Neighbour drilling into my wall?

safara

Hi All
I live in a detached house, but one wall of the house is along the boundary of next door.
Can they just drill into it to hang washing lines etc? It is not a simple wall between the two properties, but my house. What if they cause some damagae that would lead to something affecting inside my house?
Cheers
Safara

grumpy_codger

I'm pretty sure they do need your permission, but you'll have hard time trying to enforce this.

Personally, I'd ask a permission if I needed to do this, but wouldn't mind if it was my wall and just some washing lines.

Mutton_Geoff

grumpy_codger said:

I'm pretty sure they do need your permission, but you'll have hard time trying to enforce this.

Personally, I'd ask a permission if I needed to do this, but wouldn't mind if it was my wall and just some washing lines.

They won't have any problem enforcing it. If it were me, I'd insist on it being removed. What next? Some trellis, some shelves, a lean to?

Brie

Your house, your wall, your rules.  But you might want to come to some agreement about what is reasonable.  

If my neighbour want to drill into ours to put up a gate between our properties I'm likely to be fine.  

If they want to drill to put up hanging baskets I'm less likely to be happy about it.

ThisIsWeird

Hi Safara.
No, they should not drill into your wall without your express permission. To do so without asking is staggeringly presumptuous and entitled behaviour - 'though possibly just ignorance - and it should be avoided for a number of reasons.
Whilst screwing a single eye hook for a clothes line into an exterior wall skin is very unlikely to cause physical problems, more substantial items such as the trellis mentioned by MGeoff above could trap water and cause damp. Again, even if unlikely, why on earth would you take the risk when it isn't even for your benefit?
Noise - (definitely never entertain letting anyone attach a gate post to your house!). Even a clothes line carries the risk of resonance and other vibrations being audible inside your house. Irrelevant whether this is likely or not - why on earth would you entertain the possibility?!
And, possibly the main reason - when you come to sell, expect the discovery of such attachments to cause consternation in your potential buyers.
Can you force them to remove it? Of course you can. And if you have Legal Protection included in your insurance policy, it should be a breeze.
So, do you?

grumpy_codger

Mutton_Geoff said:

grumpy_codger said:

I'm pretty sure they do need your permission, but you'll have hard time trying to enforce this.

Personally, I'd ask a permission if I needed to do this, but wouldn't mind if it was my wall and just some washing lines.

They won't have any problem enforcing it.

How exactly? E.g. I don't see how small claims court can help as the monetary value of the damage is negligibly small. The police usually don't want to know as it's civil matter, not crime (?). They are far too busy with more serious problems.

TheGreenFrog

grumpy_codger said:

How exactly? E.g. I don't see how small claims court can help as the monetary value of the damage is negligibly small. The police usually don't want to know as it's civil matter, not crime (?). They are far too busy with more serious problems.

Remedy is court injunction - I think that injunction claims can be allocated to small claims track if court thinks appropriate.  But I doubt very much it would come to that.

Mutton_Geoff

Brie said:

Your house, your wall, your rules.  But you might want to come to some agreement about what is reasonable.  

If my neighbour want to drill into ours to put up a gate between our properties I'm likely to be fine.  

If they want to drill to put up hanging baskets I'm less likely to be happy about it.

I'd be more worried about a gate as the slamming of it when it is physically attached to a wall is likely to cause noise inside the house. Our side gates are fixed to posts in the ground so neither neighbour is disturbed by banging.

grumpy_codger said:

How exactly? E.g. I don't see how small claims court can help as the monetary value of the damage is negligibly small. The police usually don't want to know as it's civil matter, not crime (?). They are far too busy with more serious problems.

"Hello Mr Neighbour, I'm awfully sorry to trouble you, but would you mind removing the fixing from my property and make good? If unable, I'm more than happy to get a contractor in to do this work and pass you the invoice". I would think the neighbour knows full well but is trying it on. Enforcing something doesn't mean legal redress at the outset, it simply means ensuring people around you know where your boundaries lie.

safara

Many thanks for the comments people

Hmmm - there is trellis as well screwed to the wall. The issue is that all of this was there before we bought the place - it is not a new thing. Kinda hard to broach it now.

ThisIsWeird

safara said:

Many thanks for the comments people

Hmmm - there is trellis as well screwed to the wall. The issue is that all of this was there before we bought the place - it is not a new thing. Kinda hard to broach it now.

Do you have LegProt?

EssexExile

safara said:

Many thanks for the comments people

Hmmm - there is trellis as well screwed to the wall. The issue is that all of this was there before we bought the place - it is not a new thing. Kinda hard to broach it now.

I'd just leave it. Getting into a dispute with neighbours is much worse than a couple of little things screwed to your wall.