Neighbours & planning permission

koko3100

Hi,
I have just recently applied for planning permission to add a 2 storey extension to my house. It is an end of terrace house and my next door neighbour is determined to object. We were planning on building on the boundary line. This means knocking part of a hedge and the little wall that the council built about 70 years ago. They do not want the wall or hedge knocked and our issues now are
-that if we leave the hedge our extension may get damp
- if our neighbours leave and new people build an extension there will be a draughty gap between 2 houses.

Does anyone know if they have a right to stop us knocking part of the hedge?
We want to stay in good relations with our neighbours and have already made allowances, eg flat roof on the extension on their side and the extension on their side has been pulled in by 1 metre.
thanks,
koko

The Hill Billy

The key to your predicament is to determine who owns the hedge. Do you have a copy of the site plans? It should be clear from those (as long as your neighbours aren't disputing the boundaries too).

Mellor

koko3100 wrote:

We were planning on building on the boundary line. This means knocking part of a hedge and the little wall that the council built about 70 years ago. They do not want the wall or hedge knocked and our issues now are
-that if we leave the hedge our extension may get damp
- if our neighbours leave and new people build an extension there will be a draughty gap between 2 houses.

Does anyone know if they have a right to stop us knocking part of the hedge?
We want to stay in good relations with our neighbours and have already made allowances, eg flat roof on the extension on their side and the extension on their side has been pulled in by 1 metre.
thanks,
koko

First problem i could see you running into is that if you build to the boundary, your eaves will be overhanging the neighbours land. Setting yourself for loads of conflict, and if its flagged you won't get planning.
Best practice is to move the building back from the boundary.

As for leeaving the hedge, im not sure what you mean by "extension may get damp". The Hedge shouldn't have any effect on the extension.

move the extension back from the boundary slightly, and fire ahead. ust be happy they haven't started on about daylight. Thats a big conplaint for 2 story extensions. But if the house is young enough daylight isnt an issue.

muffler

Regardless of legal title to the boundary wall/hedge it appears that you dont get on too well with the neighbours so you need to watch out for the spread of the foundations and the plastering/rendering the wall fn the new extension on the neighbours side.

like mellor said keep the extension back a wee bit from the boundary - not ideal but under the circumstances its probably your best option

koko3100

Thanks for all the advice.

The crazy thing is that I thought we got on very well. We have a side entrance to our property and our neighbour regularly uses it to get ladders etc. in and of course the oil for the central heating.

They have has good as said that they would not allow anyone on their property to plaster and also that they don't want the foundations to disrupt their property.

I guess being neighbourly is only one sided!!!

Again thank you all very much.

Cmar-Ireland

I would put a stop to him using your side enterance if he is going to be objecting to your plans. Put a gate or lock on the side and tell him he can use it if he doesn't object!

dixiefly

Does he ask for your permission before he trespasses unto your property? He should ask you every time. Sounds like you are just begining to cop on to him.

Neverends

Maybe a tiny bit off the point but isn't every homeowner entitled to make sure any foundations or other works for an extension beside them doesn't affect their property? We have just had a painful building experience ourselves and after much suffering have finished it all off with a nice cobblelocked driveway and side passage. If our neighbours were planning an extension theres no way we could allow them to mess up our property after all the trouble we've gone to. Isn't this fair enough?!

koko3100

I agree with you Neverends but we have already told them that if and I mean IF we had to go on their property we would return it to its original situation. Or even better!! I wouldn't presume anything!

Stoner

what people can and can't object to is sometimes over estimated IMO. If it was me (and I've done this before) I'd pull the extension back a bit, by the sounds of it 200mm to 300mm would do, that would make little difference to you and keep your neighbor happy, as the others said watch the overhang on your roof, maybe a parapet (spelling) wall on your extension would solve this as you don't want to have to go on your neighbors property to fix stuff later on and you said it was already a flat roof.
Once you've been reasonable about that I'd lock the gate on the side of my house. There is no way I'd allow free access to someone on my property, make a point about the fact they they have to ask you, if the good deed was not returned during the extension build, I'd make it very clear to them that you allow them the use to your property when it suits, if they want to be reasonable then you have given them the opportunity. In these cases being reasonable and willing to compromise is the way forward, but if you let someone walk all over you then you'll get nowhere, there is only so much people can object to, at the end of the day they can go and do something similar themselves and as long as you'd be OK with that then your expectations would be considered reasonable IMO.

Stoner

Neverends wrote:

Maybe a tiny bit off the point but isn't every homeowner entitled to make sure any foundations or other works for an extension beside them doesn't affect their property? We have just had a painful building experience ourselves and after much suffering have finished it all off with a nice cobblelocked driveway and side passage. If our neighbours were planning an extension theres no way we could allow them to mess up our property after all the trouble we've gone to. Isn't this fair enough?!

I guess its fair to some degree, the fairness depends on what they had to put up with during your build, it would be unfair in my opinion to try to stop someone making the most of their property just because you got in there first, I do see where your coming from though

construct06

Hey guys, slightly off-topic but im tryin to get support for a specific 'Built Environment' Forum for all building/engineering/architectural/planning issues. Lend yer support at:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showt...p?t=2055028973

if yed like to see such a forum

cheers

construct_06

miles teg

koko3100 wrote:

Hi,
I have just recently applied for planning permission to add a 2 storey extension to my house. It is an end of terrace house and my next door neighbour is determined to object. We were planning on building on the boundary line...

I have to say, i wouldn't be very happy if a 2 story building appeared right at the edge of my garden. You didn't mention relative orientations/positions of your properties so your neighbour may well be justified in objecting. Would your extention block sunlight into his garden? Would your extention enable you to have direct line of sight into his back rooms (particularly bedroom)? It only takes one valid reason for your planning to be denied.