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Spazter
Posts: 35 Forumite
We have been in our new house just over a year and all has been good until new neighbours moved in around 3 months ago.
Our gardens at the back all join together as the houses are kind of at right angle so our garden narrows towards the top and the ends of their gardens all join up to the long side of our garden.
On our deeds it says the walls dividing are our responsibility and this is a wall with a fence on the top which is down the middle of the wall with room either side of the wall.
We have found the new neighbours are using the side of our wall to put flower boxes etc but hey ho we have left that as doing no damage etc. Also they are climbing onto the wall and over our fence into our garden to recover their house cat that has escaped without asking us for the permission to come over our fence into our garden to fetch their house cat.
I did see this happen and I was there and they didn't ask permission if they could come over the fence into our garden to fetch the cat and we thought ok fair enough a one off to then find this weekend they have fastened a bracket to our fence, which is old and not very strong and we are planning to replace next year and had just painted it this year to make it look a little better and maybe last a bit longer.
Now in discussions with the neighbour next to us but house below them we have said we are putting fencing up to 6ft in total height (including wall and the fence) to get our privacy and security back and she now says she doesn't want that as we are blocking her light and now claims half of our wall is hers and on her boundary.
The deeds and TA6 say the walls are ours with no shared party walls mentioned and also looking at where she says the boundary is, our wall for the very bottom part of it, looks like it could be on her side? How does this work as this wall has been like that nearly 30 years? I asked how she allowed the wall to be built on her part? She said it just was how the people who owned our house built it at the time. She is now talking about going to see her solicitor with regards to which walls and boundaries are hers as she dent want us building a 6ft fence and says we can't do it as we are taking her light?
The path and garden on our side due to how the land lies is higher than her side as its slopes up so from what I have read we can build up to 6ft from ground level so fence and wall height together totalling no more than 6ft which is what we plan but she now says she is going to get a solicitor to check the boundary and which is her wall and because we can't build a fence taking her light.
Now we have people doing what they want to our fence and dictating to us how high we can build our fence! Is this a case we need to get clarified and who with as the solicitors and the TA6 form completed by the people we bought off all say the walls are our responsibility and no mention anywhere of shared party wall?
Do I need to contact solicitors again to clarify or a boundary specialist if there is such a person to get this sorted once and for all? I just want my garden private and secure...is that too much to ask for!?
Our gardens at the back all join together as the houses are kind of at right angle so our garden narrows towards the top and the ends of their gardens all join up to the long side of our garden.
On our deeds it says the walls dividing are our responsibility and this is a wall with a fence on the top which is down the middle of the wall with room either side of the wall.
We have found the new neighbours are using the side of our wall to put flower boxes etc but hey ho we have left that as doing no damage etc. Also they are climbing onto the wall and over our fence into our garden to recover their house cat that has escaped without asking us for the permission to come over our fence into our garden to fetch their house cat.
I did see this happen and I was there and they didn't ask permission if they could come over the fence into our garden to fetch the cat and we thought ok fair enough a one off to then find this weekend they have fastened a bracket to our fence, which is old and not very strong and we are planning to replace next year and had just painted it this year to make it look a little better and maybe last a bit longer.
Now in discussions with the neighbour next to us but house below them we have said we are putting fencing up to 6ft in total height (including wall and the fence) to get our privacy and security back and she now says she doesn't want that as we are blocking her light and now claims half of our wall is hers and on her boundary.
The deeds and TA6 say the walls are ours with no shared party walls mentioned and also looking at where she says the boundary is, our wall for the very bottom part of it, looks like it could be on her side? How does this work as this wall has been like that nearly 30 years? I asked how she allowed the wall to be built on her part? She said it just was how the people who owned our house built it at the time. She is now talking about going to see her solicitor with regards to which walls and boundaries are hers as she dent want us building a 6ft fence and says we can't do it as we are taking her light?
The path and garden on our side due to how the land lies is higher than her side as its slopes up so from what I have read we can build up to 6ft from ground level so fence and wall height together totalling no more than 6ft which is what we plan but she now says she is going to get a solicitor to check the boundary and which is her wall and because we can't build a fence taking her light.
Now we have people doing what they want to our fence and dictating to us how high we can build our fence! Is this a case we need to get clarified and who with as the solicitors and the TA6 form completed by the people we bought off all say the walls are our responsibility and no mention anywhere of shared party wall?
Do I need to contact solicitors again to clarify or a boundary specialist if there is such a person to get this sorted once and for all? I just want my garden private and secure...is that too much to ask for!?
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Comments
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Don't get into any arguments over the wall, and don't bother to go legal. Let your neighbour spend on that if she wishes; she'll be on a hiding to nothing. Even if she found the wall is in the 'wrong' place, is she really going to spend large amounts of money moving it? No, of course she isn't.
Just erect posts on your side of the wall and put the fence/trellis/whatever on top of that at a total height of no more than 2m from your ground level.
Your neighbour has no 'right to light' within the garden, so ignore that too. The only place right to light sometimes applies is within a house.
By the way, we went metric decades ago, so I don't know what you have been reading that mentions 6 feet! The total height of a boundary fence or wall without planning permission should be no more than 2m.
The best way to deal with threatening neighbours is just to smile and nod, then get on with what you want to do, so long as it's legal.0 -
Thanks Davesnave for the help really appreciate it.
I will just let things ride and carry on as we were. The whole of the wall is ours its just unfortunate the fence is in the middle of the wall as I think this makes people thing they have half of our wall!
The neighbour climbing over our fence and nailing things to our fence is also a concern but we will have to deal with that if anything else happens going forward.
The 6ft is me as I am old enough to remember the ft and inch and not metric! I can go higher than 6ft if we went metric!
Neighbour also admitted to cutting our trees too that grow too high making shade in her garden! :eek::o 2m wall and fortress I think is needed! lol!0 -
I had a silly neighbour like that. I let her know that I was replacing MY waist-height fence with a 2m fence because we had got a large-breed dog. I told her because I knew she had some plants growing at the base of it and thought it the neighbourly thing to do. I let her know I would replace it in winter because both our plants would be dormant, that we would use the same holes for the new posts where possible, that I didn't mind her growing things up her side of the new one etc etc ...
She informed me brusquely that it was HER fence and she didn't want a 2m fence so "wasn't giving permission" to have HER fence changed.
I started to fret and worry and this and that and got all anxious about it. And then my husband paid the fenceman to build the new 2m fence on our side of the old fence. So we lost less than 1ft of garden and never have had to look at her face again. AND she ended up removing MY old fence at her own cost cause I guess the double fence look ended up not suiting her. Mind you, can't keep doing that or would end up with no garden, but was worth it on this occasion
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their house cat that has escaped without asking.
They really must teach it to request permission....:)0 -
Thanks Soot2006 the wall and fence is ours so Im not prepared to give it up without a battle. I have it on the deeds and on the TA6 but I can imagine how good that would have been to see her face as the 6ft fence went up anyway! Well worth the loss of a few inches!
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OP, if this wall is not inside your property and serves no other purpose than to delineate the boundary between your gardens, it is not a "party" wall as far as I am aware. I understand a party wall to be one which divides two semi-detached or terraced properties. I may be mistaken in this belief.
To the best of my knowledge, your garden wall is subject to no legal party wall agreements. It is either yours or your neighbours; it sounds as if it is yours, therefore you may do as you please with it, including demolish it. Perhaps your neighbour needs to understand that.
As for the cutting down of trees, it is legally permissible to remove branches overhanging one's own property, not the whole tree's height/width so long as they are returned to the tree's owner.
Please do not blame the cat. The poor, little thing is probably terrified at being forcibly removed from his/her own territory and is merely trying to orientate themselves. Please, please do nothing which might cause this small, furry person harm. Thank you.0 -
Ignore the [STRIKE] neighbour[/STRIKE] cat and poison the [STRIKE] cat[/STRIKE] neighbour.0
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Please do not blame the cat. The poor, little thing is probably terrified at being forcibly removed from his/her own territory and is merely trying to orientate themselves. Please, please do nothing which might cause this small, furry person harm. Thank you.
Smodlet thank you and there is no way we are blaming the cat. I love all animals and would never hurt any. The poor cat was frightened. It was the fact they (the human owner!) just climbed our fence and even though I was outside never asked if it was ok to go in our garden to catch the said cat.
I suppose some people don't mind people coming into their gardens as and when they please but to us our garden is ours and not for free for all (humans thats is just to clarify that we aren't talking about the cats that come into our garden!) without permission.0 -
There is such a thing as a 'party fence wall' (?) and you can Google it if you like, but I take the view that life's too short already!OP, if this wall is not inside your property and serves no other purpose than to delineate the boundary between your gardens, it is not a "party" wall as far as I am aware. I understand a party wall to be one which divides two semi-detached or terraced properties. I may be mistaken in this belief..
Easier to put up posts to take whatever goes above the wall as well, probably. Also makes it clear it's not a shared feature.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying OP should give up any rights to own the wall etc, just not to waste money on solicitors trying to prove something that doesn't need proving. Neighbours like that talk a lot, but 10:1 they won't do anything, and if they do make enquiries via a solicitor, they'll only find out what the OP knows already.0
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