Neighour's extension on my land

roo9

i have been through hell for the last 3 years with my nextdoor neighbour.who not only knocked down my outside toilet to build a one storey extension but built a front porch on my front garden moved the fences and covered part of the back of my house with part of my roof guttering boxed off in his back bedroom.its a long costly drawn out routine that has cost me thousends of pounds.2 surveryors 1 court appearence.1 court telephone between solicitor/barristers.all in my favour.they have now asked for mediation which i have refused due to their family assaulting me while i was getting over ovarian cancer and i suffer from ms.they done all this while i was having treatment/operations when i was too ill to put up a fight.they did all this to rent it out so they could make money.they knew all alone that it was my land and the 1 up 1down is now a 3 bedded.i have been close to wanting to commit a serious crime on times.they are people out there that make money doing this.all i got was try and stop us.and there is no court case so shut up.well i have had the last laugh and taken it all the way,they thought that it was a quick process and that i was lying.i have lived here for 18 years reared my children they moved in four years ago and have caused havoc they got a buy to let morgage and moved out 1 year ago when a friend of theirs moved in has a tenant.good luck and dont give up.you will sometimes feel like it..

planning_officer

guppy wrote: »

I like your council Some seem to have given up on planning enforcement, which in my opinion makes a mockery of the whole system.

Thanks - and yes, that's very true - I think it's so important to have an effective enforcement department who aren't that lenient, otherwise developers will get wind that minor discrepancies or small developments won't be pursued, and they just won't bother putting in planning applications for them, knowing that the Council won't take any action. I always think the application fees should be higher for retrospective developments, to give some kind of deterrent - otherwise there's no penalty at all for applying retrospectively for something.

planning_officer

waggys wrote: »

What a ridiculous colour match on the roof tiles!!!!! Can you not have him on the fact that the materials do not remotely match with exisiting?

To be honest, the tiles look pretty similar, albeit much newer and hence a different colour. I think they'll weather to be the same as the original roof. You can speed up the weathering process by various means - one of the most interesting is to use a yoghurt based product... really! Apparently that speeds up weathering!

planning_officer

VictorMeldew wrote: »

Just to pick up on the point you made about boundary diagrams planning_officer, there is no-where on the plans showing the extension in relation to the boundarys. I did find dimensions on the ground floor plans but definitely no boundaries (either on the online plans or the ones I photographed at the planing office). Is this a regional requirement as well? If not, could I pursue this as well as pursuing the one-storey extension?

There definitely should be a site plan - they're usually at a scale of 1:200 or 1:500. If you post a link to the plans, or you can always pm me if you don't want to put a link on here and I can have a quick look? It's a national requirement now, although the national validating lists only came into force a couple of months ago, so the application was probably submitted before then. Despite that, it would be very slack indeed for a Council to register an application without any plan showing the boundaries - whilst they can't verify the boundaries are correct, they need to know whether the extension would physically fit on the site!

VictorMeldew

Thanks again planning officer. (Before I forget again, his house is a terrace.)

Here's a direct link to the plans : PLANS

I can find a Ordanance Survey map with the red line around his property that shows the boundaries, and there is a ground plan showing the dimensions, but no-where showing how the extension fits onto his land in relation to the boundaries. Unless your meant to work this out yourself? If there had of been a diagram showing this, I probably would have been on to my neighbour much sooner than I was.

What can I do about it if they haven't submitted the right diagrams? I really do appreciate your help and time btw.

The plans also clearly show how the one storey extension at the rear was before he extended it, so it's a joke that the planning officer was trying to say that the new bit already existed. I still haven't mustered up the energy to reply to his last email - feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall.

roo9 - I can't even pretend to know what you've been through, I'm glad you won in the end. How long did the whole proces take from start to finish?

dougk and guppy - I agree with you that most of my anger is to do with 'the principle of the thing'! But I think, and others who have seen it say that it would put them off if they were buying. The extension is so close to my property that if I put a fence back up, there would be no room to get my wheelie bin through. So I'm left with part of his house sticking through the fence into my garden - it looks ridiculous.

squatnow - I find your faith in the British legal system to be very reassuring, but my chartered surveyor briefly outlined the process of getting it to court - the whole process sounded very drawn out and slow and even then not guaranteed to end up in removal of the extension. He did say that it would be unusual to take more than two years - I'm beginning to doubt his though.

prudryden

There should be a plan showing how the new development fits into the existing boundaries - it certainly looks like it is missing unless your council doesn't require it. At least, my next door neighbour had this on their plans. It definitely showed the boundaries and how the extension would fit.

silvercar

If the extension is on your land, aren't you within your rights to attack the bit that is trespassing with a hammer?

pinkshoes

Well done with your patience on this!!

I think if I were you, I'd be presenting him with all the evidence, and say he either buys your property off you for 150% of the value, or you take this to court and he'll end up out of pocket and having to knock the entire structure down.

greenface

looking @ your location plan i am beginning to doubt your complaint as your garden doesnt run in a straight line and that "kink" seems to fall in line with the location plan sorry to burst yor bubble and i hope i am wrong but you do need proffesional independent help.
Any more views looking @ the location map

oldMcDonald

prudunce wrote: »

The next house price crash pub meeting

Ignore this, it is Bruno - a rather weird troll / nutter who frequents house price boards.