Should I have words about this now?

[Roofless Toothless]

My neighbours (their house is rented) are erecting a home made garden room adjacent to my fence, and I mean adjacent. I have reservations about this now, as we are in a conservation area, and I know that one of the rules is that you can’t build stuff that can be seen from the street. This is in the front garden, and certainly is visible sticking up proud of an existing fence by getting on for 20 cm already. It is also forward of the building line for our side of the road. It is just over 2 meters high.



I already have caught the guy screwing it to my fence panel (!) which I stopped, but I just noticed this morning that the overhang of the roof means I will not be able to lift out or replace two panels if and when they need replacing.

I have a sneaky suspicion that the council would not look kindly on this erection if it came to their notice, but I really don’t want to be that man that goes round to the parish hall to bring it to their notice. But would you consider the potential problem with replacing the fence panel sufficiently serious to risk falling out with them at this stage?

[GiantEnemyCrab]

Telling him to ensure you can remove the fence panels would seem to be pretty reasonable.

He looks to be taking the mickey a little, and will probably do the standard thing of being peturbed when his mickey-taking is called out.

[Bill]

He's utterly taking the piss. Tell him sooner rather than later as it will be harder to shift when/if it gets "finished".

Then give it a few weeks and tell the planners. Because he's utterly taking the piss.

[Slow.Patrol]

Difficult one.

If you tell him, he could get hostile and tell you to do one. Then you go to the council and he will know it was you.

Depends how well you get on with him. I might be tempted to go straight to the Borough/District council. The council should keep your identity private.

[Rebew]

I would probably be inclined to let him have his little garden room if he could make it less of an eyesore and make sure that you can repair your fence if necessary. Go and have a chat with him, ask what the purposes of the garden room is (office for working from home, probably okay. Housing for sex pond with large speakers, probably not okay) and tell him that if he can make it less fking ugly then it isn't an issue.

[motco]

If it is rented as you said, speak/communicate with the landlord because they probably don't know about it. This insulates you from the problem by one remove.

[FlyVintage]

Slow.Patrol said:

Difficult one.

If you tell him, he could get hostile and tell you to do one. Then you go to the council and he will know it was you.

Depends how well you get on with him. I might be tempted to go straight to the Borough/District council. The council should keep your identity private.

Just from experience (and of course it may differ from council to council) - If you make an approach to the planning department and the transgressor appeals any eventual decision, the appeal documents are sent out with your name on them - which may cause some issues

[OutInTheShed]

What's he doing?
Could just be some sort of temporary shack to cover something he's working on?
Maybe it's better than having his boat/motorbike/junk under a tarp in the front garden?

[Zetec-S]

FlyVintage said:

Just from experience (and of course it may differ from council to council) - If you make an approach to the planning department and the transgressor appeals any eventual decision, the appeal documents are sent out with your name on them - which may cause some issues

Yep, years ago I objected to plans to demolish a detached home a few doors down on a corner plot and replace with 15 flats. Can't remember the details but a while later I got a polite letter from the developer explaining their plans, etc. All fine, but if it was a neighbour then I'd want to do it as a last resort and bear in mind it might not be anonymous.

[Roofless Toothless]

Thanks for the replies. My OP is a reality check for me - I want to see some other opinions to find out if it is me that is getting old and cantankerous or if I have a valid reason to be concerned!

The neighbours are a young couple with a couple of kids. Although we are 'link' detached, their entrance is to an adjoining side street, so we don't see a lot of them. But we certainly hear them and regularly get treated to the smell of their recreational cigarettes when they are chilling in the garden. They are a 'lively' family, to say the least. We had one weekend with police hammering on our door three times looking for them. Their postal address is very similar to ours, so we regularly get their mail order deliveries and Just Eat stuff left on our doorstep. I have to take it round there for them.

I suspect it is they that are erecting the garden room, rather than their landlord. I have lived in South America and I have genuinely seen better built ranchos in the shanty towns. It is built up to the fences partly to hold it up, and I suspect that one at least of the fences is being used as a wall!

I don't think they are malicious - they just don't have a clue.

[Tisy]

Roofless Toothless said:

My neighbours (their house is rented) are erecting a home made garden room adjacent to my fence, and I mean adjacent. I have reservations about this now, as we are in a conservation area, and I know that one of the rules is that you can’t build stuff that can be seen from the street. This is in the front garden, and certainly is visible sticking up proud of an existing fence by getting on for 20 cm already. It is also forward of the building line for our side of the road. It is just over 2 meters high.



I already have caught the guy screwing it to my fence panel (!) which I stopped, but I just noticed this morning that the overhang of the roof means I will not be able to lift out or replace two panels if and when they need replacing.

I have a sneaky suspicion that the council would not look kindly on this erection if it came to their notice, but I really don’t want to be that man that goes round to the parish hall to bring it to their notice. But would you consider the potential problem with replacing the fence panel sufficiently serious to risk falling out with them at this stage?

Looking at the state of it, I doubt you'll have to worry about your fence panels as a decent spell of strong wind and rain will quickly see that fall apart and collapse on itself.

As for approaching the council on the sly, the minute they turn up on site to investigate it and speak to the neighbour, he's going to know straight away it's you that's grassed him up - especially as you've already clipped his wings over his attempts to screw it all to your fence.

In your position my move would be determined by what sort of person he is to talk to and reason with. If he's sound and cooperative but completely hopeless at DIY then work with him to get it right so it's not breaking any regs and isn't going to affect your stuff. If he's an arse and doesn't give a flying hoot about anyone else, their property or what they think, then you need to think carefully whether you want to escalate it and likely start an endless tit-for-tat war with your neighbour and all the stress and anguish that always comes with it, or just chunter to yourself and ultimately ignore it (so long as he doesn't screw stuff to your fence) and get on with your life. Being realistic, wood fence panels in wood posts aren't ever coming out vertically again once they've been in situ for more than a month, so I wouldn't let that worry you.

[Roofless Toothless]

The panels are in concrete posts. You can see one of them in the picture, with some sort of photo-voltaic cell on top that has nothing to do with me. He's put that there.

[JimM169]

Not only will you not be able to replace the panels but where is the run off from the roof going to go? Hard to tell from the pic but if it's straight into your garden you may soon have a new pond as well.

[Moulder]

First port of call for me would be the landlord, hopefully they are of the type who will be annoyed/mortified about this and get it sorted.

I appreciate all landlords are just in it for the money to spend on orphans tears to drink and puppies to torture, but some do also care about the property and neighbours.

[richie99]

If they are relying on permitted development for this surely that doesn't permit development in front of the property line ie the front garden. That would suggest that it needs planing permission.

[FlyVintage]

Moulder said:

First port of call for me would be the landlord, hopefully they are of the type who will be annoyed/mortified about this and get it sorted.

I appreciate all landlords are just in it for the money to spend on orphans tears to drink and puppies to torture, but some do also care about the property and neighbours.

And normally, a tenancy contract will have a clause that prohibits making alterations to the property without prior approval and doing anything to cause annoyance to neighbours etc. So yes, my first port of call would be the landlord.

[Pit Pony]

Moulder said:

First port of call for me would be the landlord, hopefully they are of the type who will be annoyed/mortified about this and get it sorted.

I appreciate all landlords are just in it for the money to spend on orphans tears to drink and puppies to torture, but some do also care about the property and neighbours.

As a landlord, I'd be making them remove it. I would use the word vicarious. I'm not going to be vicariously liable for st like that.

[markymarkthree]

You defo have to have word with their landlord re this and do it ASAP before they crack on with more work.

[PhilboSE]

It needs Planning Permission (which they won’t get) and preventing maintenance of the fence and the overhang on your land are no-nos. It also might well fall foul of Building Regulations depending on size, proximity to the boundary, and built primarily of flammable materials.

So it’s a load of crap, probably won’t ever be finished to present nicely to your view, and it needs to be gone. Be prepared for a confrontation because anyone who does that is a dick. If they don’t comply then inform the council planning enforcement team, maybe suggest the neighbour said something about renting it out. If you fall out with neighbour over it, too bad, if they’re prepared to build that PoS then they’re the kind of person to fall out with their own shadow.

[Roofless Toothless]

Moulder said:

First port of call for me would be the landlord, hopefully they are of the type who will be annoyed/mortified about this and get it sorted.

I appreciate all landlords are just in it for the money to spend on orphans tears to drink and puppies to torture, but some do also care about the property and neighbours.

The landlord is an option I can’t really go down. I have been in this house 10 years and during that time he has twice applied for permission to develop the front garden of his property with an extension. The second time, last summer, he wanted to build forward within 2 metres of the side of my house, two floors, and on the sunny side, leaving me completely in the shade. It’s not a very well lit house now, being a converted coach house not originally equipped with widows, and a covenant forbidding them on the other side. There are only two downstairs windows facing the sun, and both would have been left in deep shadow.

As this would have resulted in not only an unliveable house, but a considerable loss in its value, I invested almost a thousand pounds in a specialist solicitors letter of objection to the planning department. He withdrew the application, which annoyed me as I would rather have seen it rejected.

But what irritated me more than anything is that I was lucky to even know plans had been submitted, as the public notices about that were attached to nearby lamp posts were all ripped down within hours. There’s a thing, eh?

I don’t think the landlord likes me.