Neighbour is damaging our property with a marquee tent

[DiscoBob]

We have never had any issues whatsoever with our next door neighbours. They've lived there probably since the late 90s.
Basically the majority of our kitchen wall is located in their back garden.

They've put a marquee tent in their yard about 10-20cms away from our kitchen wall. This has been there for a year and a half. Obviously the water run off has caused damp that's now seeped through our brickwork into our kitchen.

We've paid a damp specialist to do a report and showed it to the neighbours. It includes instruction to move the tent so it's at least a metre away from the wall and this would allow the damp to dry.

Unfortunately the neighbour accosted me while I was helping my disabled friend into my house so I was flustered and started saying the tent wasn't touching my wall, and that the overgrown plants on her yard came from my property. They don't. And if they did we'd be happy to cut them back as we regularly pay for gardening maintenance. So that threw me.

They never have done any gardening once except to borrow my loppers to make enough space to place this marquee tent. Which we assumed was temporary.

I'm now in a dispute with my mum who says I shouldn't contact the council about it. That she might contact a lawyer? But she doesn't even have a lawyer and the neighbours I doubt have money to be sued. Plus I'd hate to get into a dispute with them. Surely the council is more sensible as that's their landlord. After we've tried to explain and reason with them once more.

I don't want them to hate us but I really don't know what to do. Both of us are disabled and can't really handle conflict. But if she doesn't move her tent it's going to cause rising damp that could permanently wreck my home and the neighbours. We told her it could be affecting her house too but she was unbothered.

Speak to the council about their property. Explain that you have. Report from a damp professional. They will visit the property and sort it. The council are pretty good if you contact them.

Just go through your insurance that way it’s less likely to trigger a neighbour dispute if you want to sell down the line.

diagram…

Their garden is two thirds in to your kitchen. I’m intrigued.

Speak to them. For goodness sake, dont go into the winter months with the tent up ruining your house!

I am not the OP, but this is how my mum’s house is set out with her neighbours. The green house has its kitchen wall neighbouring the grey house’s back garden, and its living room wall neighbouring the pink house’s garden.

Just showing this as it sounds similar to OP’s set up and might help those who are asking the question on how it can be.

(image might take a while to approve)

I wouldn’t take it for a given that the “damp specialist” report is any good. if she doesn't move her tent it's going to cause rising damp that could permanently wreck my home and the neighbours. that statement is highly unlikely. No well maintained property falls to its knees if someone puts a tent next to it.

The industry is full of damp specialist con men trying to sell remediation treatment who have absolutely no experience or qualifications or idea what they’re even looking at. Have you at least looked at the wall to see if it needs repointing or re-rendering or if you have a blocked gutter in that location?

Arrange a meeting with her.

Show her the report with specific paras highlighted.

Day you don’t want to cause her trouble by you can’t afford for their tent to continue to cause damp, so you would like to resolve it without engaging legal processes.

Can anyone in your family help get it moved 1m away?

If she doesn’t co-operate send a very clear message to the council including the report.

If she still does nothing get a solicitor to send a Letter Before Action

As long as everything was done properly in the conveyancing when you bought, and the party wall agreement was properly drawn up for your wall being the boundary the wedge etc are irrelevant to this situation.

OP - my neighbours kitchen wall (an extension) forms the boundary wall to our garden - I can imagine a similar dispute if I put a marquee up that dripped rainwater onto it.
When we moved in - 15 or so years ago - they accosted me in the local shop, of all places, and started moaning that our property was causing damp in theirs. I was upset - the last thing I wanted was a dispute with neighbours.
I can easily understand how these things become heated - they started talking about us paying for tanking and stuff! I dealt with with it by fostering excellent relations with them. I chatted to them, found out what they wanted/needed and helped as best I could. In our case, we needed to lower the ground level a bit - and add a french drain - something that fitted quite easily with building/garden landscaping works we had planned. But you don't need to know the details.
Foster good relations with them if you possibly can. What can you do to help? Chat to them. Invite them over for a cup of tea to talk about it. Get a second opinion from a builder to check that what the damp survey says is correct. Offer to help - could the marquee be moved, could you help with this?
If all this fails, then maybe contact the council - but avoid locking horns with them at all costs.

Put a note thru her door saying you will come around at X time to discuss the matter calmly as she caught you off guard the other day. Can you take a relative, friend or the other neighbour with you for support. Then she will be expecting you and you can all sit down like adults. Or invite her round for a cup of tea and explain the matter and show her the damp and the report again.

You would prefer to settle this amicably rather than contacting the council or taking legal steps .... All she has to do is move the tent away from the boundary.

Here for the diagram

Rising damp is usually down to a failed damp proof course and involves water being pulled up the wall from the ground by the capillary action of the masonry.

But damage certainly can be cause by a marquee too close if the rain water runs off the tent roof directly onto the wall. It would be like having poorly maintained gutters that just discharge water down your wall instead of diverting to a down spout. But would be penetrating damp.

I had a quick google though and it said there is a thing called Simulated Rising Damp which is caused if rain water hits the ground right by the wall, splashing onto it and keeping the bottom of the wall soaked. Presumably a marquee would also stop the wall drying out as easily by keeping the area shaded. So it's likely that.

Sounds like you struggle with communication and what if she says something that catches you off guard... I have same issue ...anxiety.... so what I did amd suggest you do is write a note and pop in her letterbox.
You can write down exactly what you been told, how its damaging your property and what you want her to do about it. Just end with something like you dont want there to be any animosity or take things further but you will have no choice due to damage and you will give her 10 working days to sort before you do take further action but giving her this opportunity to sort before she becomes liable and to save you both stress of court and fees etc

We had the same situation, next door had a lean to type car port between our houses, rain would run off the roof.and down our wall and caused damp. We got it fixed and after we.spoke to them they took the roof off.
Annoying we had to.pay for it but it solved the problem. Your neighbours don't sound as reasonable as ours were so definitely contact the council.

The back wall of our house, including kitchen and bathroom windows, is also in our NDNs garden. I can easily envisage the situation OP is describing.

Old old houses, strange layouts - our garden is to the side of our house, their garden is behind it.

We had an issue with the neighbours property causing damp to ours. They didn’t want to sort the issue. We contacted our house insurance, they forced them to sort the issue quickly.
If you have legal cover on you home insurance then contact them, they will deal with the council and save you a lot of stress, hassle and running around trying to sort it.

Agree

Your Insurers should sort it

This would make sense to me (beautiful diagram by the way).

All last night I was trying to imagine a triangle-shaped thing!

That's good. Out of interest, how did they make them? Did they have to threaten legal action?

Thank you! I was going to say exactly this.

Why not send your neighbour an invitation to come round and have a chat about both the damp wall and the shrubbery problems, so nobody is caught out and flustered?

@PleaseDontTreadOnTheDaisies I honestly have no clue. Our insurers sent a surveyor within a few days, he said he’d write a report that confirmed the neighbours were the cause of the damp. The following week workmen turn up to sort the neighbours problem that was causing our damp. We had a phone call from the insurers a couple of months later asking us to confirm if the neighbours had done the work and resolved our issue, and that was it.

Who said the OP even has a damp proof course?

The damp specialists were checking to see if the damp proof course in the basement had failed but they said it hadn't. It was definitely not coming from below. So could only be logically from the tent.

I'm so sorry I tried for ages to upload it! 😭 X