Retaining wall liability & title deeds

HodgsonJames

Yep I think that’s the way it’s going. It’s going to be a nightmare as he’s already turned down RICS resolution service. There are 7 or 8 neighbouring boundaries to his and to get deeds sorted is going to need input from all - one’s a pub and breweries are notorious for dragging things out.

I was hoping someone could point me in the direction of something that would at least make him more likely to agree to moderation between us all. I really really don’t want to have to involve solicitors in the row because that’s just burning money and in my experience you might as well flip a coin and all agree to honour the result. (Which he wouldn’t agree to anyway.)

Ok going to speak to my home insurance re legal assistance, inform all the neighbours as to what’s going on and see what happens.

Davesnave

Mistral001 said:

I know I get shot down on this forum about seeking professional help, but surely this is something that you need paid for legal advice on. 

  If there's a number of persons involved, the shared cost of an initial consultation should be reasonable. It might give the OP a definitive answer, but I doubt it. I don't think the OP has stated there is anything other than these 'H' marks to rely on; in other words the responsibility hasn't been defined anywhere. That's extremely vague.

So, even if the neighbour can be argued to have some liability, that doesn't mean he will acquiesce and pay up whenever there's a bill. Life and boundary disagreements are rarely so simple. For a start, there's proportionality , not to mention the possibility of arguing over whether any work was necessary in the first place.

On my title documents, it says I'm liable for 10% of the repair costs on our private road between points A and C shown on the title plan. That's the sort of clarity needed to be sure of a result.

Mistral001

I suspect the legal advice that this neigbour is getting is steering him away from moderation and wanting him to go down the court route.  His solicitor is probably telling him that moderation will cost him whereas the courts are free.  Which is actually true if he wins his case. 

HodgsonJames

Even if he ‘wins’ he’s going to have to give a little because if it is ruled that the 6 houses above him are fully liable we’re going to need clear access to the full wall to carry out any inspections or maintenance which there isn’t at the moment because of his extension.

Davesnave

HodgsonJames said:

Even if he ‘wins’ he’s going to have to give a little because if it is ruled that the 6 houses above him are fully liable we’re going to need clear access to the full wall to carry out any inspections or maintenance which there isn’t at the moment because of his extension.

Pardon? Are you proposing to demolish his extension to do maintenance?

Access for maintenance under difficult circumstances is provided by the Access to Neighbouring Land legislation, which you can look up. It's usually only used in extreme circumstances, but it's there.

HodgsonJames

If it turns out we are fully responsible and liable for the retaining wall how do you carry out inspection and works if you can’t access it because of a single story building built right up to but not touching the the wall.

Ectophile

HodgsonJames said:

If it turns out we are fully responsible and liable for the retaining wall how do you carry out inspection and works if you can’t access it because of a single story building built right up to but not touching the the wall.

If the wall is in danger of falling down, then one approach would be to get a digger in.  Dig a big trench befind the wall.  Pull the wall down into the trench.  Build a new wall.  Backfill all the soil you dug out earlier.

And if the wall isn't in danger of falling down, don't do anything.

stingey

Title Deeds can cause more issues than resolve especially if all of the Title Deeds in communal/shared areas have not been updated.  This sounds like what it might be especially if all of the neighbours Title Deeds show that they are responsible but the downstairs neighbour doesn't have it on theirs.  This happened with a family members property and they had to contact the Land Registry in Scotland to come out and investigate where responsibilities lie.  Eventually all relevant Title Deeds for all responsible neighbours were updated to show. 

The problem also lies where people put up garages/extensions/buildings etc and they aren't added to the Title Deeds.

It could be that yes he isn't responsible (sometimes this is just the way it is), just make sure you have plenty of liability insurance in place.  But if that is the case he needs to stay well away from the wall and stop cutting down vines on a wall he is not responsible for, only cutting back vines on his area.  He also needs to give you access to maintain/repair it.  Never fails to surprise me how people take it upon themselves to make amendments on other peoples properties because they think it's the right thing to do, but when they are presented with a bill for repairs they are suddenly not responsible. 

Davesnave

HodgsonJames said:

If it turns out we are fully responsible and liable for the retaining wall how do you carry out inspection and works if you can’t access it because of a single story building built right up to but not touching the the wall.

The time to worry about that was when the extension foundations went in. Presumably this neighbour complied with planning and committed no offence by building on his own land, or he'd have been reported to the council. Now, having made that choice, he must accept the consequences.

It's similar to the situation where two adjacent property owners do a rear extension and place buildings with an unmaintainable gap between them; not ideal, but very common.

HodgsonJames

Think last two comments here are what we have - deeds that were never updated despite changes made by neighbors and assumptions all round that ‘our deeds are sorted so no worries’

We’ve been advised to avoid litigation and use a Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Neighbour Dispute service which would carry out a site visit and deep background check of the area to come up with updated deeds for each property including liability - seems like a really good service and at £2500 shared between all seems a good deal. Unfortunately the neighbour in question has refused point blank to go though the service as ‘he’s very clear his deeds say nothing and so why does he need to pay into a third party service when he’s sure he has no liability and knows where his boundary is’

We’re speaking to our home insurers cause we have legal cover and are probably going to have to leave it to them!