If you have a big extension to your home, AIBU to think you should consider the impact on your neighbours?

I don’t see why it is selfish to having building work done on your home.

I wish there were a limit on the timescale of renovations, although realistically there probably can't be.

My NDN has been extending since what feels like the dawn of time, and they are nowhere near complete. The builders come and go, so it hasn't been continuous, but we never know when we are going to have drilling and banging from 8.00am until quite late. We did approve the plans, and get on with the neighbours, so wouldn't complain, but if there had been a 6 month limit it would have made life so much better for us.

At least your builders are keeping to the working day.

So many builders seem to want to come at 7 am (and leave at 3, why?) and come on weekends and all sorts. My builders who did the loft extension couldn’t fathom why my neighbours weren’t keen (and therefore I wasn’t keen) on them coming every Saturday at the crack of dawn!

Our opposite neighbours built a 6 bedroom house on their land. We had 6 months of disruption in the form of contractor vehicles parking everywhere and anywhere. Sometimes across our drive. We now look at an ugly big house, whereas before we looked at trees. So yes, a pain, but it’s just one of those things. 🤷‍♀️

Did you look at the plans at the planning stage. Did you object on grounds of scale? It's a bit late to complain now if you had the opportunity to stop this earlier.

Check they aren’t breaking any planning regulations. Near us they built a loft extension and went up too high and had to demolish it.

People are really selfish these days!

Not sure there’s much you can do but it sucks.

Are you my neighbour by any chance? 😂

We are doing a big build and frankly it's an inconvenience to me too but I literally have no other options. There's no house in my price range for what we will require for a family. The area we live in cannot be matched .

I get it's annoying and noisy, my builders work 9-5 only but once it's done they know there will be noore noise from me.

The irony is my neighbour did an extension years ago herself but has a problem with anyone else doing work.

YABU.

Assuming you live in a city, noise and building work are just part of life.

In many parts of the country (London being one), it's more cost effective by a huge margin to buy a house and extend than buy one of the size you want long term. We spent £150k adding an extension and extra 2 bedrooms and bathroom to our house. In our area, buying something of this footprint would have cost an extra £300k plus all the stamp. We just didn't have the money.

And yes, it was just us at the time - we didn't want to start a family until our house was ready. When it was, we filled it with babies!

I'll turn this round and reverse it - if you don't want to be around views of other people's houses or city noise, why don't you move? You could go get somewhere nice and quiet in the countryside with a lovely view.

City life comes with some inconveniences (noise, building) and some massive benefits. You don't get one without the other.

BTW, we have spent the last many years since building work being the world's loveliest neighbors and we'll be in our home forever, which is a long time. We'll be looking out for all our neighbors when they are well into old age.

Presuming they have all the correct permissions, then yes, you have to just suck it up.

We once lived next to someone who had building work done for 5 months. Years later, in a different house, we were the ones with builders in for 7 months. It’s life.

Tough titties OP.
All you can do is due diligence with legal searches when you first purchase your property but then anything can happen after that. Some folk who buy lovely rural properties end up with A roads or electricity pylons running through their land.

The arseholes that bought the house next to us had all the work done slowly over 3 years before moving in. During that time they:
Ripped down part of our fence and set fire to it on a bonfire.
Dug up part of my patio
Covered my house is dust / rubble
Sent us abusive emails and threatened our surveyor.

we now have a huge, ugly wall instead of what was a normal size fence with climbers on it.

But what is worse is these awful people live next to us... I can't imagine actively trying to piss off people I was then going to live next door to...

If they all died horrible deaths I wouldn't shed a tear.

I appreciate it's irritating but building noise is a risk you take with close neighbours. I don't think it's realistic to expect your short term convenience to be prioritised above the needs of their family. It's just one of those things! Yes, they can move, but so can you.

Yup our neighbours tried this with zero planning permission. Zero building control. Zero party wall. Tried to land grab as well.

Epically failed however lucky for us as we did report them to every agency we could have kept video and photo evidence of everything.

Nothing says hi I’m your new neighbour like a fuck ton of noise and damage. Starts of the neighbourly relationship amazingly.

This happened to us but next-door-but-one, they had all the work done while living away somewhere else. Waltzed in last minute to a brand new renovation while we had to deal with the awfulness of the building works. It took 18 months.

Whether you are unreasonable or not very much depends on the planning application and whether you put in any kind of objection? Loss of light for example or overbearing structure. But this really does depend on whether they are doing full planning permission or they are doing permitted development and you think it's a big extension.

As I understand it, the current labour government are intent on making it easier than ever to build without scrutiny. For this reason it is imperative to use the planning process to object if you have good cause, because you won't be able to rely on the councils to stop poor developments.

This.

On what grounds?

'YABU. There's an impartial planning process to balance their right to improve their property and neighbours rights to quiet enjoyment of theirs'

Council planning regs, like anything council related, are stupid. Disruption and noise pollution for neighbours whilst work is in progress should be a consideration but it isn't. Drainage too doesn't seem to bother the council, if a neighbour builds an extension it will have an knock on effect on garden drainage but the council do not care.

So oppose the planning position?

I’m not sure this is fair really, maybe there wasn’t a house that fit what they wanted and as long as they have the relevant planning permission they aren’t doing anything wrong. We’ve been both sides of this, the neighbours who extended and also the neighbours with building going on next door, it’s just part of life and the work isn’t ideal but it’s short term.

You are definitely not being unreasonable. Sympathy from me

I'm with you op. Just buy a house the size you want or move. Obviously household repairs are one thing but extensions are so disruptive for neighbours I think it is hugely inconsiderate.

YABU. There's an impartial planning process to balance their right to improve their property and neighbours rights to quiet enjoyment of theirs.

Do they require planning permission? If so, you don't have to "suck it up", you can register your objections to the planning authority according the rules of the process.