Neighbor landscaped into shared alley and broke my fence!

MoneySeeker1

Worth asking your local councillor if they can clarify who has the ownership of this alley (obviously including pointing out the shed is in your parents half of the back alley, as well as the neighbours half width).

Sometimes back alleys were put in at the time the houses were built on the one hand. On the other hand - there are sometimes cases (as I know from a previous house of mine) where the houses were built without back alleys and it was neighbour back wall backing up to neighbour back wall in the road behind. Then the Council came along and asked people if they wanted back alleys and people mainly agreed to it - that was then followed by the Council getting the land for those alleys by taking a couple of feet from the back end of the back yard in one road and then the matching couple of feet from the back end of the backyard in the road backing onto them. Thus it became the case that the whole (new) back alley belonged to the Council - though half the width had previously belonged to left-hand house and the other half of the width had previously belonged to right-hand house across the alley from them (as one walks up that alley).

Check it out and you'll know the position as to which of those is the case - original back alley (presumably owned by Council) or a newly-created back alley (which presumably had ownership of that bit of land transferred to the Council). Either way - chances are that the Council owns it and this back neighbour has built on Council land that is there for everyone's benefit.

EDIT; personally - I used to keep my dustbins in the left-hand half of the back alley on the land that had previously belonged to my house and the backing neighbour kept their dustbins on the other side of the back alley that had previously belonged to their house.
So I would say your parents need to put their property on their side of the alley (bang up against the bit of it that "neighbour in the wrong" has gone and put their shed on and they claim half of the backing alley land for themselves (as backing neighbour has done so). Of course the alley might be a "right of way" for other people - in which case the neighbours will have to be told by the Council to remove their shed (the sooner they better for this to be done) and your parents couldnt put anything out there either.

davidmcn

MoneySeeker1 said:

Worth asking your local councillor if they can clarify who has the ownership of this alley

Why go to the councillors? Would make more sense just to contact the estates department.

mimosapudica

MoneySeeker1 said:

Worth asking your local councillor if they can clarify who has the ownership of this alley (obviously including pointing out the shed is in your parents half of the back alley, as well as the neighbours half width).

Sometimes back alleys were put in at the time the houses were built on the one hand. On the other hand - there are sometimes cases (as I know from a previous house of mine) where the houses were built without back alleys and it was neighbour back wall backing up to neighbour back wall in the road behind. Then the Council came along and asked people if they wanted back alleys and people mainly agreed to it - that was then followed by the Council getting the land for those alleys by taking a couple of feet from the back end of the back yard in one road and then the matching couple of feet from the back end of the backyard in the road backing onto them. Thus it became the case that the whole (new) back alley belonged to the Council - though half the width had previously belonged to left-hand house and the other half of the width had previously belonged to right-hand house across the alley from them (as one walks up that alley).

Check it out and you'll know the position as to which of those is the case - original back alley (presumably owned by Council) or a newly-created back alley (which presumably had ownership of that bit of land transferred to the Council). Either way - chances are that the Council owns it and this back neighbour has built on Council land that is there for everyone's benefit.

EDIT; personally - I used to keep my dustbins in the left-hand half of the back alley on the land that had previously belonged to my house and the backing neighbour kept their dustbins on the other side of the back alley that had previously belonged to their house.
So I would say your parents need to put their property on their side of the alley (bang up against the bit of it that "neighbour in the wrong" has gone and put their shed on and they claim half of the backing alley land for themselves (as backing neighbour has done so). Of course the alley might be a "right of way" for other people - in which case the neighbours will have to be told by the Council to remove their shed (the sooner they better for this to be done) and your parents couldnt put anything out there either.

Hi, thank you for your indepth reply. I am asking my father to contact the council to find out who owns the alley way. The alley way runs through the back of people's gardens. My parents do not have anything like bins there. 
Thanks, 
Eric

MoneySeeker1

The title plan for your parents house too might shed some light on things - presumably they've got it? If they haven't got it - then it's only a few £s to get a copy from the Land Registry.

mimosapudica

ProDave said:

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

The fence was broken by the planks and the shed. "Shoving" the planks is not rocket science, and nor is it a solution.