Neighbour has threaten me

Simon20203

Tanking slurry!

Just read up about it and it sounds perfect for my neighbours garage wall.

Does anyone know if this is sounds like a good solution to suggest to my neighbour? Apparently it's one of the most cost effective ways and least invasive way of preventing damp.

Thanks

homersimpson246

The most important thing with your neighbour is not to let them think they can push you about by threatening you, its your house and you shouldn't feel intimidated.  If they think they have the upper hand they will use this everytime there is an issue.

I can understand the desire to be reasonable but you need to proceed with caution.  Personally I would let him make the next move as its a problem that is only affecting him and he is the one who has acted like a pratt.

As a complete opposite to this, my mums neighbour asked about having some of her trees topped as they were blocking the lighting into their garden.  They asked in a perfectly reasonable way and said if it she didn't want to it was no problem, the result was that the trees were topped inside a week and the neighbours are happy.  They asked nicely and are decent neighbours, if they had been agressive and shouting the trees would have stayed on principle.  We all need to get along but its a two way street.

Alan2020

Looking at this picture, sadly looks like you may be getting a bill via his insurance.  Assuming his garage wall is right up to your boundary (that is not inside your land) you have absolutely no right or permission to attach to or support off it.  You can build another wall right up to it, but not taking support off it.

Any reasonable person won't grow strawberries in soil against his wall.  A bit of common sense will help, you are using his wall as a planter to grow £2 worth of crops causing him £1000s of damage.  The police don't get involved in this sort of stuff and things like this, you will be at fault after the neighbour has informed you of the issues caused.

Think about this, if the neighbour brought a furnace against the other side of your wall and balsted it to 2000C and your wall glows red hot, would you be OK, if he told you to insulate it with fireclay as you could?  The law would be on your side as it would be on his side on this case, I think there is an old English case of water running off into someones land.

I personally would offer to help remove it and make amends.

Edited to add, early case law;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_v_Fletcher
If you pile up soil and water against his wall, you will be strictly liable as far as I can tell.  In reality his £xxxx claim from his insurance will go to your insurance company, who will payout and then hike up your house insurance cost and log a claim against it.  If you continue planting strawberries, they will try and recover their losses from you.

Simon20203

Alan2020 said:

Looking at this picture, sadly looks like you may be getting a bill via his insurance.  Assuming his garage wall is right up to your boundary (that is not inside your land) you have absolutely no right or permission to attach to or support off it.  You can build another wall right up to it, but not taking support off it.

Any reasonable person won't grow strawberries in soil against his wall.  A bit of common sense will help, you are using his wall as a planter to grow £2 worth of crops causing him £1000s of damage.  The police don't get involved in this sort of stuff and things like this, you will be at fault after the neighbour has informed you of the issues caused.

Think about this, if the neighbour brought a furnace against the other side of your wall and balsted it to 2000C and your wall glows red hot, would you be OK, if he told you to insulate it with fireclay as you could?  The law would be on your side as it would be on his side on this case, I think there is an old English case of water running off into someones land.

I personally would offer to help remove it and make amends.

Edited to add, early case law. 
If you pile up soil and water against his wall, you will be strictly liable as far as I can tell.  In reality his £xxxx claim from his insurance will go to your insurance company, who will payout and then hike up your house insurance cost and log a claim against it.  If you continue planting strawberries, they will try and recover their losses from you.

Thanks for the comments - however if my neighbour never removed my fence I can't see how my plant bed would be causing him an issue - there was always a small strip of land on my side enclosed by the fence. He did not need to remove the fence except to gain access to the wall to pebble dash it. 

He did not remove the wall before this stage of the build and treat it with anything, as he built from within his side. But he claimed it fell apart when he removed it. It was five years ago so I don't know if I can demand he return the fence to its original place? The fence showed no sign of damp but i know the ones that we replaced when we moved in had some of the horizontal slats fall down where broken, but the panels he removed had all slats In place before he removed them but I can understand these most likely could of fell (creating holes and gaps)  in the removal (he also never asked permission or notified me of removing the fence). I can see I should of demanded he replace them there and then but I did want to create hostility with new neighbours and the wall has a nice bright appearance to it. 

And I still have the same problem where his solution is not adequate to me as it only seems to have the intention to run the ground and surface water into my yard and down my wall - his solution is not going to provide a proper form of drainage but is the cheapest solution to him. I want to use the wall to build up into a garage (as other neighbours have done) and I can't have water being directed into it and behind it. 

My reseeach seems to suggest that if he does divert water into my land this way then I would have a nuisance claim against him and or an interference claim. 

Can I request he has a professional of some sort assess the issue and come up with a proper solution?

Thanks

[Deleted User]

Thing is with these neighbour disputes, its rarely 'just' one person being awful. there's usually two stubborn parties to some degree or other and then the problem escalates.  You can't have an argument unless two people are getting angry or defensive lol.  Personally I think an earlier suggestion of replacing the wall with a fence, against his garage and putting either proper wooden planters against the fence (would make strawberries easier to get and you could have planters against this fence the whole way along the length if you wanted.  

Of course, you shouldn't have to replace the fence that shouldn't have had to be removed but it quite likely was damaged at the bottom if its a water runway for water off the hill. It might be worth the hassle in the long run, and get you something quite pleasant looking for your plants. 

I've actually done much the same against a fence I have.  Robert Dyas has some really nice raised planters at reduced prices at the moment although I suspect their delivery isn't quick.  This way you both get something out of the change.  I am starting to get a lot of pleasure out of my weeny garden now I've figured out ways to get some flowers and veg etc plants in there (I have dogs so they couldn't just be placed in the ground).

A dog I have was causing some problems ., not often but enough for a couple of people to express concern that he could climb over the five foot fence.  No way that was going to happen (german shepherd dog)!.  One was really nasty, wouldn't let me reply at all while she shouted at me and I am afraid I felt she was being unreasonable and just walked away in the end.  But my next door neighbour was really nice and I realised it wasn't a one off incident.  I did something about the problem that very day (put some 6ft willow fencing I had against the wooden fence). If the other lady hadn't been shouting and screaming I would have been able to ask her some questions and realised it was more of a problem than I realised. It turned out when I went shopping my older son was putting the dog outside and forgetting he was there. Which I also dealt with.  So I do understand how difficult it can be to deal with outraged neighbours lol.  Because its made me concentrate on making it harder for my dog to peer over the fence I now have a much nicer garden myself, solved two problems in one sort of thing.  The shouting lady might have vented but it solved nothing.Obviously it was my fault for not realising what was happening but I wouldn't want anyone frightened of my dog so once I knew what the problem I sorted it.  Shouty lady wasn't able to give me the information to sort the problem out, she became the problem (scared me half to death lol).  

If he is calm enough later, (cake approach is often suggested on here) you might be able to get him to agree to pay for some of the fence costs as he removed your fence.  But will have to be handled carefully i.e. 'lets see if we can work out a solution together' approach.

Then this could all just go away, even if right is on your side.  Sometimes compromise can work better than right fighting and most certainly be less costly in the long run than having you each running off to solicitors with a stressed wife on her own, possibly worried about having to deal with this neighbour.

Simon20203

deannatrois said:

Thing is with these neighbour disputes, its rarely 'just' one person being awful. there's usually two stubborn parties to some degree or other and then the problem escalates.  You can't have an argument unless two people are getting angry or defensive lol.  Personally I think an earlier suggestion of replacing the wall with a fence, against his garage and putting either proper wooden planters against the fence (would make strawberries easier to get and you could have planters against this fence the whole way along the length if you wanted.  

Of course, you shouldn't have to replace the fence that shouldn't have had to be removed but it quite likely was damaged at the bottom if its a water runway for water off the hill. It might be worth the hassle in the long run, and get you something quite pleasant looking for your plants. 

I've actually done much the same against a fence I have.  Robert Dyas has some really nice raised planters at reduced prices at the moment although I suspect their delivery isn't quick.  This way you both get something out of the change.  I am starting to get a lot of pleasure out of my weeny garden now I've figured out ways to get some flowers and veg etc plants in there (I have dogs so they couldn't just be placed in the ground).

The big dog I have was causing some problems ., not often but enough for a couple of people to express concern.  One was really nasty and I am afraid I ignored her but my next door neighbour was really nice and I realised it wasn't a one off when I had someone look after the dogs while I was away for three days - I did something about the problem that very day. If the other lady hadn't been shouting and screaming I would have been able to ask her some questions and realised it was more of a problem than I thought.  So I do understand how difficult it can be to deal with outraged neighbours lol.  And because its made me concentrate on making it harder for my dogs to peer over the fence I now have a much nicer garden myself, solved two problems in one sort of thing.

If he is calm enough later, (cake approach is often suggested on here) you might be able to get him to agree to pay for some of the fence costs as he removed your fence.  But will have to be handled carefully i.e. 'lets see if we can work out a solution together' approach.

Then this could all just go away, even if right is on your side.  Sometimes compromise can work better than right fighting and most certainly be less costly in the long run than having you each running off to solicitors with a stressed wife on her own, possibly worried about having to deal with this neighbour.

Diplomacy is always the best option, which is what we would like to achieve via written correspondence as I dont think it would be possible to have a reasonable conversation with this neighbour - he is an older gentleman who has worked in a quarry his whole life and is pretty 'rough round the edges'. We also live in northern Ireland and he has a very broad country accent which I can barely make out and he mumbles things. 

I've added a panoramic of the yard so you can see how the whole yard is enclosed with this retaining wall (all three sides encase the yard - high at the back and sloping down to the drives/road).

All the houses along our side of the road except our neighbours are built with this wall and it is aesthetically pleasing.

Removing the wall could cause major damage as it is support for holding the rest of the wall up at the rear and there is alot of ground behind it and also up through the gap itself. It would be major undertaking and cost to remove it.

And this is the base for our future garage as well. Builders have said we can just build the wall up. And the wall would have to sit here if you actually want to be able to drive the car into the garage up the driveway. If I took if down and replaced with a fence then the future garage wall would sit over to the left more and I couldn't drive the car into the garage as the rear corner of the house would be in the way.

If I remove the flower bed and build a water proof planter into the space I can't see how he can blame my plants for his damp (I.e. There will be no soil in the space but instead planters will sit on top of the concrete wall that exists in the gap - I can put three separate staggered planters in built to fit each space - my father is a joiner/carpenter) and the builders who I know, that have looked at it says it is not the source of his damage - they say the damp is coming from the large hillside his garage is built into without any damp course or a cavity wall. 

Thanks. 

Simon20203

The rear yard

Alan2020

Indeed you are correct, diplomacy is the way to go.
Honestly not worth the agro.  A picture looking up the border between yours and his can be more useful.  The issue is water from his roof isn't falling on your land.  Are his soffits overhanging your land?  How do you know the fence is yours (I don't mean if you know, but legally i.e on deeds?)  Like in our 60s property, the deeds clearly say who owns which fence, both left and right for our house, just one side for the neighbour etc Back to a different neighbour.

If the deeds don't show, and you don't know whose fence it is, don't get involved in some costly argument without checking out the facts.  People on here are very helpful, post pictures of the plan from you deeds, etc and they can give good advice.  Then you can print these things, go invite him for a drink and ask of his damp issues etc, go through and explain stuff.  Most people who are physically tough are actually quite soft, you should be worried of the smaller ones, they make up for the lack of toughness in aggression.  Good luck!

Simon20203

Alan2020 said:

Indeed you are correct, diplomacy is the way to go.
Honestly not worth the agro.  A picture looking up the border between yours and his can be more useful.  The issue is water from his roof isn't falling on your land.  Are his soffits overhanging your land?  How do you know the fence is yours (I don't mean if you know, but legally i.e on deeds?)  Like in our 60s property, the deeds clearly say who owns which fence, both left and right for our house, just one side for the neighbour etc Back to a different neighbour.

If the deeds don't show, and you don't know whose fence it is, don't get involved in some costly argument without checking out the facts.  People on here are very helpful, post pictures of the plan from you deeds, etc and they can give good advice.  Then you can print these things, go invite him for a drink and ask of his damp issues etc, go through and explain stuff.  Most people who are physically tough are actually quite soft, you should be worried of the smaller ones, they make up for the lack of toughness in aggression.  Good luck!

My wife's father has the deeds in his safe and is shielding atm so I intend to get them as soon as, to see if any further calarity can be provided. But I do know the smaller wall dividing the properties is mine and is marked with a 'T' I believe. The fence however is more speculation... However on the top pad of land we each still retain original fencing - mines faces into my garden and his faces Into his I.e. Back to back. The fence was a fixed to my wall so I don't know if thia means the 'T' also signifies the fence belongs to me? but there is nothing specifically that mentions the fence that I can remember. 

The panels on my side are the same style and look as the ones he removed whereas the his fence on his side is totally different. Mine were all painted the same colour as well, his were bare in colour. So logically the last house to be built (my neighbour) isn't going to put up a fence and face the nice side into us and then put up another fence on their side, facing into them, if that makes sense. 

I believe his facia does encroach into my airspace marginally but so minor it is not something I would wish to argue about.

He did have the intention of building his garage the other way around, so that the gable end would face out towards the front like most garages would be built, but we had to remind him that if he were to put guttering on our side then he would be encroaching into our space where we intend our guttering to hang. He took this on board at the time and as such built the gable end towards us which only has the small facia hanging out. This is the opposite as all the other garages in the cul-de-sac, but as he built the foundation very quickly and gave us no notice of where he was planning to put them it was only once we returned home one day that we could see he did not leave enough space for his guttering and informed him.

I will hopefully be able to get the deeds in the next two weeks once the in laws shielding is up and will post on here for further clarity but from memory they are very hard to read in parts, but will scan for any words relating to the wooden fence. 

Alan2020

Good to look at the deeds, always good to be armed with facts.

The  T sign just means fence on a drawing, nothing in deeds suggests which way it should face to denote ownership.  The general practice is for the good side of the fence to face outside of the person putting the fence, this has nothing to do with ownership again, but to give security as you generally cannot climb up using the good side of a fence.  Obviously this doesn't matter if you have neighbours.

Regarding airspace if trivial not worth the aggro.  Perhaps the first constructive step is to introduce the boundary and set it properly, use concrete posts or wall.  I always do this on any property before renovations, as flimsy posts are always a target to move the boundary.  Also don't let things take ages, should have sorted the fence issue ages ago.
In my previous property, on the side of the neighbour whose responsibility was to maintain the fence refused to, so our house previous owners put their own fence and maintained it.  so its important to know the history.  When I moved I discovered the lady living there was house rich but poor, so living on white bread etc, so understood why she didn't put up a fence, but I just renewed it without asking a penny from her.  Obviously she was very happy and helped me to paint!  Saying that, because I did all this, I achieved the highest price on the street of identical ward homes lol

So sometimes make an advantage of the situation to make your house better.  Love the little car, I am sure your little ones will soon try to do a jump from the top he he.  You can put a spiral slide down the side of his garage for them.