Neighbour built lean to attached to garage

ThisIsWeird

Sister_Sister said:

Thanks everyone the garage was built when the house was built in the original location. It is one the very edge of land I own. 

The lean to from Googlemaps and the land registry was built before either we or the neighbours moved in. 

We do have legal cover who I called yesterday but haven’t called me back. 

I don’t have contact details for my sellers but I’ve written to them hoping that Royal Mail redirect will get my letter to them to ask for more information.
My concern is will this damage my wall either through the weight or perhaps the pipe butchery might cause damp in my garage. 

They also have this structure which they have said is fragile attached to my wall which anything from my drainpipe has to fall on.
I also don’t know it through leaving this perhaps unchallenged it somehow gives them a right to continue to attach things to my wall. 

I haven’t got much clue where things like this are concerned 

Well done for having LegProt. Let us know what they say.

Dustyevsky

AskAsk said:

Dustyevsky said:

Well, that's at least functional, assuming the pipe then discharges somewhere appropriate!

it is going into the drain pipe, so should be fine.

i think with these historic things, you can't really do much about it and in most cases it doesn't do any harm.  in fact it covers the side of the garage from the elements, so in a way, it isn't a bad thing.

Going down a legal route might prove protracted and expensive. There's also the known unknown regarding the sort of retaliation which might be forthcoming. Finally, there's also the failure to do due diligence on the part of the OP, though what they didn't do is probably extremely 'normal.'

If there is no physical down-side, my inclination would be to think of it as benign, at least until I knew exactly who I was dealing with.

Section62

Sister_Sister said:

It’s beautiful they’ve cut my drain pipe 

The main issue you'll have is when/if the gutter they've attached to your wall gets clogged with leaves/moss - as there's virtually no way of cleaning it out without removing their roof to do it.

AskAsk

Dustyevsky said:

AskAsk said:

Dustyevsky said:

Well, that's at least functional, assuming the pipe then discharges somewhere appropriate!

it is going into the drain pipe, so should be fine.

i think with these historic things, you can't really do much about it and in most cases it doesn't do any harm.  in fact it covers the side of the garage from the elements, so in a way, it isn't a bad thing.

Going down a legal route might prove protracted and expensive. There's also the known unknown regarding the sort of retaliation which might be forthcoming. Finally, there's also the failure to do due diligence on the part of the OP, though what they didn't do is probably extremely 'normal.'

If there is no physical down-side, my inclination would be to think of it as benign, at least until I knew exactly who I was dealing with.

rows with neighbours are never a good idea, especially over something that had been there for many years and isn't a huge build.  it is a lean to, so a covering of the small area up to the OP's garage.  I personally don't see an issue with it and wouldn't want to be spending thousands of pounds in legal fees.

NameUnavailable

Sister_Sister said:

Thanks everyone the garage was built when the house was built in the original location. It is one the very edge of land I own. 

The lean to from Googlemaps and the land registry was built before either we or the neighbours moved in. 

We do have legal cover who I called yesterday but haven’t called me back. 

I don’t have contact details for my sellers but I’ve written to them hoping that Royal Mail redirect will get my letter to them to ask for more information.
My concern is will this damage my wall either through the weight or perhaps the pipe butchery might cause damp in my garage. 

They also have this structure which they have said is fragile attached to my wall which anything from my drainpipe has to fall on.
I also don’t know it through leaving this perhaps unchallenged it somehow gives them a right to continue to attach things to my wall. 

I haven’t got much clue where things like this are concerned 

As per my post above, is your garage roof in fact trespassing on their space? When you say the garage is right up to the boundary are you talking about the wall on the boundary, or do you mean the wall and then a gap for the overhang of the roof?

If you are trespassing you could be opening a massive can of worms!

AskAsk

NameUnavailable said:

Sister_Sister said:

Thanks everyone the garage was built when the house was built in the original location. It is one the very edge of land I own. 

The lean to from Googlemaps and the land registry was built before either we or the neighbours moved in. 

We do have legal cover who I called yesterday but haven’t called me back. 

I don’t have contact details for my sellers but I’ve written to them hoping that Royal Mail redirect will get my letter to them to ask for more information.
My concern is will this damage my wall either through the weight or perhaps the pipe butchery might cause damp in my garage. 

They also have this structure which they have said is fragile attached to my wall which anything from my drainpipe has to fall on.
I also don’t know it through leaving this perhaps unchallenged it somehow gives them a right to continue to attach things to my wall. 

I haven’t got much clue where things like this are concerned 

As per my post above, is your garage roof in fact trespassing on their space? When you say the garage is right up to the boundary are you talking about the wall on the boundary, or do you mean the wall and then a gap for the overhang of the roof?

If you are trespassing you could be opening a massive can of worms!

i can see worms everywhere, lol

ian1246

Well Op, you've potentially opened a can of worms!. I really hope for your sake the overhang of your garage roof remains on your land, otherwise if it crosses the boundary and is on your neighbours land, your neighbours will be well within their legal rights to retaliate and insist the overhang is removed so they can build a proper lean to.

I suspect the boundary is where your wall is, which if it is means your roof is trespassing? If so, hope you have a few £1000 lieing around to re-do it? Without express approval from them or previous owners, you'll be committing trespass.

If the roof's on your boundary though, then it would seem your neighbours haven't just attached to your garage wall but removed the boundary completely since there would ordinarily be a fence to the side of the garage wall?

Regardless, a right can of worms!

Emmia

I think the issue is what do you want? And what can you achieve whilst maintaining reasonable neighbourly relations?

You'd like/want the lean-to removed... But is that achievable? Will that wreck relations,?

Alternatively could the guttering/pipe be reinstated to avoid water splashing on your property rotting the fascia and creating damp? If it can, that might be a solution of sorts?

Section62

Sister_Sister said:

I finally managed to speak to the legal cover as they couldn’t see the pictures it wasn’t actually that much help.
I also had a surveyor visit to look and see if the structure is causing any harm. The structure itself isn’t but what is, is the change to the guttering as they’ve removed the down pipe all the water falls onto the roof of their lean to. The surveyor says this will splash up and damage my wooden facia causing it to rot.
I also checked with the previous owners who advised they never gave their consent.

We have now spoken to the neighbours who first said it had been agreed with the previous owners then that it is on their land which it potentially is although the deed would seem to say that the eaves and the pipe is mine. Then that they are going to look into it.

Legal cover without really knowing the details said that as it will cause damage to my property in the form of rot that they have to correct it.

Reading the deeds that makes me think that the garage wall is mine but also that I own the eaves of the garage and the down pipe which they should not have touched.

This isn’t really where I wanted to be and I am a little annoyed that the surveyor didn’t pick up on this but is my interpretation and understanding correct?

Are they your deeds or the neighbours?  Although 2.1 allows that eaves and foundations of a building on an adjoining plot remain the property of the adjoining plot, my reading of that paragraph is that it doesn't amount to express permission for eaves and foundations to be above/below the land of the first plot, but rather than if they are there then they don't become the property of the first plot.

If both plots were developed by the same builder then the lack of express consent probably doesn't matter, provided the garage was there before the neighbouring plot was sold.

Given the advice of the surveyor I'd suggest the most sensible approach would be to get the neighbour to pay for the gutter outlet on your garage to be moved so it connects direct to a downpipe, rather than discharging onto the neighbour's roof.  This would stop the risk of water splashing on your facia - although just adding a shoe in the existing location would probably achieve the same.

Your own surveyor has told you their structure isn't causing harm to your structure, which means if you went down a 'legal' route to make them remove the whole structure then your argument would be based on 'just because', rather than some tangible harm.  The fact the structure was there prior to your ownership, and arguably had the previous owner's consent (i.e. try to prove otherwise), and your structure (apparently) overhangs their land (albeit probably with a right to do so), then taken together there is no guarantee a court would take your side on this.

Hence you might want to take the pragmatic approach of getting the gutter adapted, and perhaps agreement in writing from the neighbour that they will temporarily remove their roof if necessary to carry out maintenance to your garage eaves and roof.