bowing retaining wall with adjoining elevated neighbour garden - selling the house

geronimo787

eddddy said:

I suspect the single skin brickwork is just decorative - it's been built to hide the 'real' retaining wall, which might be ugly concrete, for example.

As you say, responsibility for the retaining wall depends on whether

• A previous owner of your house lowered the garden ground level, and built the retaining wall, or
• A previous owner of the neighbour's house raised their garden ground level, and built the retaining wall

(But even if you conclude it's the neighbour's responsibility - your neighbour might disagree and/or they might not care! If it comes to it, would you be prepared to take your neighbour to court?)

Maybe start by having a discussion with your neighbour about it, to see if they think it's their responsibility or yours. Or maybe suggest a 50/50 split.

the house is tenanted and when we discussed with the owner a couple of years back, their view was that as the boundary wall is a double skin at the start and then it progresses to become a single skin completely on our side rather than in the middle of the double skin, it is 100% our responsibility.

I suppose we wound't mind taking our neighbour to court (so to speak), but as we might want to sell soon, we don't want to go down any dispute path that could take years to resolve and then you are finding yourself selling a house which is amidst of a dispute

geronimo787

Section62 said:

The SE should be one who has some retaining structure experience, but most will.  Really it is a case of finding one who has an interest in small retaining structures, rather than a specialist as such.

Be prepared to write off the cost of the SE if you ultimately find the neighbour is responsible for the wall - this part of the process is solely about your peace of mind and mapping out your next steps.

No.  The wall needs looking at by a structural engineer.  "Ground works experts" won't have the expertise to diagnose the problem and write a report which may later be needed for legal action.  Also, contractors are very unlikely to the trouble of employing a SE to design a wall just for the purpose of providing a quote. So their views on the depth of foundations/widths/heights etc won't be of much value.

extremely helpful pointers here, thanks!

geronimo787

eddddy said:

I suspect the single skin brickwork is just decorative - it's been built to hide the 'real' retaining wall, which might be ugly concrete, for example.

sorry forgot to say, it is not decorative, some bricks are not there and you can see the soil behind

benson1980

We've gone through the process of building retaining walls  with one of our previous houses (expensive but it looks like you already appreciate that), and also buying a house with a boundary dispute, partly involving a retaining wall.

For the former, first step we took as already suggested was structural engineer and drawings albeit the builder organised this. This included a drainage spec.

With our purchase, a ropey retaining wall between the house and a neighbour was picked up by our survey and we took steps to establish ownership. Luckily as part of the dispute, our neighbours had accepted full responsibility for maintenance and this is now recorded on the deeds. It would also be to their detriment (mostly) if it failed as our ground is higher and would essentially collapse into their driveway that they have right alongside the boundary. It definitely wasn't ideal and we fully appreciate when it actually comes to getting them to repair it, this may well be a struggle. So...it can definitely affect value, if a surveyor picks up on it. The aforementioned boundary dispute went on for years and must have cost a ridiculous amount of money, which on reflection it must have been more cost effective just to put that towards building costs to actually repair the boundary. I also can't envisage in your scenario how a court would go about deciding ownership in one persons favour without precedent or willingness of one party to accept that they own it.

Long and short of the above- it sounds like an issue that a surveyor will pick up on if obviously in a bad state of repair. Whilst a lot of people don't realise the significant costs of repairing/building them, the surveyor will and I'd imagine you will therefore have problems selling without it being resolved, or a hefty discount will be requested. If it is repaired to a standard, it may not get mentioned. The house we sold with a significant retaining wall structure (driveway on a slope which added massively to the property value with the addition of off road parking), where we spent tens of thousands of pounds speccing it properly, and were able to proudly present documents and calculations as and when asked- wasn't even raised as a query by purchasers, solicitors, or surveyor. I presume as it appeared solid. Did seem odd to me that no-one bothered to check anything about the significant building work we had done....so perhaps the moral of that part of the story is don't assume potential buyers will make intrusive checks with your structural calcs and building work if the wall looks ok.