Neighbour split the Communal Garden.

_Penny_Dreadful

Blueeyes1965 said:

_Penny_Dreadful said:

I gathered you were in Scotland when you said, "Home owner Scotland." In Scotland a factor is a person or firm charged with superintending or managing properties and estates especially in the case of tenements however some owners, such as in the case of my tenement, who decide to self-manage.  If there's a factor looking after the communal areas that will include the garden so get in contract with them.

Thank you, I wasn’t  sure what that meant. Unfortunately no factor in place. 

Now might be a good time to get to know your neighbours then as there will come a time when some maintenance or repairs are required in a communally owned part of the building.  Under One Roof is a good resource that my neighbours and I use.

https://underoneroof.scot/

The Title Deeds will tell you who owns the garden.  Another occupant can't just take it upon themselves to claim exclusive use of part of it.  Personally this is the kind of behaviour I would try to nip in the bud.  If you have legal cover with your home insurance then you could try giving them a call or you can contact CAB as suggested and see what they say but my feeling is that you will either need to go the legal route or the council route.  There's also mediation you could try.

JReacher1

Personally if I shared a communal yard with four other people would prefer it to be converted into four fenced off smaller yards for privacy. If you don’t get on then must be awkward if you’re both sat in the yard together. 

Blueeyes1965

JReacher1 said:

Personally if I shared a communal yard with four other people would prefer it to be converted into four fenced off smaller yards for privacy. If you don’t get on then must be awkward if you’re both sat in the yard together. 

Sounds ideal but unfortunately the yard is so small if it were split 4 ways there wouldn’t be room to sit a sectioned part.

_Penny_Dreadful

JReacher1 said:

Personally if I shared a communal yard with four other people would prefer it to be converted into four fenced off smaller yards for privacy. If you don’t get on then must be awkward if you’re both sat in the yard together. 

I share a communal garden with my neighbours and it works very nicely.  Actually it is really a drying green and we also share what was the old wash house.  Sectioning it off would leave us with spaces too small to really do anything with but sharing means we have more useable space.  We have barbecues together in the summer and have been growing communal vegetables and herbs.  It was a life saver during lockdowns.

Devongardener

user1977 said:

The neighbour isn't going to gain any ownership rights merely by occupying the garden. But I would still take steps to sort it out.

The landlord might be considering adverse possession if the fence is allowed to remain,  probably wouldn’t be successful though but an annoying hassle for the OP

user1977

Devongardener said:

user1977 said:

The neighbour isn't going to gain any ownership rights merely by occupying the garden. But I would still take steps to sort it out.

The landlord might be considering adverse possession if the fence is allowed to remain,  probably wouldn’t be successful though but an annoying hassle for the OP

Adverse possession in Scotland would require them to register a title first. The Land Register isn't going to allow that in this sort of situation. So no chance of it being successful.

saajan_12

Aside from the legal / adverse possession aspect (which I know little about for Scotland), what do you want to happen in the meantime? I would think sharing a communal garden with 2 others or 3 others isn't much different, so no benefit to you in this one neighbour sectioning off and reducing the shared space. 

Would it deter future buyers if there is a sectioned off part (depending on what shape it is)? 

Blueeyes1965

saajan_12 said:

Aside from the legal / adverse possession aspect (which I know little about for I Scotland), what do you want to happen in the meantime? I would think sharing a communal garden with 2 others or 3 others isn't much different, so no benefit to you in this one neighbour sectioning off and reducing the shared space. 

Would it deter future buyers if there is a sectioned off part (depending on what shape it is)? 

I think I’m more worried about the selling side as I think it would look “messy” as in all is good when split until the neighbour perhaps changes his mind again… so it’s a worry that I could get used to the space and it gets changed as quick as it appears.