NDN wants to use our driveway for building work - AIBU?

[NigellaAwesome]

Having quickly checked that the thread titled 'Twat Next Door' wasn't about us, I hoped to get hive mind views on our neighbour.

This might be long, but I don't want to drip-feed. For background, we have lived next to them for about 10 years. She's OK, but he is a complete knob. We call him Gobby Gordon. We've had a few issues over the years. The first was when one of their young relatives threw stones at our car repeatedly and caused substantial damage. When I told the wife what had happened, she was very apologetic and said she would pay. The dealer quoted £800 to repair, but I got a contact to do it at knockdown price for £120 + vat. However when I went round a couple of weeks later to let her know how much it would be, the husband arrived round later ranting and raving and threw a cheque at us for £120 but giving off severely. We were a bit about it, especially since he drove a Maserati and I doubt he would have appreciated the same being done to his car. That somewhat set the tone, but we have pretty much ignored each other over the years, with a couple of exceptions.

Our driveway is between the two houses, and beyond our fence they have about a metre passageway before their gable wall. A number of years ago I arrived home to find a workman on ladders in our driveway doing work on their chimney. They hadn't let us know, and I was shocked to find him there because we have electric gates and he must have climbed over the gates / fence to get in. I almost knocked him off the ladder because I was reversing in and only saw him at the last minute. When I asked what he was doing on my property he was really abusive. He refused to leave, and police were called and I think there was some sort of warning given. Gobby Gordon gave off to my DH about it afterwards, calling us crap neighbours. When we pointed out that he hadn't had the courtesy to ask us beforehand, he said that the workman had rung our doorbell but there had been no answer (no shit Sherlock, we were out).

A few months later I saw the wife and we had a chat. She was ok, and I explained that whilst we were happy in principle with access being given, it needed to be by prior arrangement, and with one of them - not a random builder, talking to us beforehand. This has been the case since for the last few years, and we have provided access on about 3 occasions since then. The wife has always called with us, provided details of the builder, and everything has been fine with minimal disruption.

Last week we were out and we got a call from the gates (gates connect to our phone when they are called). It was a builder asking to get onto our property to look at doing some work. We were out, had no idea what he was talking about, and said it wasn't really convenient. We didn't hear anything more.

This evening we were out again, and got a call from the gates. It was a builder asking if he could speak with us. We were out, but coming back in 15 minutes, so I said if he could hang on we would chat with him. When we got back home, he was waiting for us. He knew our names, and knew a lot about us including what we do for a living (which I'm not very happy about).

The builder said he wanted access to our driveway to build scaffolding on it to rebuild the neighbour's chimney. I was pretty pissed off that I was having this conversation directly with him, and that neither of the neighbours had spoken to us about it. When I told him this, he said that he had never even met the wife, only Gobby Gordon. He told Gordon last week that he needed to speak to us about access, but Gordon hasn't bothered his arse.

When I asked about what needed to be done, he said it would be scaffolded for 7 to 10 days (so realistically likely to be 3 weeks). Our driveway will be out of action for that time, and we have 2 cars that can't be parked outside on the busy road. I'm not thrilled at the prospect of bricks being brought up and down scaffolding which could land on our driveway, our pets, or our children. I'm going through quite a stressful time in work at the moment, and I also have professional exams coming up, so really could do without 3 weeks of building work. There's more, which would be a bit outing, but it was clear from what the builder said that Gobby Gordon had discussed a lot of private information about us - information that we didn't even know that Gordon knew, so that has really, really pissed me off. The builder also laid it on really thick that he had travelled a very long way to discuss this with us. The conversation ended with me telling the builder that I was sorry for his inconvenience, but this was an issue for the neighbours to speak to us directly about, not him, and the neighbours knew the score before they sent him round to discuss it with us. DH feels a bit sorry for the builder, but I just think this is Gobby Gordon being a cheeky fucker and sending the builder round to lay it on thick rather than having the manners to speak to us directly.

This is more a WWYD rather than AIBU. MN WWYD & AIBU re CF NDN?

I would be leaning towards "No." What would you do with your vehicles if you can't use your drive for 3 weeks?

You might want to work out what it will cost you in money and inconvenience and ask for payment (along with the contract with charges for going beyond agreed limits suggested up thread by Flamingo). As someone else said, they can almost certainly do the work staying entirely on their property, it will just cost them a lot more.

Do you definitely believe the builder when he says that they're just replacing a chimney?

My in laws had something similar when a new neighbour moved in and started building works saying he was building a small house to sell in his large garden, when it actually turned out to be 4 semi detached family homes. It was only because of FIL being naturally suspicious and objecting when he found out the truth that prevented planning being granted.

Obviously that's quite dramatic, but I'd be worried that the scale of work and therefore the impact to you would be much higher given what pp have said about the logistics of just taking down a chimney.

If you do agree to allow the scaffolding on your driveway, you should have use of their driveway and they should park their cars on the road.

Notwithstanding Gobby Gordon if its say a 2 or 4 pot chimmey that should be around a week or less if but only if they make a start there and FINISH it! Builders are notorious for making a start on a job then sodding off as someone else is shouting louder!

I would specify that they use a decent scaffolder and builder and use a waste chute thats where they chuck the waste in and it goes direct to a skip. They may be able to re use the same bricks espically if the buiding is some years old and that brick isnt't made anymore.

A health and saftey system should be drawn up and stuck to in case anyone is underneath and something falls which can happen. I think overall despite the adverse politics there if this stack is in any need of repair then best done as if that windy a day or night came about then better safe that regretfull.

A single house brick can weigh around 3.5 Kilograms butr whats worse is a single chimmey pot can weigh in at around 20 Kilos so that coming dowen from heright ain't much fun.

FWIW a friend of mine asked me to have a go rebuilding a stack on his cottage he provied the scaffold and did the labouring from take down one after noon to re built another, and its still there and looks sweet:)

No.

They didn’t ask.
You’ve had problems with them before.
Your drive will be out of action. Where will you park?
There are alternatives they can use. They are choosing not to.
Nightmare to enforce any repair / compensation.

Will scaffolding on your property pose a security and privacy risk. I'd say no, if the can access the chimney from their side then that's their responsibility. Is it a shared roof, is the chimney on your side at all. Supposing they damage your roof or drive.

Dh has this week repaired DS and DIL's chimney, it had to be done as it would have become dangerous.
Scaffold was needed and roof ladders, however it only took 2 days. If the builder reckoned that the scaffolding would be up for 7-10 days that is probably a realistic estimate, as it will be left there until the scaffolding is required for another job (this is how it works, the actual repair job might only take a few days).
Try and remember what the builder actually said or contact him to get is absolutely clear how long it will be.
Your neighbour obviously does not want to deal with you, but he has to, and he should be crawling to you as you hold all the cards, and should be providing you with alternative parking.
Builders with have public liability insurance and any damages to your property should be covered by this.
If the chimney is letting in water then I'm pretty sure the repair has to be undertaken externally.
Good Luck!

No 4.
Absolutely insist it is ata time of your convenience. After your exams.
Speak to them both together and say you just don’t understand why gg didn’t speak to you.
Have clear time frame for scaffolding to be gone. If build overruns they can sort themselves out.
Not sure about using their driveway - that gets complicated if they have electric gates too and they have already damaged one of your cars !!

If you say no-can they still get the work done?

If so, I would be saying no.

Check with your buildings and contents insurance about the scaffolding. When we had scaffolding outside our house for roof maintenance we had to inform both our insurers and their were temporary policy restrictions put in place for the period the scaffolding was in place.

Nope. Sorry Gordon, you're a twat and you reap what you sow. Bye now.

We had to have our shared chimney rebuilt a couple of years ago (damp getting into nextdoors house). On nitial inspection builders didn't think it look too bad, on stripping back the render, it became apparent that the only thing holder the chimney stack up was the render (and we live on a very windy mountainside!!!). They were able to dismantle it by hand, the bricks just lifted off.

When they were dismantling it there was a lot of rubble dropping down our chimney into the log burner, which disturbed the flue and made the living room stink (only relevant if it is a shared chimney), and a lot of rubble dropped down into the garden, much to the amusement of our puppy who was then constantly asking to go out into the garden so that he could bring the rubble in to the house (he's always loved stones!!). The builders managed to not drop any bricks, but it made using the back door which is right my the boundary line difficult, and I was worried about my puppy getting hit by falling debris.

Your neighbour is clearly an arsehole, but as you've said a dodgy chimney stack is a safety risk, and could potentially start damp coming in to your house to, so at some point it will need sorting out. I would demand a meeting with GG, make him grovel a bit, and lay down your terms, which include a thorough cleanup of your property afterwards and the repair of any damage to it.

There is legislation that allows people to enter your land if they need to to maintain their property. However, if you said no to their request they would need to go to court to get an access order, and they would need to show why they needed that access and there would normally be conditions etc. So it would be a massive pain in the arse for them.

Think of all the mess on your side and the inconvenience of parking off drive. Your insurance will be invalidated if something happens to one of your cars off the drive at night. I would say no because you need your drive to be functional. There must be another way for them to get it done.

Definitely don’t say yes to be nice , you can’t improve neighbour relationship with a guy like that, you can just shift up and down the scale of ‘level of doormat I can roll right over’.
I would wait till he approaches me. Then suggest that we could work something out with a contract of terms and the starting requirement be that we were provided with safe off road parking and suggest we park on his property and he park on the road. I’d really just do that to enjoy watching him explode as I can’t in a million years imagine he would agree with his Maserati.
Enough people on this thread have given examples of similar that he doesn’t need your property, he would prefer to inconvenience you than him. So I would without saying n.o. shift the inconvenience back to him with my conditions. If the builder comes back smile apologetically and say I can’t work it out with you- I need your client to sort it directly because frankly he’s an asshole and would screw both of us without a thought.

I'm sorry OP but you would be a bit of a CF to ask for compensation from them, in my opinion. If it's too much on an inconvenience then say no. I am quite certain that the builders won't want to cause any damage to your property as they know they'll be liable.

The decision is ultimately yours, but I'd choose the one where you can potentially rebuild some sort of civil relationship over the option of making it even worse. Imagine if you need some repairs on your property in the future and they act the same way in retaliation, you'd wish you'd have just let them fix their chimney.

If you are thinking of saying yes....then you lrobably shoukd have a word with your insurers as well as making sure that the builders have proper insurance in case they damage anything.

We have just finished external work. Scaffolding went up then weather turned so it was delayed two weeks right at the start, took longer than expected then was another 3 weeks before the scaffolding company turned up to take it away. Expected one month of scaffolding and ended up with 3 months of it! Make sure any agreement is very clear about timing.

Also, they were throwing tiles straight from roof into skip which was on our drive along with as many builders vans as could fit. Make sure they know there will only be access for putting scaffolding up and down. Make sure it is all agreed in writing that there will be no access to scaffolding from your side during building work, no works vans to be on your drive (apart from scaffolding company), definitely no skip to be in your drive and any debris to be removed regularly (at least daily). The builders will park in your drive if they can especially if there is no parking nearby and your neighbour will probably have a skip on his drive.

If they are chucking bricks from the roof into a skip then it will be very noisy so definitely worth arranging around your exams. Get it all agreed in writing in advance with compensation for over-run if you think it could drag on and agree in writing for any damage to your property to be fixed. Good luck!

Gobby Gordon sounds a nasty bastard. I would say no, especially because the scaffolding would be put up by a separate company and you would have no say over when they come to remove it. There is risk of them taking over the driveway for much longer than 3 weeks.

No party wall issues at all - their house is detached from ours.

Can you ask for netting to be put up on the outside of scaffolding? That might mitigate some of the concerns about damage / danger / disruption. I'm aware though that I am still allocating mental energy to sorting out their problems. Whoever suggested speaking to the insurance company may be on to something. I'll upload a picture in a sec.

Building works always take longer than quoted.

Our lovely neighbours next door allowed scaffolding on their drive and some building materials when we built our extension.

But we went round and asked them and showed them the plans before anything was done.
When our builder started he moved a fence so their back garden was kept enclosed as they had a dog.
Afterwards we took them round a bag of goodies to thank them.

Last year they got their drive and garden overhauled and I offered our drive to them to put the monoblock on while it was being done.

This is what normal neighbours do.

Your neighbour is taking the piss op. He has been rude to you and hasn’t even had the decency to speak to you about it. It would refuse access.

Have you checked your deeds to make sure there is nothing in there about allowing access for maintenance?

If it's detached from you-have they not got access all round their house without needing your drive?

I wouldn't want to park my cars on his drive. They might be quite likely to get hit by debris there and, as he's an arsehole, there's more opportunity for arseholery on his own property. If it does go ahead (after your exams) you could maybe leaflet neighbouring properties offering to pay for the use of a parking space, that he would have to pay for obviously.

I agree with the previous poster that a bond of a reasonable sum of money could be held by a solicitor to cover any damage or over-run costs, to be returned to him after all work has finished and scaffolding has been removed.

Don't forget, you have the upper hand here, you have something that he needs. If he says no to any of your requirements then that's his choice. He can find another way.