Neighbours
 

We live in a semi detached house and don't really get on with the attached neighbours (no problems really it's just he's a muppet and his girlfriends inconsiderate - both late 30s early 40s).
About 2 years ago the muppet borrowed a mini digger and dug up his front garden which was on a slope, he dug right up to the seperating hedge between our gardens (our hedge), now when i say he dug up his garden i mean he dug out upto 5ft as his garden slopes down from his house to the lane. He did this so he can park his car outside the front of his house (he had a concrete drive to his garage at the rear but dug this up so he now can't get in???), he hasn't put up any restraining wall to stop the soil in our front garden from subsiding and our hedge is dying as the roots are exposed at his side.
The houses aren't owned by the council and we don't want the expenses of solicitors, surveyors, etc so who do we approach who will get him to sort his garden out?

Can you not put up a retaining wall on your side?

Pete

First port of call would be the CAB,then ask your neighbours to fix it.If they won't then start thinking about a solicitor or fixing it yourself.

Try your local council - buildings control section. Doesn't matter if the property is council owned or not, any works still need to comply with the regulations. The regs cover buildings & "structures", which I would have thought would cover retaining walls (or their absence). Tell them your garden is in danger of collapsing & see if they'll come out.

Cheers for the replies, i'll ring the council on monday

pslewis - i can't put a retaining wall on our side as the ground (earth/ soil) would collapse as there's no support on their side now (our garden is about 5ft higher) - anything heavy on the garden would cause the earth just collapse into their garden.

The muppet even took up the bottom 2 steps at the side so mr postie struggles to get to his door
His garden now has 3 cables (leccy is 1 i think) exposed which were buried under the earth, the garden isn't flat so gets water in the potholes which he then parks in???

he sounds like a right bright c*nt

psml


M

wait till he parks his car there and cause the ground to collapse onto it.

Post some piccies!!??

Pete

Sneak round at night, and make sure the exposed leccy cable is running through one of the potholes, in a place where it just happens to have damaged insulation. Next time it rains, neighbour steps in pothole, and gets 240V worth of surprise. End of neighbour, end of problem. ;)

you will have a "right to support" i would expect. have a look at www.odpm.gov.uk under the party wall section. you are well within your rights to ask him to sort out the party wall notice for fear of the stuctural stability of your house and your land. the party wall etc act covers any works on the boundary or within either 1m or 5m of the boundary (take a look at the rules to see why), but there is no doubt that this situation is what the act was designed to deal with. it may seem very formal, but will protect both yourself/your property and your neighbour if there is a future problem with stability. as he is carrying out the work, he is the one who needs to appoint a pwall surveyor at his cost.