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MalMonroe

"[DELETED USER] said:

Not looking forward to telling the neighbors the bad news. Maybe I should just demolish the garage and plead ignorance when part of their house falls down too."

Couldn't you involve the council in this? It's my understanding that whenever anyone wants to extend a property that may (and in some cases may not) directly and adversely affect a neighbour, they have to submit official planning permission. Then their neighbour has to be informed formally, in writing, by the council. Then the council waits for comments to be submitted before going back to the person wanting to extend with their answer, yay or nay. It happened to me about 20 years ago when I lived in a detached property and my neighbours wanted to extend their property sideways up to my boundary. I didn't object as thought, well what harm can it do? but later regretted that decision! They were lovely people but exceptionally thoughtless, noisy and careless. I moved.

The fact that your neighbour (previous one) by-passed the council completely, didn't apply for planning permission and just had the work done without telling you anything or getting any permission means that the council could very well order your neighbours to remove it and make good, no matter who had it built.

Do this properly, don't follow the lead of a neighbour who has now left. At least contact the council and discuss it with them first before telling anyone any 'bad news'. Your neighbours could choose to ignore you completely. You need the weight of the council behind you!

MalMonroe

frayedknot said:

Thing is, if your garage is up to the boundary your neighbours have just as much right to build up to it. Your house will still be a semi because garages aren't rooms.

No, they don't have as much right at all. The previous neighbours should have obtained planning permission from the council, who should have asked the OP for comments and opinion before permission was given for any work to be carried out at all. Previous neighbours omitted to obtain planning permission.

Davesnave

The council will not help you if this was done long ago.

We don't know enough to establish if it would be viewed as an outbuilding, extension, permitted development etc, but the time for any enforcement is long gone. Once something like this has stood for 4 years without objection and coming to planners' notice, the requirement for planning permission no longer applies.

What matters, as I tried to emphasise earlier, is whether the garage wall is within the OP's land, or if it could perhaps be viewed as a party wall. They might need a surveyor to determine that, or it might be clear from the title plan, but either way we don't know.

TELLIT01

I don't know if the term 'Link Detached' is still commonly used.  It was used where detached houses had garages between them, attached to both buildings.  The houses certainly aren't semis but aren't totally detached from other properties either.

Jeepers_Creepers

How long has the new neighb been living there, mojo?

And how long does a buyer have to make a complaint about an incorrectly-completed SIP? I presume the original neighbs fibbed when they filled in the 'Are you aware of any planning/BC breaches...' section? I wonder if your new neighb could tackle the vendors?

Mojo, I think you need to decided whether to live with this or tackle it. What issues concern you about it? Selling your property? You wish to build an extension/convert your garage? Insurance cover due to inaccurate description (no longer 'detached')?

Weigh that up with the worst case scenario for your neighbour - they'll need to build their own wall there to keep it separate from yours, so a bit of work and ~6" of lost space.

Your concerns should be easy to explain to them.

Do you have LP on your home insurance? If you are going to tackle it, then call them up for advice in the first instance, and action if needed.

[Deleted User]

Jeepers_Creepers said:

How long has the new neighb been living there, mojo?

And how long does a buyer have to make a complaint about an incorrectly-completed SIP? I presume the original neighbs fibbed when they filled in the 'Are you aware of any planning/BC breaches...' section? I wonder if your new neighb could tackle the vendors?

Mojo, I think you need to decided whether to live with this or tackle it. What issues concern you about it? Selling your property? You wish to build an extension/convert your garage? Insurance cover due to inaccurate description (no longer 'detached')?

Weigh that up with the worst case scenario for your neighbour - they'll need to build their own wall there to keep it separate from yours, so a bit of work and ~6" of lost space.

Your concerns should be easy to explain to them.

Do you have LP on your home insurance? If you are going to tackle it, then call them up for advice in the first instance, and action if needed.

New owners been there 11 years.

As I said before, the issues are insurance cover being invalid due to incorrect description and loss of value because the properly is no longer semi-detached.

[Deleted User]

Davesnave said:

The council will not help you if this was done long ago.

We don't know enough to establish if it would be viewed as an outbuilding, extension, permitted development etc, but the time for any enforcement is long gone. Once something like this has stood for 4 years without objection and coming to planners' notice, the requirement for planning permission no longer applies.

What matters, as I tried to emphasise earlier, is whether the garage wall is within the OP's land, or if it could perhaps be viewed as a party wall. They might need a surveyor to determine that, or it might be clear from the title plan, but either way we don't know.

I would be surprised if it was a party wall. The title plan shows it on our land.

This 4 year rule doesn't seem right as we had no idea it had even been done until recently. Wasn't there some guy who tried that by hiding an entire house behind straw bales one time, and lost in court?

[Deleted User]

grumbler said:

frayedknot said:

Thing is, if your garage is up to the boundary your neighbours have just as much right to build up to it.

Apparently, it's not just built up to it, but "cemented to it" and with a "roof attached on one side to their wall".

We can only guess what on earth "cemented to it" means.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cemented

cement

verb
to put cement on a surface or stick things together using cement

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cemented
to unite by or as if by cement:
to cement stones to form a wall; to cement a relationship.

Hint: if you don't understand a word just type it into Google or dictionary.com.

troffasky

Davesnave said:

Once something like this has stood for 4 years without objection and coming to planners' notice, the requirement for planning permission no longer applies.

You don't get away with it just because you've managed to hide it for long enough:

https://www.wiplow.co.uk/featured-help/2018/4/26/the-curious-case-of-fidlers-castle-part-1-how-a-hidden-home-changed-planning-law
Although it's not entirely clear to me what has actually been built in the OP's case, planning might not even be relevant.

Davesnave

[DELETED USER] said:

Davesnave said:

The council will not help you if this was done long ago.

We don't know enough to establish if it would be viewed as an outbuilding, extension, permitted development etc, but the time for any enforcement is long gone. Once something like this has stood for 4 years without objection and coming to planners' notice, the requirement for planning permission no longer applies.

What matters, as I tried to emphasise earlier, is whether the garage wall is within the OP's land, or if it could perhaps be viewed as a party wall. They might need a surveyor to determine that, or it might be clear from the title plan, but either way we don't know.

I would be surprised if it was a party wall. The title plan shows it on our land.

This 4 year rule doesn't seem right as we had no idea it had even been done until recently. Wasn't there some guy who tried that by hiding an entire house behind straw bales one time, and lost in court?

If the neighbour's extension has encroached onto your land, they could  be forced to remove that part of the structure, but it's likely to take time and money to persuade them to do this. If you are sure of your facts and they're reluctant, you might 'assist' them, but you run the risk of being accused of criminal damage. It's far better to find an amicable way forward.

Yes, Mr (appropriately named ) Fidler concealed a mock castle behind hay bales and was forced to demolish it by his council:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-36445848

However, there's no evidence here that your neighbour's predecessors wilfully concealed what they had done.