Next door neighbour..the escalation by mondyman

Well it seems like total war has been declared by next door since i complained to him about the water draining onto my lawn through his illegal run off pipes...

He's torn down his old , battered privet hedge fence at the back of the garden after some horses got into his garden ( Lol me and the wife were watching in the bedroom window and couldn't stop laughing while he was trying to push them out with a sweeping brush ( only about 7 horses ! lol )

Anyway....all his old blocks , concrete foundation pillars etc he has dumped behind my garden wall and he has also extended his garden on my corner to add in a gate which technically exits partially onto my land as if you look in the pictures the concrete bollards are where the old boundary fence was.
He's lived here for 20 years so he knows where the original boundaries are...check out these photos...

heres his original privet hedge...
View media item 7744

heres his new ok corral fence ! and fly tipping
if you can see the concrete bollard about 5 ft high in the midle of the pictures thats where the original fence was when the houses were built..
Also you can see the 3ft extension hes added to his garden to put in a side exiting gate.
Theres a concrete bollard approx 5 ft in most pics behind my wall , thats where the original boundary fence used to run
Ive spoken to the farmer as i see him regularly and he's served 14 days verbal notice on them of flytipping etc ....
I'm just wondering if i should just take all these pictures to a solicitor or my house insurance legal side and put it in their hands as ive had enough...
Let me know what u think..ur advice is much appreciated...

Cheers mondy


ps ..theres a huge pile of rubble about 20 foot further along that the farmer put there ages ago , he coul dhave put it all there but he didn't...or the council dump takes rubble free and is 2 miles away...but he didnt...
heres 2 i took earlier today just to work out what xtra land he has taken ( the farmer asked me to for him to view )

Looking at your new pics, it looks like the bloke wall at the end of your garden is a couplr of feet inside you boundary...is that right?

Also i take it he's not changed or solved your original water problem?

yep his gate is approx 18 inches inside my boundary and the rest is the farmers land he has extended his fence onto....

ive put all th epictures ive taken over the last few months onto a disk with a letter for the farmer in case it needs to go further whether it be by me or the farmer or both of us.

i just cannot see how he could win if this goes to court....he has either fly tipped on my land or the farmers land....stolen land from the farmer to extend his garden and also uses my old boundary to put his garden gate onto !!!

for the worry it is probably causing you, and for the cos of an initial appointment with a solicitor i would say go and speak to one. If your solicitor charges you £100 to write a letter and tell you where you stand, it will be worth it.

you are doing the right thing. photographs and written letters are the way to go.

This guys an idiot with no regard for others. A shame he is fertile and managed to continue another generation. Solicitor time, the faster the better.

I had a mate who put up some fencing that encroached on to someone elses boundary, long & short of it, it cost my mate about 15k in damages. I would take the legal route as not only will it annoy the mean old bar-steward next door, but also increase your retirement fund

just wondered how is it going?

This will not be the answer you are looking for but be assured it will help your cause.
DO NOT at this stage go down the legal route. When solicitors are given boundary dispute instructions they go positively orgasmic at the fees prospect. And you'll not recover all your costs.
You have done the right thing in taking photos. Your next step- however difficult- is to go and see your neighbour with your complaint and try to resolve your differences amicably. After your meeting write to him in a friendly tone setting out what your understanding of the discussions were and what you agreed. If he fails to respond or act on what was agreed then write again expressing your disappointment that he has not cooperated. If after a couple of weeks there is still no action then write again politely but in a more formal manner indicating your reluctance to go down the legal route but his inaction may force your hand.
If all this fails only then present your case to a solicitor being certain to instruct them to do no more than write one letter to your neighbour and not proceed further without your approval.
IF the case has to go to court the judge will want to see that you have acted reasonably throughout and not incurred unecessary costs. If the case is allocated to 'small claims' you will not recover any of your costs unless you can prove conclusively that your neighbour has acted both recklessly and wholly unreasonably.
Boundary disputes can and do take on a life of their own and costs can quickly escalate out of all proportion.

he doesn't have a boundary dispute, the farmer does.. it's not his land that the neighbour is encroaching onto..
he does however have a right of way issue with the neighbour using part of his property to exit his own..

what I would do just to be prissy is to take the rubble he's dumped on your land ( not the farmers land, just that inside your boundary ) and place it back on his land..

then re-instate the original fence to the concrete posts.. with a return to your side fence...

or build a small block wall to the original boundary and put some conifers in the planting bed that you create..

Hi Coljack,
Sounds like a real wind up for you. Just wanted to say best of luck, hope it's resolved soon. Try and resisist the instinctive reaction to leap over the fence and cave his head in. It's stress full when some a**hole who has deliberatly done something to p*** you off creates a situation that can easilly escalate to something much darker.
I wish you all the best. If your get angry paranoid anxious etc about the situation seek some help early on. mark

If you read through the previous post we have some pretty ignorant neighbours but we've let things lie a few times and occasionally had words with them...We havn't spoken for years now and that suits me and the wife fine.

It's been real quiet for the last few years since their children left no pounding music , no revving cars etc...and now over the last 2 months they have erected this freaking monstrosity on the top part of their garden...

Well obviously we've complained to the council( on may 29th just as they started building ) and they had to apply for retro planning application but they still carried on building till it was completed ! and we have an objection letter which we have to fill in over the next 2 weeks ( so do neighbours on both sides of them !!! ) so i'm not alone...

I'll post some pics and leave you guys to decide what you think.....if they'd bothered to come around and just Talk about it then we would have suggested just lowering the top of their garden by 3 foot so the decking wouldn't be higher then my roof when they are standing on it . !!!!! anyway take a look...it's bloody sad what we have to live with...

here's the pics...


from bedroom window....back of house

same again from bedrom

wife showing scale of height of decking against our fence


side wiews of decking side fence


view from bottom of our garden



Just to be clear i have no problem with the neighbours in improving their garden , if they had lowered their top section this decking would look great , as it is now it is a huge intrusion of privacy ( they can see DOWN into our bedroom and our hallway ) .

Anyway i'd like to hear people's opinions be they good or bad for the form we have to fill out for the planning officer....im going to include the photo's too.

Thanks for taking the time to look , sorry it's such a big post

Cheers Mondy

you need planning for any platform that is higher than 300mm above the grounds it covers
it must be the normal natural highest point the height is taken from

they've applied for retrospective , we have an appointment to view the plans with the planning officer on thursday and lodge our written objections then , do you think it's worth me including the photo's in as well m8 ?
Cheers m8

mondyman said:

they've applied for retrospective , we have an appointment to view the plans with the planning officer on thursday and lodge our written objections then , do you think it's worth me including the photo's in as well m8 ?
Cheers m8

Click to expand...

include everything assuming they are higher than the 300mm by so much they will not get planning as you are objecting
you have no privacy

also remember to object to the fence being greater than 6f7 or 2 m above the area they cover