem but I'm just speculating, maybe there are other options he shld consider but again I don't think this is my problem. I don't know if I can ask him to get a proper builder out to have a look but I would think he will only get one of his friends round. Cheers for thoughts tho. 

Hasbeen

Simon20203 said:

Thanks for the input. My neighbour actually put a drainage pipe from his top garden and had it angled through this passage way which I believe caused part of my driveway down below to erode. He built the garage himself and in my opinion essentially botched the job. I can understand the reason behind the 'measured duty of care' however his suggestion of slaps I believe will end up causing damage to my wall and I can't see how it would rectify the problem unless he angles it towards my side which can't be fair as this is not the natural flow of drainage. I think he shld build a cavity wall within his garage to correct the problem but I'm just speculating, maybe there are other options he shld consider but again I don't think this is my problem. I don't know if I can ask him to get a proper builder out to have a look but I would think he will only get one of his friends round. Cheers for thoughts tho. 

What?

zagubov

Simon20203 said:

Hi, our detached property has a back yard that is set into a steep hill. Our yard has a thick wall incasing it and there is a separate garden up top of this wall.

From the front of our property there is a small dividing wall which separates us with our neighbours driveway. When you follow the small wall up you can clearly see that the thick back retaining wall is off to the left, it does not follow the centre line.

We believe it was built like this as many people add a garage to their property and if we wanted to do that the garage would sit exactly where the thick wall is placed and the space to the right of it is obviously for overhang of spouting.

Anyway our neighbour has built a garage about five years ago as tight to us as possible, it even looks like he has encroached on our land by a few inches just looking at it by sight but this was fine to us as its not very much.

 He is now saying that his inside garage wall is suffering from damp on the side that is tight to our wall. This is where the land is coming from the high level behind our properties and tapering down to the small wall.

There has always been soil here and the land tapers down the same way on the other side of our property which we have stones laid and use it as a graduating path down from our top garden.

The back of our neighbours garage is also built into the ground so I don't understand why the little space of ground we have on the side that boarders our property is the bit causing him bother. He wants to put slabs down in this space and I imagine angle them towards our wall away from his garage wall which may leave me with a problem later on.

And he has suggested I can set plant pots on top of these slaps to grow greenery (I currently have an ornamental Bush and strawberry plants growing in this area and usually plant a few bedding flowers every summer in here) nice pots are expensive and I like my little flower bed running along my wall. . Is this my problem that his garage has a damp wall.....

He had the option of building a cavity wall in his garage or doing proper damp proofing knowing he was building his garage into ground (it's about three feet of ground on our side and graduates up to about five feet of ground at the rear of his garage.

He could have left the little wall that was there with a fence on top of it (may I add that this fence didn't seem to suffer from severe damp next to the little bit of soil I am referring to and I was here 5 yrs before him) and built his garage over a bit but he removed the fence and the wall and built right next to our boundary and was alway aware this space much like the rear of his garage would be touching soil, but obviously wanted to have as much yard space as possible.

 Is there anything I should consider regarding the fact that his garage wall has damp inside it due to his own placement of the garage. I do not want water diverted into my wall and cause me problems. Any insight and advice on how to handle and also politely tell him no thanks to the slabs would be appreciated. 

Trying to make it more readable and therefore more answerable.

Norman_Castle

Explain you are not willing to re arrange your garden to accomodate his garage. Mention you think it is already over the boundry.

AdrianC

Simon20203 said:

Thanks for the input. My neighbour actually put a drainage pipe from his top garden and had it angled through this passage way which I believe caused part of my driveway down below to erode.

If the guttering emptied onto the ground, it may locally erode below the exit of the downpipe, but no wider than that.

He built the garage himself and in my opinion essentially botched the job.

Five years ago is outside of any building control or planning permission investigation.

I can understand the reason behind the 'measured duty of care' however his suggestion of slaps I believe will end up causing damage to my wall

I don't see how.

and I can't see how it would rectify the problem unless he angles it towards my side which can't be fair as this is not the natural flow of drainage.

The whole point of any guttering or drainage channel is to change the "natural flow" of drainage. There's no issue with that, so long as the outflow is properly managed to a surface water drain or soakaway.

I think he shld build a cavity wall within his garage to correct the problem

That won't help one bit.

I don't know if I can ask him to get a proper builder out to have a look

Nope. But he cannot do anything to detrimentally affect your land.

A picture of some kind would really help. I don't see why guttering or a french drain isn't sorting the surface-run-off issue. It won't do a sausage against ground-water levels, of course...

Davesnave

AdrianC said:
A picture of some kind would really help.

Indeed. If only we lived in a time when everyone owned a device for taking pictures, or do newbies not have the facility to post those?