I will try to keep the story brief.
We have lived in our house for nearly 20 years. We have a tiny back garden- 12 feet wide.
New neighbours bought next door and said our garden was too wide by 8 inches. They wanted this 8 inch wide strip 'back'. They were planning an extension.
We did lots of research and told them that as we had had possession of this strip for so long it was ours, and it was difficult to prove either way, as Land Registry plans state they cannot be used to determine the boundary. After months of him threatening us with legal action ( delaying his extension because we wouldn't give in to him), sending threatening emails daily, awful pressure we said we would split the 8 inches with him. Our solicitor told us that we would be likely to win the case in court, but that a judge would probably not award us costs as they hate boundary disputes over such as small piece of land. Which seems very unfair to me. He said it could cost us 30k.
So we agreed he could build his wall 4 inches in from where the boundary was. This involved destroying a garden border filled with beautiful climbing plants. We thought we would be compensated for this, but he decided not to get a party wall agreement- which would have protected our interests. The only way we could have forced him to issue a party wall notice was to get an injunction. Again we were warned off doing this, as our 'loss' would have been minimal.
We agreed he would compensate us for the plants. He is now refusing to pay us, because I called him a bully! I feel we need to claim this money from him in the small claims court, but that drags it out even more. But if we don't, we will be out of pocket as well as having lost part of our garden.
He has bullied and harassed us for months. His 9 metre wide extension is 4 inches wider than it would have been, and I have lost my beloved plants. He lies to us. He now ignores our emails. He used to email us saying "if you don't reply by the end of today I will do x y z".
The layout of our gardens is complicated, but basically we cannot fence ourselves off from him. We will see him every day. He is having bi fold doors right up to the back boundary, and not putting a fence in front of them. We will be able to see him all the time!
Will I be able to stay here? Hate is not strong enough for how I feel. He has made me ill, my partner and I have had huge arguments, it's just been awful. The neighbour hates us, he seems to think we have wronged him in some way. The atmosphere is dreadful.
I love my house, and can't really afford to move, but am I kidding myself to think it will be possible to stay? The build is happening at the moment, will it be better when it's done? Thanks for reading the essay. Has anyone been through anything similar?
AIBU?
To think I can stay living next door to this neighbour?
hooliodancer · 13/05/2016 16:49
FIrst of all I really sympathise with you. He sounds awful and how soul destroying to have to dig up much-loved plants (I say that as a keen gardener myself) I'm guessing he has acted within the law - presumably a council planning inspector can confirm this? That being the case, in your shoes I would take a deep breath and think about what you can do to put your garden back together so it is beautiful for you - never mind pissing him off (though if it obstruct his view so much the better). You had climbing plants there before so you must be able to have them there again, but four inches closer. You say you love your house so focus on that - channel your energy into your garden (there is nothing more therapeutic and I envy you that however small it may be as I now live in the middle of a city with no garden!) Don't waste anymore time on this man. In the fullness of time you may decide to move - or he may move - don't do it now with the building work in progress and the fact that you might have to declare a dispute with neighbour to a prospective buyer. FInally, I am a great believer in Karma - I haven't been in exactly the same situation as you, but I did have a really unreasonable landlord (too tedious to go into here) a few months after we left thousands of gallons of water poured through his house from a crack in the toilet cistern bringing the ceiling down on the ground floor. It was noone's fault, but it couldn't have happened to a nicer man! 
to start you off with your new planting scheme.
Will I be able to stay here? Hate is not strong enough for how I feel. He has made me ill, my partner and I have had huge arguments, it's just been awful. The neighbour hates us, he seems to think we have wronged him in some way. The atmosphere is dreadful.
I have no advice but every sympathy with you. We had a dispute with a neighbour that lasted four years. Happily we won and she ended up moving. But we spoke about that cunt for at least an hour every single day. There was one weekend where we thought that if she won we'd have not only had to move, we'd have had to give a huge chunk of our property to her.
It ended up in a tribunal, not a court, where the costs were much lower, but still not cheap.
But I understand everything you said in that excerpt. It seems impossible that someone can do this to you but they can. There is nothing I can say to you except this .
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hoolio, how much money are we talking - well, I understand if you'd rather not say.
if you can let go of it, I would. I think you've been through so much stress and you might need to save your energy for moving if you find the extension too intrusive.
I don't know why those garden gnomes exist but a good use of them would be to have them facing directly into his extension. He sounds really horrible. I would also put up whatever fencing/trellis type stuff is allowed, in order to block his view. You then place the gnomes outside of that if you see what I mean 
I thought planning regs were lax enough to start with. It is awful that you should have to go through all this because the cost of a case is prohibitive, but equally awful that people can just do all this and cause this disruption.
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