Corner plot, party wall/boundary & neighbour's extension

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Hi,

I'll try to keep this brief but as with many similar issues, that may be difficult...

My father-in-law recently died and we are going through the usual of sorting out his estate. His house is the last house on his street, and as such sits facing the main road (yellow arrow) rather than in line with the rest of the properties. I've attached an image to better show what I mean - his house is outlined in the light green.

full


His neighbour has more or less finished building a 2 storey side extension, wrapped around to the front for a bigger porch and single-storey extension at the back. The side extension replaces a garage with a living room on the ground floor.

The layout of my FiL's plot meant that there was a fence running from the front gate straight to the corner of the plot at the rear (marked in purple on the image) and his detached garage sat to the side, with ~2' gap between it and the boundary fence.

Long story short, the neighbours porch/side extension has been built right onto the boundary line (the grey line you can just see on my image.) The fence (purple line) now butts up against the corner of the extension wall. Further, the wall where their garage was appears to have been built over the boundary line by about 5-6" onto my FiL's property (shown in red.) The yellow marks show where various vents, extractors and pipes come out of the wall and run on my FiL's land.

So, at best they have built up to and on the boundary and at worst across the boundary and on to his property. With the addition of pipes/vents, etc. and the soffits/eaves over-hanging, they are well over his property.

Out of principle I'm am livid at the "land-grab" however we have had numerous suggestions we should just put up and move on. Whilst I don't want to trigger a long (and no doubt expensive) dispute with the neighbour, I also don't want them to just get away with it.

I believe they had planning permission for the extension, however I doubt they were allowed to breach the boundary and I wonder what the implications of the overhang/vents are?

I'm not sure if/how to do anything about this, or what my options are.

Any advice/questions/suggestions welcome.
 
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If they have breached your deceased Fathers Property you will need to sort it out, it could become a nightmare if you intend to sell the property .
 
In short you can start a long and expensive process to establish if there is a trespass on your property.

Quite what you'd achieve other than line the pockets of a few lawyers and boundary surveyors is another matter.

I assume that you plan to sell the property, if so then you would have to declare the boundary dispute which may well make the house unsaleable until resolved.
 
In short you can start a long and expensive process to establish if there is a trespass on your property.

Quite what you'd achieve other than line the pockets of a few lawyers and boundary surveyors is another matter.

I assume that you plan to sell the property, if so then you would have to declare the boundary dispute which may well make the house unsaleable until resolved.

I agree with your comments, however a prospective buyer might challenge the situation, possibly Building Society will want legal documentation on acceptance of Trespass over Boundary . "A catch 22 situation" First port of call would be the neighbour .
 
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First port of call would be the neighbour

At which point you will have started a boundary dispute.

I'm not excusing the fact that there may be a trespass, I'm simply being pragmatic - sell the house and move on or fight over a possible gutter trespassing.

Two of my neighbours had a boundary dispute which went on for three years, has cost them both a financial and mental fortune - the dispute was over the position of the fence posts so a maximum trespass of 100 mm & guess what, the fence is still where it was but the surveyors and lawyers are really happy.

Life's too short!
 
we have had numerous suggestions we should just put up and move on.

In my opinion, great advice.

What do you hope to achieve by starting a boundary dispute on a property I assume that you are planning to dispose of?

A lawyer friend once said to me his favourites words from a client are "It's a matter of principle"
 
If you are not going to be living there, then literally and metaphorically move on. Your wallet and sanity will thank you.

Flog the property, and then anonymously tip off the planning dept. :whistle:
 
100% agree with Woody. It isn't worth it if you're not going to live there.
 
What problem? This is a common arrangement with thousands of properties. There is no actual problem

Exactly. Unless a boundary has actually been determined, whatever the land registry show is only a rough guide. Unless there is extremely strong evidence to the contrary, the boundary will be what is on the ground - fence, hedge, wall etc. A surveyor is not going to spot a "problem" because there isn't one. It only becomes a problem if someone makes it a problem and then both parties have to declare a dispute, and it benefits nobody.
 

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