Neighbour keeps his refuse bins on my property

AyJaydee

What should I do? My question concerns a property in England.

Please excuse the length of my question, it’s a complex issue and I don’t know who else to ask.

I own a small terrace house that is of the ‘coach-house’ style.  A coach-house is a property where the residence is on the 1st floor, above the entrance and garage.  There is also a vehicle accessway underneath the property to the block of garages behind, which all the residents have the right of passage over, to access their garages. 

I purchased the property from new and lived in it for a number of years, until I moved in with the lady I met and married. I now rent out my property to tenants. 

The problem is that my neighbour on one side keeps his refuse bins in this accessway, underneath the property and on my land. The previous owner of that house did the same and I had frequent confrontation with him over this. 

Shortly after the Grenfell fire tragedy (about 4 years ago), I decided to speak to my neighbour and knocked on his front door. I got no further that asking if he would please move his bins. He replied with the ‘traditional dismissal’ and slammed the door in my face. A minute later he rushed out to give me a tirade of more verbal abuse, followed by his wife, who did likewise.  

This left me very shaken, for I am not a big or assertive person and always prefer to avoid confrontation; I have Aspergers Syndrome and don’t cope with confrontation very well. Whereas this neighbour is very big and aggressive, he looks like someone who solves all his problems with his fists. 

I don’t go to my property very often, perhaps once a year to redecorate, but it galls me to see his bins on my property. The roof of the accessway, which is underneath the lounge, is lined with a plastic cladding and I see that the neighbour has a barbeque in his garden. I am worried that his bins could be the start of a fire. 

My property is freehold and I own it outright, I have a letter from Land Registry confirming that this area is my property, as indicated on the Registry Entry.  I also have a copy of the developers site plan, it shows that my neighbours designated bin space is in his garden. 

Should I: 

1.      Do nothing and try to ignore his bins?  Not living there, I cannot police it. But by  

doing so, could I be building up trouble for later? i.e. the neighbor claiming the right to do so and the other neighbours doing likewise.

2.      Sell the property and walk away from the problem?  The rental gives me a welcome income, I don’t think that I should sell it unless I needed to, also if I did sell it, not only would I lose the income, I would also be liable for Capital Gains Tax. I am due to retire this year, so money is a concern. As an aside to this issue, this is my second marriage and in the back of my mind is the thought that if anything went wrong, then I would not be left homeless; although having had this run-in with the neighbor, I would never go back to live there.

3.      Consult a solicitor and be prepared to go to war over this?  However, I believe that in doing so, the neighbour conflict would appear in a Conveyancing Search should I subsequently wish to sell and this could affect the prospect of a sale or the price.  I did speak with my property insurers about accessing the Legal Help aspect of my insurance, but since I had only recently switched to them, they denied responsibility for cover, so I would have to pay legal costs myself. 

4.      Write to him and explain why I want his bins moved. Although based on the evidence so far, I don’t think he would.

Please give me your thoughts on this difficult matter. I would appreciate hearing from as many people as possible, to see what consensus there is?

 

Thank you for your time.

 

user1977

AyJaydee said:

I believe that in doing so, the neighbour conflict would appear in a Conveyancing Search should I subsequently wish to sell and this could affect the prospect of a sale or the price.

There's no such thing as a search which discloses neighbour disputes. But is a standard question which you'll need to (honestly) answer.

Murphybear

What do your tenants think?  If they are not bothered about this then I would just leave it.  

Section62

There is a 5th option - although it won't make the neighbour like you very much, and you'll need to make sure your letting of the property is 100% legal (which a responsible landlord would be anyway) before embarking on it.

IMV (but INAL) technically the neighbour is breaking the law by keeping his* bins on your property and keeping/depositing his waste in them whilst they are there. There are various possible laws being broken, including the possibility what he is doing would amount to flytipping.

I would contact the council (subject to you being 100% legal yourself) and inform them of what the neighbour is doing - and that far from giving your consent, you have asked him to stop and have been met with an abusive response.

*Strictly speaking, the bins may belong to the council, so another line to consider is to ask them to remove their bins from your land.

A letter from the council telling the neighbour what their responsibilities are regarding the storing and disposal of waste - and the risk of getting a FPN/prosecuted - would be more effective (and at zero cost) than the other options.

If the council refuse to act then complain to your local councillor.

But don't expect any Christmas cards from the neighbour if you do this.

Section62

Murphybear said:

What do your tenants think?  If they are not bothered about this then I would just leave it.  

I wouldn't leave it - the neighbour could dump anything in (or around) the bins and deny responsibility for it.

Given the OP is letting the property, not living there themselves, the waste may consequently be classed as commercial rather than domestic, meaning they need to obtain the services of a commercial waste contractor to clear up the neighbour's mess.

Mardle

OP you mention the site plan showing the neighbours designated bin space in his garden but don't say where your bins are kept. Are they in your garden or in the accessway?

Ditzy_Mitzy

You need to be sensible with this one.  Firstly it's not 'your' house, it is the tenant's home until such time as his lease agreement comes to an end.  The tenant may not appreciate you stirring up trouble with his neighbour.  He's got to live there, don't forget; he doesn't have the luxury of being able to hop in his car and go somewhere else.  
Secondly, the property as described sounds rather like it might be a flying freehold.  Lots of buildings with access archways and so on are owned on such a basis.  Does your title deed include the road beneath the arch, or just the walls abutting it?  If so, your neighbours will have a right of access to the garages at the rear.  

wilfred30

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

You need to be sensible with this one.  Firstly it's not 'your' house, it is the tenant's home until such time as his lease agreement comes to an end.  The tenant may not appreciate you stirring up trouble with his neighbour.  He's got to live there, don't forget; he doesn't have the luxury of being able to hop in his car and go somewhere else.  
Secondly, the property as described sounds rather like it might be a flying freehold.  Lots of buildings with access archways and so on are owned on such a basis.  Does your title deed include the road beneath the arch, or just the walls abutting it?  If so, your neighbours will have a right of access to the garages at the rear.  

Of course it's the OP's house.  It doesn't cease to belong to them just because it's rented out.

Having a right of access through to the garages doesn't give them the right to keep their 'items' in the access way.

theartfullodger

The wife keeps our bins on neighbours land (both owner occupied).

Think you'll find bins are actually council's.

On an estate in Scotland (scheme in Scots, council estate in England) where I used to own 3 houses bins were mainly simply lined up next to pavements, up to 3 bins in a row.

princeofpounds

Don't fret too much about fires - that is a rather extreme hypothetical and makes it sounds like you are scraping around for a moral justification. Instead, just concentrate on whether the neighbour is legally permitted to store bins there or not - there is nothing wrong with not wanting other people's bins on your property without permission.

As Ditzy says, the first thing to check is whether you do actually own the land on which the bins are being stored. I appreciate you say your property is freehold, but you need to be sure the ground under your coach-house is also part of your title.

Then you also need to check his title and your title for any easements (clauses which give other properties rights over your property) that may relate to this. If you do own the ground, then there almost certainly will be some regarding vehicle access. It is not likely that there is anything related to bin storage given what you say about the development plan but again, worth checking.

Assuming that he has no legal basis for storing his bins there then there are three basic approaches, putting aside the physical removal of the bins as you are not there frequently enough.

One is contacting the council about fly tipping, as has already been suggested. This is potentially quite a powerful route; councils are active and do fine people. However, they will often not act if the tipping is on private land. Given the roadway under your property, you may find they will act on the assumption that this is being done on a public highway/pavement - it's not like they check title deeds every time they act - but they may refuse.

The next possibility is contacting the estate management, if such a thing exists. They may consider it fly-tipping on a communal area.

The final possibility is taking action yourself, through a solicitor. The ultimate legal remedy here would be to obtain an injunction, a court order banning the bins from your property. This often rather disproportionate for small issues, and carries a four-figure cost, but is powerful.

In reality however, a letter from a solicitor threatening such action and the possibility of some costs being reclaimed from the neighbour is often enough to solve things. And that is relatively cheap and means you do not need to write anything yourself.

Yes, it becomes a declarable dispute, but if you win then it is not such a big deal. If you sell five years down the line you can say that you had to enforce the removal of bins from the property and it hasn't been a problem for the five years since. Most people would take a view that problem is settled. Maybe not all, but enough.

Only you can really decide the pros/cons of whether it is worth fighting this. A good proportion of people would probably let this go, given it is a rental property. I personally wouldn't, but I'm comfortable with legal fights and spending money on it.

Also, don't be such a wimp over confrontation if you can help it. I'm not saying go challenge them in person, but all they have done is caused a lot of noise to intimidate you and so far it has worked. 

theoretica

If the accessway is yours, and wide enough that the bins do not obstruct the right of way then could you make it narrower so there is no room there for the bins? Would the deeds allow? It might have to be something that could be removed if a larger vehicle did need access, but not so easy to remove that the neighbour would just shift it - and ideally something that looked like a genuine use of the space and not just blocking it off for pettiness...