We live in one of a group of detached houses around the head of a cul de sac. The boundaries in places run across front lawns without being marked by borders or hedges.
My driveway, on left side facing house, butts onto a lawn which continues across front of next door. The boundary runs down that lawn as a continuation of the line of the fence between our back gardens. He and his predecessors have always mowed the whole thing albeit a strip perhaps 3 feet wide is on my side of the boundary.
His drive is an odd shape, with a narrow access at 90 degrees to my drive and a sharp right turn into main area so that although he can get two or even three cars on it one is always blocked in unless he drives over grass (his not mine).
He now wants to extend block paving over part of the grass including areas within my side of boundary. He'd not checked his deeds and assumed lawn was all his. I only know it's not because we were original owners and years of working in a legal environment make me aware of need to check such things.
I've no problem with this. It's all to easy to end up stepping on grass getting out of my car and turning it to mud in winter so I gain too.
Is there anything I should do to protect my position, particularly in event we want to sell or he moves. He's got young kids whereas we'll be empty nesters by 2017/8 so we're likely to go first. I'm thinking in terms of any documentation to confirm the position and perhaps delineating the boundary on the block work eg with a line of coloured blocks.
I'm inclined to e mail my solicitor with conundrum but what does panel think?
|
I would let him do what he wants without issue, but only after he'd given you a letter stating that he understood it was your property and was not seeking any rights etc. etc.
And you know a solicitor would be necessary to ensure the wording was effective and assignable now and permanently into the future.
|
>>documentation to confirm the position and perhaps delineating the boundary on the block work
I don't know where you would find the precise location line defined. My deeds show boundaries on a site plan but the exact divisions are not obvious.
|
Boundary issues are a minefield when it comes to selling and can scupper a sale!
I would advise asking your solicitor and if things need formalising, make you neighbour pay both sets of fees. It's he who wants to alter things, not you.
Last edited by: Roger. on Sat 10 May 14 at 12:03
|
Brompton your house situation, as I think I've said before, is quite similar to our 1987 cul-de-sac.
As is the slight blurring of boundary in the drive/grass area. I have our deeds and a copy of next door's so it's actually quite clear cut legally but the legal boundary can't be seen in reality.
It doesn't really matter in our case because it's just who mows to what point but if next door paved we'd have exactly the same situation as yours.
I'd not see any need to involve solicitors as the boundary position isn't changing.
But I'd want to see a raised ridge, or coloured brick at a min, down the boundary line. I'd go one step further too and pay him a contribution equating to the area that is yours. Get a receipt for this and file it away. It shows both parties accept your ownership of your bit.
You don't say if you've raised the fact you own part of the bit he wants to pave??
Last edited by: Fenlander on Sat 10 May 14 at 12:16
|
>> You don't say if you've raised the fact you own part of the bit he
>> wants to pave??
I was talking to him last week about the rat - see other thread. He then took opportunity to mention his intention to lay block work on lawn. He was unaware of a strip of it being mine until I pointed it out.
|
>>> unaware of a strip of it being mine until I pointed it out.
How did that go?
One day we may face that with next door here.
|
Where we live, the gardens are sort of American style is as much as the front lawns run down to the road and there is no pavement nor any walls or fences to the front of the properties.
The family who have moved into next door apparently have about 50 children. From the day they arrived, they all just troop across our front lawn to reach the road rather than walk down their own path or drive ( we're on a bend in the road so it's ever so slightly shorter to do that )
Now, I'm not really bothered about it but I am mildly surprised. I just wouldn't do that and certainly wouldn't allow my children to. I'm old fashioned enough to think of that as slightly rude behaviour but clearly that thought hasn't occurred to them.
|
|
Not disturbed? Blooming heck we would be (SWMBO particularly) incandescent with rage about that!
|
I would be totally driven up the wall by that as well. By the rudeness of it, not whether or not it harmed the grass being walked on.
In fact I'm not really sure what I'd do - but I'd certainly get pretty worked up about it.
|
would be totally driven up the wall by that as well
There is no wall ! :-)
|
|
A problem that an automatic watering system could easily solve :)
|
>>A problem that an automatic watering system could easily solve :)
Now *that* is what I would do (if I'd thought of it). Genius.
|
|
Landmines? You'll have to remember where they are though, for when you mow the lawn.
|
>>Landmines?
Precisely what I was thinking.
:-(
|
I know from experience that this sort of thing can come back to bite you when you sell a property. We shared a short drive with our neighbours that split into a 'Y' shape as it approached our houses; there was never a problem with it. Certainly, no questions were raised when we bought the house.
When we sold the house 5 years later, the buyer's solicitor, wishing to show that he was doing something to earn his vast fee, picked up on this shared bit of drive and, in the end, I had to swear an affidavit to say that I had driven my wife, children, cattle and chattels along that (5 yards?) piece of drive without let or hindrance from the neighbour.
|
Neighbours and a Non Problem with Boundary. - No FM2R
