to think that NDN should care how shit this looks from my garden. FENCE THREAD - pic enc.

[PauperTroll]

He's put up curved trellis all the way along the wall and stapled tatty strawberry netting to the back (our side) of it so he's not overlooked by the houses perpendicular to us.

But it looks horrible from my side. And the trellis has made it very tall.

I'd saved up for a few years to do my garden up a bit this spring and now this has made it look crap. I can't really afford to put something up on my side to hide his netting.

There's fuck-all I can do, I assume - I asked him (nicely) if I could remove the netting and if the trellis would be obscure enough to stop the neighbours overlooking him. He said no, that it was on his property, and that he wasn't going to remove it and that if I didn't like it I could install something on my side to cover it.

Is there anything I can do???

Great news about legal confirmation

He is gone til Thursday???? Excellent get the lump hammers out!

I have a feeling that he had some kind of feud with the previous owners of my house (hence 6ft breezeblock walls being put up) and that's why he's a dick to me!

Sounds like he could fall out with someone in an empty room!

Glad the wall turns out to be yours.

@PauperTroll Soooooooo, it's Friday now, is he back, did you speak to him?!

He seems to have gone into hiding

His car is there but he hasn't answered the door to me yesterday or this morning.

I will update when I track him down!

I'm not as confident as I was though. I mentioned the situation to a school run mum who's a property solicitor. She said that as some of the supporting pillars of the wall are on his land it could be argued that it's a party wall. Also the boundary as shown by the land registry documents are advisory only.

I still have the illegal height and the fact that it's against my property on my side.

We'll see!

Ah ha. He knows you are on to him. Good work. 👏🏼

Ooh, like go see an arrogant so & so being taken down a peg or 2!

Ah ha. He knows you are on to him

Yep, he must have a friend/relative on MN

Can you peer out of the net curtains all day until you see him leave his house? Do it for us!

Haven't managed to catch him all weekend...

Maybe he's on Mumsnet

Maybe pop a note through the door advising you will be removing it by X date with a lovely copy of the boundaries

Exactly what jackstini said. Pop a letter through with photocopies of supporting documents and state you'll remove it by X date if they haven't done so already. Also mention how you've tried but failed to speak to them face to face as they're hiding

Also the boundary as shown by the land registry documents are advisory only.

Genuine question then- how the hell is anyone supposed to know where their boundary is if the official documents pertaining to registered land are not to be relied on? Can I just move my fence half way across my neighbours garden and then claim the Land Registry documents are advisory only?

I can't understand how he didn't know that he was putting the wall but more obviously the trellis on your land as he has fixed it to your house

Helpless I have no idea! My solicitor said that they're compiled using OS Maps. In my case however it would be impossible to argue that the actual boundary was anywhere else.

Still no NDN. I don't want to write a note, It'd give him too much warning of what I want to talk about. Unless he is on MN of course

He can't stay inside forever - you will be watching his front door like a hawk now!
Does he not realise there are MNers waiting for a conclusion..?!

Just as a warning OP, this sounds like it has the potential to turn nasty.

When looking at houses, the exact boundaries of where a wall is probably wouldn’t even cross my radar. Evidence of a legal dispute with a neighbour would cause me to steer well clear.

Great name PauperTroll 😊

UPDATE: I waited until my friend who is a property solicitor was at my house this afternoon and invited NDN into the garden to discuss the issue.

I said, with my friend's back up, that we were happy for the wall to stay and to give permission for the trellis to stay but that as the trellis has been put up on my property I would like the mesh removed.

He was completely intransigent. He even tried to argue that not only was the wall his but the four inches of my house that it's built against also belonged to him

Eventually my friend made him feel like he'd scored some kind of win by not having to take the trellis down and he has very reluctantly has agreed to take the mesh down within two weeks while he comes up with a solution to preserve his 'privacy'.

I was just completely aghast at how he was still arguing with a senior property solicitor who was showing him proof from the deeds that he'd built the trellis on my property and presenting, beyond all doubt, that he was wrong.

He also kept referring to me as "girl"

I told DH that I was worried that NDN would be a prick to us from now on but he pointed out that he's always been a prick anyway. Which is true.

Fake ivy in blue with gold stars draped on the trellis for privacy?

That's not a bad idea. I wouldn't mind that.

He'd need to pay for it though, if that's his solution for the trellis to be obscured. I'd be happier with nothing there.

I can't believe that he said 4 inches of your house was his!

Unless he does it from your side, removing the mesh is going to be very difficult, so it's quite likely that he will just trim it off using a Stanley knife. This would look fine from his side but you might be left with a ragged fringe of visible mesh.
Put it in writing that you will tolerate trellis which is inside your boundary, but the mesh AND THE STAPLES must be removed.

That's a good point. He's not going to be gracious about it.

I feel a bit conflicted, half of me thinks I've been daft to piss off a neighbour over a bit of mesh, the other half feels proud that I stood up to a bully.