Neighbour's new extension and effect on our property

Twisted_Animator

Hi everyone. Hopefully this is the correct forum for this!

We have a mid-terraced house that we rent out. Without our knowledge (or the tenants' as they were away), the neighbours started work on a new extension and in the process have caused damage and removal of a fence we paid for. They are claiming that as the fence was on their side of the wall (which they also claim is theirs), it belongs to them. 

We used to live there and the previous neighbour landlord had a very poor fence riddled with ivy rooted on their side, which in turn forced the dividing wall to lean over our garden. He aggressively claimed no responsibility and said it was our wall and our problem, so we eventually paid to get the wall redone and a strong fence added alongside their fence to re-add some much needed privacy. 

The new extension required the removal of one of our fence panels, and a couple of others at the end were damaged due to the builders removing a shed also riddled with ivy, and chucking the waste ivy over our side, obviously putting a lot of strain on them, especially during a later storm. The builders also trespassed into our garden multiple times without our/the tenants' permission to carry out work. 

The extension also sits partly on top of the dividing wall (single brick), with a distinct angle going close to our back door. As these are terraced houses, I expect there is some debate on the actual ownership of the wall, as our deeds just show a complete boundary around the whole house and garden. Having done some reading, it is likely that if it isn't fully our wall (left wall), at the very least it would be a party wall (shared responsibility). There is also some roofing materials sitting on the top of our back door guttering.

Does anyone have any suggestions/advice about how we approach this. As far as we are concerned, they damaged and removed some of our fence panels and posts. Do we have anything to highlight in the case of the extension being over the wall and there being no gap etc? Should we be claiming some type of compensation for them building on our land and encroaching on our space?

Thanks for reading.

Some pictures to hopefully demonstrate the situation.

Before  After  Wall 

grumbler

I think, if you mark the position of the inner party wall separating two houses, the middle of this wall will show you the exact position of the boundary that typically is perpendicular to the back wall.

MoreProbs

I was going to suggest the same - with terraced properties, it should be relatively easy to work out the near-exact location of the invisible border line that runs in the middle of your two houses, usually far more so than with detached houses.
How many houses in the terrace? Are they identical? Looking at both the front and back, can you work out where the inside of the shared house wall begins in yours and ends in theirs? Are the houses 'mirrored' - is each a symmetrical copy of the adjacent one? If so, do they have matching windows? Are the roofs divided by parapet(?) walls?
In short, can you work out where is the CENTRE of the wall that separates you and this neighb? If 'yes', that's pretty much your boundary line, so you can now look at whether they have either crossed it or caused damage to 'your' side.
And, do you have Legal Protection on your house insurance?

macman

Did they apply for PP to build this extension, unless it's under PD? If not, you can report it to the LA as a breach.
Did they serve a PWN on your tenants before commencing the work? If not, then there is little you can do after the event as there is no method to enforce this.
I'd focus on the alleged damage to your property and alleged encroachment over the legal boundary: dumping some garden waste on your side is trivial in comparison.
Yes, of course you can sue them if you wish, but such cases can be extremely expensive, and means that you would have to declare the dispute when you come to sell the property.

MikeJXE

Looking at the photo of your back door, if the party wall on your side is in line with the outside of your door frame it seems to me they are on your land 

twopenny

Offer to sell them the land they have encroached on.
You could name your price, no negotiation now it's done 

Permitted development or breach of would be the first way to go. It does look huge but that may be the angle of the photo

Twisted_Animator

Thanks all. Very useful information there.
I managed to find another picture pre-work, and it does look like the wall does separate the properties equally, so assume this is the standard party wall. I'm still trying to find a pic of the full height just to make sure it is fully central.

So if the boundary is the centre of this wall, they clearly have gone past the centre of that, albeit only by a smallish amount. Would we need to call in a surveyor to clarify this and suggest next steps?
(From the above, our fence is technically on their side then, even though it was originally built aside from the previous neighbours crap fence, so perhaps we have to ignore that bit now anyway, despite the original cost to us!)

MikeJXE

Looking at the old photo what is the distance  between the outside edge of both door frames, how thick is the wall between them ? Inside your door the wall looks to be about a couple of inches away from the edge of the door  frame. If the separating wall is single skin the boundary is the centre, if it's a double skin it's still the centre. Yes a surveyor would tell you better. 

Section62

Twisted_Animator said:

So if the boundary is the centre of this wall, they clearly have gone past the centre of that, albeit only by a smallish amount. Would we need to call in a surveyor to clarify this and suggest next steps?
(From the above, our fence is technically on their side then, even though it was originally built aside from the previous neighbours crap fence, so perhaps we have to ignore that bit now anyway, despite the original cost to us!)

From the photos I think the bigger problem you need to deal with is the quality of the build and the potential impact their work may have on the weathertightness of your house.

What we can see so far of their work it looks like a total bodge.  The latest 'before' picture shows there was another bodge on the roof junction to start with.

Can you share some pictures of what the roof above your back door looks like now?

I doubt they have (or will get) building control signoff for what they've built, which means on top of all the other potential issues, you didn't have the benefit of a BCO keeping an eye on the work and making sure the builders didn't do something which will allow rainwater into your roofspace or the party wall.

MikeJXE

It depends which building control officer they get 

Section62

MikeJXE said:

It depends which building control officer they get 

The oversight of any BCO has got to be an improvement on relying solely on the skils and expertise of a builder who constructs an extension diagonally across the top of an existing garden wall.

What was the thought process behind that choice?