Privacy rights?

[Looji]

Hello

Hoping someone can help with an awkward neighbour situation. We live in a terrace of houses, all have raised rear gardens. If you walk out the back door, there is small yard with a four foot flight of steps up to the garden. All the houses have similar raised gardens.

We moved in last year and have just had the garden fixed up, grass cut and planted, walls patched, painted etc. If we sit in the garden area we can see the rear of the neighbours houses,,, the garden is actually almost level with the first floor windows of the houses due to them being raised and terraced. That's all the gardens on the street not just ours.

My neighbour has knocked on the door and been very angry, shouting about us invading his privacy as when we use the garden we can see into his upstairs windows.

Is he correct? Can we not use our garden to sit in because the elevation of the original land means anybody physically in the garden can see the upstairs windows of the neighbouring houses?

All the gardens on the street are either overgrown or used as veg patches, we are the only house to have fixed up the garden area with grass, flowers etc.

Does my neighbour have a legitimate and legal objection to stop us using our garden?

We live in Wales, if that makes any difference.

 

[^woody^]

He has no rights and you have no obligations.

He can draw his curtains or put nets up.

 

[GeoffJ]

Woody is right - in planning there is an assumption that in residential areas there will inevitably be some over-looking. The topology of your area makes it more so.

Depending on how much you want to upset him, you can:-

1) Invite him to speak to the council enforcement team if he believes that he has a case (they will ignore him)

2) Tell him that you intend to build a summerhouse/office in your garden under permitted development

3) Suggest he gets curtains/nets

4) Suggest he move to a large estate where there are no neighbors for many miles. To assist hims further you could even mention the highlands of Scotland - it is very nice up there

In short, all residents in a residential area need to exhibit some tolerance.

 

[^woody^]

It's not a planning issue. No operational development has taken place, so planners can not get involved.

 

[wessex101]

It is rather odd that none of the other properties use their garden. Could it be that there is a restrictive covenant that somehow prevents the use of the garden as a garden? (other than the growing of leeks and daffodils)

 

[stem]

If you are just using your garden as such, and are not gawping in with binoculars, surveillance cameras or suchlike, you are within your rights to use your garden as originally intended.

 

[^woody^]

It is rather odd that none of the other properties use their garden. Could it be that there is a restrictive covenant that somehow prevents the use of the garden as a garden? (other than the growing of leeks and daffodils)

Have you been suning yourself in the garden again?

 

[JohnD]

you could turn your deckchairs to face the other way. If you feel like it, put up some trellis at the end of your garden, and grow sweet peas up it, or beans, according to your whim.

 

[Ian H]

Report him for flashing from his bedroom window

 

[stem]

..or spying on you whilst you are sunbathing in your garden. It can work both ways

 

[Looji]

Thanks for the reply, No there isn't any restrictive covenants concerning use of the garden. It's just that by sitting in or just being in the garden we are able to see the back of the neighbours houses and this one neighbour has taken exception.

I wanted to see how I could resolve the issue but to be honest I can't understand the situation myself. I can't do anything about the level of the garden.

 

[Doggit]

The garden was already there, and as you own it, you have a right to use it. But if the neigjbour feels that you are only ever using the garden to look into his bedroom window, then there could be some issues. So you either check out the other neighbours on an equal basis, site your chairs so that you are looking at the other unkept gardens, or make a notational screen that gives him the illusion of a bit of privacy. Just how big is your high rise garden, and is there anything you can do with it.

 

[Looji]

The gardens across the terrace are raised four feet at the steps, then the gardens all slope upwards to the lane which runs along the back of the terrace. At the lane end the height is probably another four feet. This sloped lawn is thirty four feet long.

It's just how the houses were built in the 1920s.

 

[pilsbury]

Some people are naturally tw4ts. Could there be a jealousy issue here? I'd just ignore him and continue to enjoy your garden. If he comes round again and accuses you of looking in his window, just reply that you have never noticed him and it must be him looking at you - ask him to stop.

 

[Doggit]

So you're a fair distance away, but not an impossible one. I don't think there's a real issue here, so it'll be a case of how you want to handle him; you can either tell him where to go, or try and placate him to keep on good terms with him. Is it worth offering to help him clear his garden, then he might see you've got no bad intentions as to what you're doing.