More info required. whats actually happened?

The new fence is looking good

It was put back up either just before dawn or just after daybreak. I’m not kidding

You know you said you weren’t looking at moving in the near future? Well…

I think this needs a Panel to make a judgement. It’s a border-line decision knot to be taken lightly, perhaps engage that famous domestic boundary lawyer, Ron Seal.

The OP lives at Mar a Lago and this photo of his neighbour has now emerged.

Ok, still brief I’m afraid.

Had a “chat” with neighbour and “builder dad” that went on 30 minutes or so and also covered a few other “historic” issues that have occurred over the part few years as a result of the renovations (or updates on a 30’s mid terrace into a mini Versailles depending upon perspective).

I initially apologised (hold on…) as I wanted to see the expression on their faces. Sure enough they quickly glanced at each other with a fleeting glance of smugness before I went on to say that my apology was for letting them get away with so much in the past that I had obviously lead them to think things like this were acceptable when they were most definitely not.

I then went a little volatile (for me) and went on to give them 2 parallel versions of the future as I put it. In one normality was restored and a situation flourished whereby both sides treated each other with respect. (That’s unlikely to happen…see the end of this post.)

In the other I “hit” the daughter with a constant dribble of paperwork raising boundary disputes and anything else that might have merit, not enough to constitute harassment or such and not even being bothered if I can win the oundary dispute (for instance) but more than enough to make it notifiable to a seller and to do my absolute damnedest to hit the daughter with a significant financial loss when she sells it. Doubling down, i asked them if I had been the absolute epitomy of a considerate neighbour in the past particularly given some other facts I’ve not given here (they affirmed I had) then pointed out that I am routinely up till 5am and there are many hobbies that I would relish undertaking during those hours. Low level noise,yes, but more than enough to be an unfortunate irritant. In effect, I told them, they were working making me into a reflection of them as neighbours.

I referred to this option as one shared by a “family member” that had referred to it as the “fight bastard with bastard” option. That’s the one point he almost lost his relative composure… “I don’t like being called that”, he said between.his teeth.

There was more to the discussion and I’ll start another thread on that but it’s worth a different thread as its about potential planning regulation breaches etc, though I think I’m getting optimistic on that one… but pictures and thread to follow soon.

Back to the fence, after being given loads of excuses about why the boundary line was right, including the presence of a dead rose bush stump… don’t ask) and why the posts absolutely HAD to be on our land…. The whole fence was removed within about 30 minutes by him and his daughter.

The next day was when I discovered it had then been erected again BUT on his own land and with the posts now facing INTO their garden too.

Now… Here is the quandary that needs a new thread. The fence was only one battle and the massive enlargement of a small balcony all our terraces have has been going on since his daughter moved in. Delayed by Covid admittedly but still on going for over a calendar year when when excluding the pandemic. It is going to directly affect us as they are planning to further build up a wall to give them (and us I guess) some privacy… BUT it will be right next to the only windows in our living room. The windows face SE with their wall (they might use a fence panel) directly to the South a matter of a few feet from the windows. For much of the afternoon (particularly in non summer months with a lower sun) it will hugely impact and direct sunlight entering the room.

That’s my main battle. The fence was just a skirmish along the way.

I let the horse partially bolt on this one as, much of it is already built, I was simply taken in by various “compromises” he suggested. Utterly dumb I know. I’ll get picks and start another thread on that soon. He assures me it is all done to the “letter of the law.” Given his record though… I’m wondering.

In the meantime, anyone want to point me in the direction of who the hell I contact at the council to see if I have a leg to stand on???

I’m also concurring going full fight bastard with bastard anyway if only because I am certain he only moved the gene in an attempt to buy him and his daughter more time to get the balcony etc finished. It had occurred to me that as well as tresspass he has omitted to replace the (admittedly shonky) wheel inn.fence that belonged to us… I’m guessing that could constitute criminal damage and theft too…? I don’t care what they’re will be no prosecution.for it, it’s a crime reference number of nothing else.

You can all blame Cougar for potentially making me mote militant.😉 His fight bastard with bastard comment really stuck in my head.

Edit: Ran out of time to correct last paragraph or so of many predictive errors.

“I’m also considering going full fight bastard with bastard anyway if only because I am certain he only moved the fence in an attempt to buy him and his daughter more time to get the balcony etc finished. It has occurred to me that as well as trespass he has omitted to replace the (admittedly shonky) chain link fence that belonged to us… I’m guessing that could constitute criminal damage and theft too…? I don’t care that there will be no prosecution for it (bloody doubt it anyway)but it’s a crime reference number if nothing else.

You can all blame Cougar for potentially making me more militant.😉 His fight bastard with bastard comment really stuck in my head. Unfortunately I think I took good advice too late.”

To add:

For those that think me amazingly tolerant/gullible ive seldom met people like this. No really. I tend to assume most people in life are fundamentally ok and I’m glad to be proven right most of the time. I made a bad error of judgment on this one though.

That said, if this whole concrete balcony/ wall thing turns out to be to the “letter of the law” then at least I will know I couldn’t have prevented it anyway. We’ll see.

Page 12 “daylight and sunlight” yes it’s Scotland but I’m sure similar will be doon sooth.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/sfc/guidance-for-householders/user_uploads/householder-guidance-march-2017.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi_tMm08onxAhWPMBQKHeJhDfoQFjANegQIIhAC&usg=AOvVaw3aXEPXbKq8rTwdLp1rHwyQ

It has occurred to me that as well as trespass he has omitted to replace the (admittedly shonky) chain link fence that belonged to us

Do you actually want it though (isn’t there a wooden fence there in it’s place now)? One of my neighbours (newly moved in) replaced a wooden fence I’d put up a few years ago with one about a foot taller, seemed a waste of money to me and it irked me a bit they hadn’t at least asked me about it first but at the end of the day I had a slightly newer fence (of at least the same quality) on the boundary line and at no expense to me so I just let it go.

Sounds like the balcony thing is definitely an issue (I thought there were laws about blocking sunlight but I’m sure someone more knowledgeable will come along shortly). But if you’re thinking about reporting the chain link fence as a way to get back at him I’m not sure that’s the right way to go (and not a good use of police time), if you genuinely want the old fence back to re-purpose then fair enough (although have you asked the neighbour where it is?).

Forget the chain link fence, they’re horrible anyway.

But, get into local planning about this balcony, for sure, he’s bluffing about it being pukka.

There’s someone built a new house at the top of my street – honestly, you couldn’t build an uglier house if you tried, but it’s better than the joiners business that was there before – owners started to build a garage 8″ from the Gable end of my mates house, called council, work stopped. Guy was adamant it was all above board, turns out there’s not even any mention of a garage in planning docs.

Idiot.

Good news with the fence. Leave that one now. You won there. Well done.

We had to involve the council about a wall… it all came down to height… there’s no wall there now.

Just ring the planning dept in your local council and ask for the planning officer dealing with the property and discuss it with them.

Or check the planning portal, by searching for the address of you neighbour.

They may well have something agreed, but might be pushing it a bit…..

Yeah, our local planning portal has all drawings etc, easy to check.

Full “falling down” is only 48 hours away….

Good on you poopers.

We had a similar issue with a neighbour in Sheffield. My wife, 8 months pregnant at the time, arrived home to find all our flower bed uprooted and a new fence 1m onto our side…and was then shouted at by the neighbour. Thankfully the contractor realised what was happening and started moving the fence back against the neighbours instructions. She had told contractor she had permission from us to do the work.

It ended up with police being called one night and evidence of falsification of Sheffield Council letters about planning and building regs. We just stuck to our rights and as calm as we could be.

It actually only took a month or two – as soon as the council started to take it seriously due to the false letters, building control and planning all got involved. The first police visit was a night her daughter was on our property banging windows and shouting at us, second one was after council informed police of the false letters/fraud. That second visit shut her up and stopped things.

We moved out over a year later – she having never spoken to us in that year. We sold to friends (and they knew all about the issues). The first weekend they came home to find the fence moved a full flower bed over into thier garden….!

well done poopscoop

good luck with the right to light stuff on their building work

nobbers like that deserve a special circle of hell

sadly we too live next door to some very similar – first to complain, last to help, always obnoxious, petty, land thieving (thankfully not ours, but from another neighbour) bar starreds.

Quick update… No planning shown for a balcony on our councils portal BUT I need to check if be actually needs it. These terraced houses we live in have an odd design. Hard to explain without pics.

Terraced at the back as back gardens xrop away to the height of a basement floor, except they DON’T have basements. Instead the narrow balconies have a small storage area below them for garden tools or whatever. So… Although elevated some say 7 feet, the balcony he has massively extended out in depth is at the level of the ground floor.

I’ll start another thread on this but I’ll just see if I have a pic on my phone…

Ok, I’ll post this but other than the scale of the balcony and associated work it doesn’t illustrate the strange construction of these terraces. This pic is looking down from our balcony which although seemingly high is actually at ground floor level. Effectively the gardens are in a tiny “valley”.

That breeze block wall of all new and shows how far the balcony not exchange out below all the building stuff on it….

The wall will be around 12 feet high I would guess…. But a lot of that is below ground floor level remember.

The pics a couple of years old though not much has changed… You can make out the old shonky chain link fence he took out. In the fences, erm, defence it was actually in good (and straight) repair until he piled stuff against out…. And cut the supporting tension wire that helped support it when he trespassed to cut said wire on our land the day that wall went up. Whilst I was out a couple of years back. Yes, history….

I’m get a better pic later and start a fresh thread perhaps.

Terraced at the back as back gardens xrop away to the height of a basement floor, except they DON’T have basements. Instead the narrow balconies have a small storage area below them for garden tools or whatever. So… Although elevated some say 7 feet, the balcony he has massively extended out in depth is at the level of the ground floor.

Like the rules on decking on sloped land then, there are most certainly restrictions, especially if it means overlooking your or other neighbours gardens.

This makes me happy.

When it slopes ‘the ground’ is weirdly defined as I recall, someone else had a similar fence / building height thread a little while ago. At the time I said something like “common sense would suggest…” and it turned out in the end that I was wildly wrong and common sense had nothing to do with anything.

This is the last I’m going to say on it as it won’t be a popular opinion on here, especially given the entertainment it has provided so far.

Your second reality suggests you are ready to slip down a one-way rabbit hole to living in indefinite conflict. As someone stuck in this, I really hope you don’t go this way, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Do you actually want it though

I rather suspect that this isn’t the point.

I would take great delight in having him jump through hoops to retrieve the stolen property from wherever he’s disposed of it, only to then throw it in a skip whilst he watches on.

As a couple of others have said, it’s bullying, and I’ve learned from bitter experience that the only approach with bullies is zero tolerance.

Your second reality suggests you are ready to slip down a one-way rabbit hole to living in indefinite conflict. As someone stuck in this, I really hope you don’t go this way, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

I am glad you said that. I was thinking the same but didn’t know how to express it. I now have a certain amount of pity for his neighbor for being an angry moron…

.. none the less, that wall looks pretty oppressive. Definitely worth contacting the council about perhaps let the neighbor know in advance though and keep the lines of communication open. It is very positive that you have had a productive ‘discussion’ with him regarding the fence – don’t undervalue that.

Incidentally, I am very impressed with his speed at putting up and moving fences. I might need to get his number.

I agree 100% with commencaltr29rider – if you escalate he won’t immediately become rational so you are going to spend the next 3 years in petty tit-for-tat disputes. You’ll call the police for your tatty chainlink fence you didn’t want anyway, he’ll report a brake light that’s out on your car, etc. there is no end to this until one of you ends up in A&E and the other is standing in the dock. You said it yourself in your opening post – neighbourhood disputes are acrimonious and horrible, petty and achieve nothing. It sounds to me like you want him to get actually get the building work finished ASAP and his daughter to sell and move on so you can get a civil neighbour instead. Every time you waste his time, fun though it seems, you’ve made that take a little longer.

Having said all that, even if planning doesn’t apply, a balcony modification will almost certainly require building control approval, and I’d expect a wall as high as that, especially if its a retaining wall, would do too. They don’t care how it looks, only that its built to the regs, i.e. not going to fall down. It will be difficult to escalate that without it looking like its a revenge attack for the fence.

…and why the posts absolutely HAD to be on our land…. The whole fence was removed within about 30 minutes by him and his daughter.

The next day was when I discovered it had then been erected again BUT on his own land and with the posts now facing INTO their garden too.

I don’t know if this is true or not, but I was once told the convention was the owner of the fence had the posts on their side. Assuming he found that advice on-line he may have had an epiphany when he realised he was effectively donating you a wooden fence that you could remove any time you wished!

Get the planning dept’s view on that wall pronto and act quickly to follow the proper means of stopping it.

Be wary of accepting internet advice to go full bastard, the people advising you don’t have to live in your house.

You don’t seem like the kind of guy who thrives on conflict and it’s possible to be assertive without going all “neighbours from hell”.

commencaltr29rider
Full Member
This is the last I’m going to say on it as it won’t be a popular opinion on here, especially given the entertainment it has provided so far.

No, genuinely, I posted as I need external perspective. You’ve said nothing wrong.👍

I’ve never ever had problems with neighbours. Ever. Its the sole treason I cut the new neighbours so much slack as having good neighbours is utterly priceless. My parents moved in here in the mid 90’s and neighbours on both sides were absolutely lovely people. Then one moved away only a few years back and then things changed.

Not dramatically, sort of insidiously, a show acceleration. No loud parties or anything just a gradual and ever expanding taking of liberties. That’s why the new fence appearing on our property whilst I was out said enough was enough in my head.

The thing that truly angers me though is that they know full well that I care for a 91 year old in this house, they know because I have politely told them that their actions directly impact her. They pay me lip service, promise compromise then just crack on as they obviously intended.

I despise conflict, always have but there has to be a line. The boundary dispute would not even have shown up on my radar if it wasn’t for the long list of other incidents before it.

Pun partially intended but I gave them an inch and they really tried to take a mile. Sort of.

Like I said though, I won’t shout down external perspective. Its just I’ve tried to be decent with these people and it’s just thrown back in my face time after time, they see it as a weakness to be exploited.

What am I supposed to do? I started to doubt my sanity/ perspective, hence why I ended up posting on here.

^^ Posted above before next 2 comments.

Again, thanks for the input all. I’m not looking for approval but genuine opinions whether they oppose or support mine.👍

I’m pretty sure that will need planning permission as it is more than 30cm high.
https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/11/decking

It is simply a case of you exploting your leverage (without you exploiting their weaknesses). For the fence it was the threat of devaluing the house. For the wall it is that plus potentially the opinion/action of the council.

Beyond that any additional emotional involvement is country productive.

Re: the extension. Right to Light laws are well enshrined and date back to the late 1800’s from memory. Any extension has to take the neighbour’s RoL into account and requires a specialist survey etc.

I very occasionally get involved in sorting out development companies right of light insurance (basically insuring against having to tear a skyscraper down if they infringe RoL) and the premiums run into 6 or 7 figures!

Lots of info on-line but this is as good a starting point as any, if a little wordy

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rights-to-light

Oh, just a little more context to illustrate that that I hope I’m not being over sedative here in regard to the new neighbour.

The neighbour on the other side of the new one has also had lots of conflict with them. Admittedly he went cut them less slack right from the off (ironically, he’s an ex cop too) but still had real problems with them.

Off the top of my head these included:

So much vibration being put through their party wall that tiles were dropping off their bathroom walls. (For our part, we had masonry dropping down the chimney behind the gas fire.)
Plastic facia above his front door porch being burnt black and warped due to an industrial burner of some type being used way too liberally.

Having the pavement right outside his front gate used as a general work area so his front garden, car and windows were constantly covered in building dust.

Theres stuff I can’t even remember. He did try to sell at one point but I think he gave up in the end as the constant building work next door was a huge turn off to buyers.

He’s a decent bloke too, lived in the street since the early 90’s with his family.

Not dramatically, sort of insidiously, a show acceleration. No loud parties or anything just a gradual and ever expanding taking of liberties

Sounds familiar. All smiles when we arrived, until we actually needed to ask them to not do something or to have some consideration, at which point the change began. Our experience also, was not ours alone, and was shared by others nearby.

We wound up reporting said neighbour’s actions to the police when we reached the ‘enough is enough’ stage.

My 2p: That wall is going to be an eyesore / irritation / light block for as long as you own the house. They’ve broken rule #1 so they can no longer expect any special treatment from you. If they’ve overstepped the planning laws / building regs then they deserve no leeway. I would probably go as far as telling them that the reason you’ve now decided to take this further is a direct consequence of your feeling bullied.

If you’re correct that they plan to renovate and flip the house, then they’re not a permanent neighbour so you don’t need to worry about decades of conflict.

I guess it depends how sure you are about that.

We have similar issues with ‘bob the builder’ on our road, but his house isn’t that near mine. Most of what hes done doesn’t have planning. I’ve got him once on a log burner installation when he was burning building waste in a clean air zone on the burner – no building regs. He’s also got a mini bungalow in the rear garden that some of the kids/young adults live in, again not planning (we’ve left that), and latest is a shed in-front of his house (we’ve left that) as those two don’t affect us. The log burner stunk our house out all day long (modern well insulated house, no need for log burners – not even a chimney).

Definitely ask Planning to take a look.

Definitely involve the council – now.
After you’ve done that, tell neighbour & father that council are now investigating re planning, right to light and building control.

Well done some people only understand conflict they have been dealing with it all their life due to mostly being dicks it desensitizes that part of the brain that contains humanity and compassion.
Some people see kindness and compassion as a weekness maybe your fence builder is one of them.
I could fill you horror about my first house and it’s neighbors and some of the actions I took in the end

Interactive planning guide here may help https://interactive.planningportal.co.uk/terraced-house/outside-terraced-house It’s a bit “Planning for Dummmies” but it’s a start. Then get in touch with your local council via their Planning Enforcement team. The height of the new wall may be grounds for complaint, unless it’s typical for the area.

If this guy considers what he’s doing to be Permitted Development, he won’t have applied for planning.

Literally just took this pic!

That big red, freshly painted panel wasn’t there yesterday and I know exactly where it’s going. It’s to go next to that new wall to effectively *raise* it. He already mentioned that was a possible method he was going to use to raise the height of the wall right next to our only windows in the living room. So we have “privacy”.

Right, **** him. Ive found out how to report possible planning breaches to the council. I need to get pics layer today and email them together with any details I have to the council.

Now i know why the daughter is off work today, she’s just been painting that wood panel.

Seriously, f*** them! That’s it.

Loads of mis-infomration so far… and only read page 1.

1) He can’t come onto your land to do it without permission
BUT he can get a court order. [This but I’m speculating but can’t see a court being too happy if he applies without actually asking]

2) Original boundary will to all intents and purposes be the original posts… (or whatever marked the boundary) there is a whole website on boundary disputes.

http://www.boundary-problems.co.uk/boundary-problems/fences.html

3) This is boundary creep… especially as he put in wooden posts. (Presumably when they rot he’ll encroach further onto your land) Either he is lazy and puts new posts HIS side or he does a proper job and removes the posts.. (£100 ish to hire a hydraulic puller for a day then takes a few mins per post) .. This will also work when he pulls out the ones he just put in.. concrete won’t be anything like cured and will knock off the posts easy enough.

4) Its his fence… which ever side faces you is up to him, don’t like it build your own fence on your land basically.. (not I think you have an issue here but it was mentioned)

Most importantly however I think you got the main thing… you’re not looking to sell and you think he is. He’s a bully so just give it to him.

I’d have him pull out the posts and redo it on his land.. just go all or nothing including criminal damage. (incidentally if you were to pain his fence that is criminal damage)

(I Recently replaced out fence posts where the neighbours “landscapers” had patio’d over our land. Neighbours princess wife tried feeding me BS so I fed it back to her on a big plate with trimmings.

You wouldn’t believe the BS she came out with… just presented it as “fact” (or how she thought it should work and if said in an authoritative way the poor people will just do as you say)

Weirdly the issue was she was having a Covid party and she’s embarrassed to have moved into an area where people get their hands dirty – Husbands father told me whilst helping me set posts poor hubby was being blamed for everything)

Upshot was I informed her I could/couldn’t
1) get a court order for access
2) had no obligation at all to her to replace or not the fence but if she could find the 1920’s developer that put any constraints in the deeds she was welcome to ask them.
3) They had committed criminal damage painting my fence and committed criminal damage again screwing supports for the trees to my fence
4) I have no obligation to hire someone to do this quicker for her Covid party and if she wants privacy for her Covid party she is welcome to put a fence on her land.
5) Their stone flag patio is on my land… either they pay “professionals” to do another bodged job or I’ll cut if back for free and do a proper job and actually support the edges
6) No I can’t lift fence posts and concrete THROUGH your 15mm cheap stone tiles… and if you can find someone with the technical knowledge I’ll explain Mohr-Coloumb failure to them and why they will fail in extension. [funny how she knew more about material failure criteria than I do, especially in rocks] and why hadn’t I told her that wooden posts would need replacing in the future thus meaning her patio would need to be dug up.

7) Photo’s of the original concrete wire posts marking the boundary… which means they would lose their back garden access down the side of the house.

8) she threatend to report me for HSSE violations for carrying the posts myself… I pointed out I wasn’t a business so keep for F***ing nose out if she wants a fence put in at all. Meanwhile she can have a civil trespass brought every time they use their path to their garden which is on my land.

After putting her right I then said..
1) I wasn’t actually bothered about 3″ of land here and there but if she wanted I could reinstate the original boundary and they would need to go through their garage to get to the back garden
2) if she wanted to get professionals in she was welcome to pay after I checked the professionals out and obviously her previous professionals are incompetent having put a paved patio right up to the wooden posts and failing to support the edges so I wouldn’t be using them.
3) As I’m not paying for “professionals” the time it takes is contingent on me getting access. Specifically I needed access for a hydraulic fence post puller…
4) As I wanted a straight fence and it’s my fence I would be putting the posts on the original line… not the convenient wiggle used by the last professionals avoiding previous posts.
5) LETS START AGAIN WITH THE ACTUAL FACTS….