Neighour's extension on my land

lostinrates

greenface wrote: »

Dont say it is vital without a reasoning why because i dont think it is a issue . Regarless of if its freehold leasehold or groundrent sweetcorn one thing the land isnt is the neighbours.
unless you can shed light

apologies. My amazment wasn't in relation to the issue at hand (which as far as i can see continues to be a problem) but as to Victor Meldrew's not realising he wasn't a freeholder in relation to things like any mortage applications or secured loans or indeed, the possibilty of horrid neighbour's parents possible interest in buying etc etc. so, not a comment on the horrid neighbours trangression.

Have to say, if the freeholder shows little interest in the property it might be in the freholder's interest to sell the neighbour the bit of land..no idea if that would be acceptable with a leaseholder there though.

If I were VM I would certainly be contacting the free holder though.

apologies for lack of clarity before.

clutton_2

if he wants access to your property to maintain his own - there is an Access To Neighbouring Land Act 1992 which allows maintanance access - whether it allows "building" access i dont know

hethmar

So the plasterer has just come out of jail and the scaffolder has just gone in? Blimey. Cash in hand work, is it ??

Vic, I dont understand this:
Guppy - the council owns my leasehold, but my chartered surveyor says that for all intents and purposes, the land is mine. (Is this what you meant?) My neighbour will now own the freehold.



(Oh just to mention, caught my NFH standing behind the fence blowing raspberries and a dog whistle at my disabled dog to make him bark this morning - and you think you have loonies - squat now, if you still have rent a crowd connections ..............)

greenface

VictorMeldew wrote: »

The plasterer came round today and asked for access to our back garden so that he could render the side of the extension. My wife told him no as we're waiting for advice from the surveyor who is coming out tomorrow, and have been advised to allow no more access until the survey is complete. Actually, we were both concerned about letting him in out garden anyway as my wife and two year old were in on their own, and the plasterer has apparently just got out of prison!

This evening the neighbour's brother came round with a letter (he's too scared to come round himself!), that says:-

To whom it may concern at ...my address

We understand that you have refused to grant access to the plasterers onto your property to render our extension. We agree not to render the area of the extension that is inaccesible for us to do, but we note that we have offered to carry out the work.
We will not be liable to pay for any cost in the future if you require work to be carried out on this area as we have already paid out the cost of scaffolding and plasterers to carry out the work required.

Signed my neighbour, the plasterer and another neighbour of mine as a witness.


He also said that he sent a copy to the coucil (for luck?!)

---

Has he done all the other stuff gutters drains etc and did he go into your waste drain in the end.
I was by the Black Horse today was going to drive past shaking my head a few times tutting

marybishop

clutton wrote: »

if he wants access to your property to maintain his own - there is an Access To Neighbouring Land Act 1992 which allows maintanance access - whether it allows "building" access i dont know

I think you can only invoke this Act if it's for essential repairs. Building an extension is not an essential repair.

marybishop

Victor - sorry, getting really confused here! Are you the leaseholder? If so who is the freeholder? They have a vested interested in what is happening too and should have been served a PW notice as you should have been too.

oldMcDonald

hethmar wrote: »

(Oh just to mention, caught my NFH standing behind the fence blowing raspberries and a dog whistle at my disabled dog to make him bark this morning - and you think you have loonies - squat now, if you still have rent a crowd connections ..............)

This worries me and I hope that I am reading too much into it, however having suffered from a NFH in the past I would advise you to watch this.

Your neighbour sounds like he is not a 'loonie', but is actually very clever and very manipulative of this situation with regards to the building of this extension.

With regards to the above concerning the dog, whilst on the outside he could be seen as acting like a loon, there could be a possibly darker side to this. If your dog is barking and causing a nuisance then your neighbour can get Environmental Health involved. There is always the possibility that he could be winding your dog up in order to take retalitary action against you.

As I said, I don't want to be alarmist, but just wanted to warn you it was possible.

planning_officer

VictorMeldew wrote: »

Is there anything I can do about this now or is it too late? Is there anyway the decision can be overturned, and if so what's the best way for me to go about this? It makes me furious that if the council had done their job properly, I wouldn't be in this mess.

Unfortunately the national validating lists which the pdf link refers to only came into force on 6 May 2008. Page 38 of that well-thumbed document gives the list of plans and documents required for a householder extension, which anyone applying now would have to supply for the application to be valid.

I see from the Liverpool website that your neighbours planning application was validated on 18 April, i.e. before the national validating lists came into force. So there wouldn't have been a national requirement at that time for a site plan. Despite that, it has always been normal to submit a site plan with an application - like I said before, it's very slack of your Council to validate an application without one, although it's not grounds for overturning the decision. I can safely say that my authority has never validated an application without a site plan, even before 6 May!

VictorMeldew

The surveyors came round yesterday and measured up the land, they wouldn't make any firm conclusions but said it was very likely to be on my land. My neighbour saw the surveyors and collared them - he was obviously worried.

Last night he came round and asked in the event that the extension did happen to be on my land(!), what would I be looking for as a solution. I told him that I'd have to see what the surveyor said first, but basically that I don't want to be in any worse position than I was before when I come to sell up. We had a chat on the doorstep for about half an hour and he was saying stuff like - it'd be a nightmare if we had to go to court.

So it looks like there may be an easy solution to this. I may have to agree to swap the land for the bit that he is giving us, and for him to sort out the boundaries with the land registry. I also want my fence sorting out, and my side gate would have to be moved so that I can then get the wheelie bin past. I also wouldn't mind my surveyor's fees reimbursing. Do you think this is reasonable, or should I ask for more? ( I'd love to have it torn down but that isn't going to happen.)


Hethmar + Mary Bishop - only the plasterer has a criminal record that I know of! My land is leasehold, and his is freehold. I asked the surveyor whether it is the responsibility to defend my land or the council's seeing as it's theirs. He said that when I sell, I'll be selling the leasehold to the new owner and therefore it's my responsibility - something to that effect anyway. I assume my neighbour is the freeholder as he bought the house?


Greenface - He's done the gutters, but not the drains yet, and we've decided not to let him go into the drains on the advice of the surveyor. The Black Horse is my local! Only ever been in once or twice though!

Planning_officer - thanks for your advice again. I still want to complain to the council and eventually the ombudsman. This wouldn't mean that my neighbour would have to apply for retro-spective planning permission would it? I don't want to antagonise my neighbour now that we seem to approaching some sort of agreement.

prudryden

Sounds like you may be on the road to a successful solution. When you negotiate, do so from a position of strength. Gather all the intelligence you can, especially from the surveyor. Tell the surveyor not to give anything away to your opponent.