Neighbor landscaped into shared alley and broke my fence!

mimosapudica

Hello all,
I am new here and livid. 
After lock down I visited my parent's home for a BBQ. I noticed that their neighbor had extended their garden into a shared alleyway and built a shed right up against my parents back fence. They had also leaned 6-7 planks of wood on my parent's fence.  My parents fence is now caving in and essentially broken by their neighbours back garden landscaping. 

To sum up:
1) neighbour built into shared alley way. 
2) neighbour built a shed that broke my parent's back fence.

Who should my parents speak to? They're elderly so i will need to research for them, hence this post. We have no idea how to handle this situation. 

Any steps or advice will be greatly appreciated. 

HampshireH

Who owns the alleyway?

Its not your fence either if you dont live there?

princeofpounds

The neighbour's actions affect three parties:
- The landowner of the alleyway
- Those people possession rights of way over the alleyway
- The owners of the fence that was damaged.

At the moment, we only know that your parents are the latter party. So if you could clarify the situation with regards to the first two points that would be very useful, as all this should be properly addressed in one go.

The basic situation for both the first two parties is that they can force the neighbour to clear the space they occupied. It may require a court injunction if they do not move voluntarily.

As for the fence - the neighbour has caused damage. You should nicely ask them to repair it. If they refuse, then you write a 'letter before action', then you proceed to small claims court. That's the theory. Just be aware that if your parents ever sell the property then they would have to declare a past neighbour dispute. 

AdrianC

The fence is falling over because somebody leant a few planks on it?
Must have been a pretty damn knackered fence.

mimosapudica

HampshireH said:

Who owns the alleyway?
Its not your fence either if you dont live there?

Hi, thanks for your reply. I looked at my parent's deed. the alley way does not belong to us. I assume it is public land that belongs to the council. 

mimosapudica

AdrianC said:

The fence is falling over because somebody leant a few planks on it?
Must have been a pretty damn knackered fence.

It is an old fence, but the fact is that the fence would still be standing if the neighbours did not break it by load and improper building.

getmore4less

mimosapudica said:

HampshireH said:

Who owns the alleyway?
Its not your fence either if you dont live there?

Hi, thanks for your reply. I looked at my parent's deed. the alley way does not belong to us. I assume it is public land that belongs to the council. 

you can't assume that.

Go look at the local planning portal  if you have a map interface there will be property marking so you can identify if the alley is separate, sometimes there is a map layer to identify council owned land or adopted features.
Sometimes it may be identified in other planning applications.

Land reg map interface can also identify any property within a clickable point/range if the path had a separate title is should show up in the list along side the 2 properties. .

HampshireH

My point is how do you know they arent using their land?

I have any alleyway behind my house. We each own the bit behind us. Ridiculous but there you go.

Anyone could own it.. including the neigbbour.

AdrianC

mimosapudica said:

AdrianC said:

The fence is falling over because somebody leant a few planks on it?
Must have been a pretty damn knackered fence.

It is an old fence, but the fact is that the fence would still be standing if the neighbours did not break it by load and improper building.

Until the next strong wind, by the sound of it.

Or until the next user of the alleyway felt a bit ill, lent against it, and fell through injuring themselves.

pramsay13

If the planks are still there go round and move them or ask the neighbours to.
Explain to them that they are causing your fence to lean over.
Push your own fence back a bit and stick something in the ground at the post to keep it up.
I think you are overcomplicating things.

ProDave

Yes just lean over and shove the planks off the fence.  It's not rocket science.