Building near neighbours boundary

The neighbour can also build right on the boundary.

If your house is already right on the boundary, this means they can essentially abuts your house. There is not fires risk there, no different to semi detached or terraced houses in contact.

I would highly doubt that, if you have a detached property, your neighbour can build onto your wall and use it as one of their walls.

Have they actually done this/ indicated an intention to do so?

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Something doesn't add up.

You say your house wall is on the boundary but the same wall has meter box etc located on it. That would mean that your meter opens onto neighbours property which I wouldn't see as possible or correct.

You're house is already built right on the boundary (on that side). You can't prevent others from doing the same.

Nobody said anything about building on to your wall. We said that can abutt your wall (if it is on the boundary). That means building against it, while still on their property. This would in a way make your house semi-detached (if the boundary is where you say it is) they do not need your permission for that. Why would they, it's not your property.

If your "metre" is on that wall. It is overhanging their property. That's illegal. Your roof is possibly overhanging, also illegal.

The distance that is require between boundary walls that are not party walls is 0cm - a hard zero. THe boundary is an imaginary line that exits between the properties. It has no thickness. Your wall has left 0cm clearance to the boundary (according to your posts). That is allowed. But it's allowed for all, not just you. Meaning the neighbour can build their wall, on their side 0cm from the boundary.

You are not allowed to park there. It's over the boundary, and therefore not your property. You you would be trespassing.

As others have said, what you are saying doesn't add up. Either you are not desctibign it well, or the boundary isn't where you say it is. But if that is the boundary, then its their property not yours. You can't use it for parking, access, etc etc.

@schkanico01, Is this how it looks?

Plenty of examples every where. Especially when you consider a commercial buildings that occupy the full width of a lot.

That's my understanding from the description, but OP may be mistake about the wall being a boundary wall.

The meter box access along that side is clearly poorly thought out. But it happens all the time in those configuration. It's pretty planning to build a detached house on the boundary and not foresee these issues.

Well, if you've got an easement over his land which entitles you to have your meter box where it is, and to access it, he can't develop his land in a way that obstructs your easement.

Is he proposing to build up to the boundary in a way that your meter box would end up being walled in?

On edit: You're entirely reliant on your easement here. But for that, as Mellor points out, they could put up a structure that abuts against your wall; they do not need to leave any space at all between their structure and yours.

So the answer to your question "how close can they build?" is another question; what does your easement say? If the easement says they need to leave an access passage of (say) at least 900mm, then that's how close they can build. If, as is more likely, the easement isn't specific, then they need to leave as much space as is practically necessary for you to access the meter box — enough space for you to walk up to it, stand next to it, open it, look in, and reach in.

Most likely your easement allows them to leave a passage only as far is required to access the meter box; past the meter box, they can builds something right up to the boundary and, therefore, right up to your wall.

You should have mentioned before now that there is an easement registered.

Any chance of a photo or drawing showing the meter box location and easement?

That looks like a slightly different arrangement. The red line there, I think, indicates the property boundary, which means that the house isn't built up to the property boundary on either side of the lot. But the strip of land inside the property boundary that is coloured yellow is subject to a right of way in favour of the neighbouring property, so that the occupant of that property can use it to access his garage.

So, in that case, the owner of no 16 can't build all the way up to the side wall of no. 17 because he doesn't own the strip of land that runs along the side wall of no. 17 — he only owns up to the red line between no. 16 and no. 17. But the owner of no. 17 also can't build on that strip of land, even though he owns it, because it's subject to a right of way in favour of no. 16.

You don't need a right of way over land that you already own. So no. 17 doesn't need a right of way over land inside the boundary of no. 17, and no. 16 doesn't need a right of way over land inside the boundary of no 16.

Plus, why would no. 17 need a right of way to a garage that stands entirely on the land of no. 16? No. 17 has his own garage on the other side. So I would see no reason for no. 17 to have a right of way over the yellow bit of no. 16.

So is no 16 allowed to park their car between the houses or drive their car into their garage

Walking or driving over the strip would be fine but parking wouldn't be as it could be considered an obstruction. Then again it's down to the actual wording on the deeds.

Reinforces my long held belief that a detached house isn’t really detached if you can’t walk around it completely.

Where the side house wall is the effective boundary, you’re at the mercy of the next door neighbour.

some guidance on easements here - @OP would be great to hear what the title deeds state in relation to this easement - it could well be that your neighbours have no right to build on it and must keep it as is for your legal benefit

https://mcmahonsolicitors.ie/easement-overview/#:~:text=An%20easement%20is%20a%20property,to%20one%20property%2C%20over%20another.

I’ve driven around some new estates recently - leaving aside how clumped together the houses are, I’ve seen strange looking set ups that will almost certainly lead to neighbour disputes in years to come

You may have thought you were describing it well, but you were not. An easement was not stated until post 23, (you mentioned a right of access, access to a rear garden is commonly provided without an easement). The meter boxes being on the side does not mean anytihng in itself.

The original question was how close can you build to a boundary/detached house. The answer to that question was correct, you can build abutting it. If a building is build right up to the boundary, your neighbour does not need your permission to turn it it into a semi-detached building, as was claimed.

The legal mechanism that impacts that is an easement. The extent of that impact depends on the exact terms. It could be a 1000mm access strip to your rear garden, it's unlikely to be much more. But it could be as little as a 1m x 1m square at the corner to access the meter box.

In the case of the latter, they would just set the extension 1m back from the building line, and build right up to the boundary. No rights infringed.

Hope it goes ok for you and your neighbours from now on.

If that side driveway, was present between every house. I would expect it to belong entirely to one house or the other. (Makes sense that it's the house on he right as the driveway is raised to the level of that house not the other.)

But, if I was drawing the boundaries for the above. It would not be hard up to the other house. As that means the eaves is overhanding. At the very least, it should be set back 300mm or so. (plus the easement to access, which should only be about 2m long