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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To buy this house (picture included)

113 replies

OverdueMover · 22/11/2019 11:52

Name changed for this...

We are in the process of buying a house. The survey, back yesterday, highlighted a problem, but how much of a problem is it - would it put you off altogether?

The current owner built a car port, the roof of which is overhanging his neighbours boundary. It's been there for 9 years and, according to him they are fine with it and let him keep his bins on what is technically their property.

In the attached picture I have added red lines to show the boundary - the posts of the car port are within the boundary of the house we are buying, the yellow shows the overhanging roof, the pink shows the next door neighbour's property.

Planning permission shows (in both the diagram and the description) that the car port will have a 1.4m gap between the neighbour's boundary and the edge of the car port. If it matched the planning permission you could not fit a car into it. The seller says the car port was 'signed off' after being built.

I personally doubt this, yet the neighbours don't seem to have complained about the arrangement in over 9 years.

We love the house but I fear opening this can of worms (e.g. by visiting the neighbours or speaking directly to planning) because I am worried it will lead to the sale falling through...

To buy this house (picture included)
OP posts:
Puzzledandpissedoff · 22/11/2019 13:48

It's not the neighbours keeping their bins on their land. Our seller is keeping his bins on their land - they can't access this strip of land whereas he can*

He says they don't mind ...

Oh dear, oh dear Hmm To borrow a phrase used before "well he would say that, wouldn't he?"

Original poster
OverdueMover · 22/11/2019 13:50

Cailleach1 and Puzzled: exactly, you are both spot on - you see the issue, but we absolutely love the house...

OP posts:
newdeer · 22/11/2019 13:51

I thought there was a paper trail when things were signed off. When we bought our house we discovered the massive extension the previous owners built years earlier hadn't been signed off and needed to be. They had to sort it out before we could proceed.

Rise · 22/11/2019 13:52

You're two big concerns are 1 if the neighbours sell but 2 if the bank will lend on this property with the overhang. Which is unlikely for a lot of banks

longtimelurkerhelen · 22/11/2019 13:52

If you do enclose the carport, I presume you will need planning permission and building control to sign off, at which point, the council will discover that the previous planning permission plan hasn't been followed. They could make you demolish it.

Doje · 22/11/2019 13:54

OP, you also have to presume this will be a problem when you come to sell the property. It means a certain proportion of potential buyers won't consider buying your property if this isn't sorted properly now.

Bluetrews25 · 22/11/2019 13:56

I'll say it again - buy the strip of land!
That will work out easier and cheaper for all, the neighbours can't even access it.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 22/11/2019 13:56

we absolutely love the house...

That's fair enough, but the question remains of whether you'll still love it if this (and anything other "mistakes") bring trouble, and also how you'd feel if you wanted to move in the future and found it unsaleable

Overall I agree with the PP who said it's a mindset thing. To me there are enough issues in life without inviting more, but I respect that others may be more relaxed about these things

longtimelurkerhelen · 22/11/2019 13:58

Bluetrews25 is 100% right, the easiest way is for you buy the strip of land, or even better, get the current seller to buy it and he can pay his own solicitor fees.

ICantSweat · 22/11/2019 13:59

When something is 'signed off' it is signed off by Building Control only not the planners. BC only deal with the structural safety/fire regs stuff like that, not whether it has been built where it should or should not have been. Sorry if someone has already said this. I haven't RTFT.

Beveren · 22/11/2019 14:01

Follow Poppys' advice. This really isn't a big deal, you can just ask the seller to pay for insurance in case anyone makes a fuss about it.

Original poster
OverdueMover · 22/11/2019 14:04

The bank seem to have competed a paper based survey, so we already have our mortgage offer. I'm not sure if we have to let them know of our own full survey (sorry feeling like an idiot right now)?

Yes, I think there are a few more years to go before the council can no longer insist it is taken down for not following the plan submitted, but they will always be able to insist it is changed if we wanted to change anything about it that required permission.

However I am less concerned about this than the relationship with neighbours and being on the right side of the moral situation. I think we need to have a long think about it as I don't like the idea of 'inheriting' something that is wrong.

Either we need to be able to come to a sustainable agreement with the neighbours, or do without the car port.

OP posts:
treepolitics · 22/11/2019 14:05

Yes offer for the strip of land - and then you’ll also have info on how ok neighbours are with it. Or be prepared to knock it down.

Cailleach1 · 22/11/2019 14:06

So, the encroachment is all by the vendor of the house you are buying. I can only say what my reaction would be. If I loved the house, the worst that could happen is that I would have to stop using the bin area next door and move the edge of the roofing with integral guttering back a foot and a half to line with the support posts. It is all within your power to do.

This wouldn't matter to me at all. You could still ask for an amount to be put aside from the asking price to get the works done. Or you could satisfy yourself that the encroaching roof edge can stay by default as it is there for 9 years. This could raise questions down the line with new neighbours next door. However, they would be moving into a situation that existed when they purchased the house.

Birdsfoottrefoil · 22/11/2019 14:07

If I owned the neighbouring property I might well decide to spend just an hour or two removing the hedge, or part of it, to enable me to gain access to my garden down that side of the house. At which point I would be quite aggrieved with how much land seems to have been taken.

The photo suggests the post is on their land too; 1.4m is over four and a half feet.

treepolitics · 22/11/2019 14:10

Yes I’d proceed too, as long as I was clear on what I was going to do in all events, I’ve rarely had a purchase where everything has been documented correctly

Mummyoflittledragon · 22/11/2019 14:10

Seen your responses to me.

Looking at houses around here, isn’t unusual to have a small overhang even on boundaries.

It will be possible to modify the roof not to overhang although an overhang is ideal. Go and drive around and look at pitched roofs on boundaries. You’ll see they’re quite common. As for the guttering you can get it put on top of the roof as per the photo I attached.

Letthemysterybe · 22/11/2019 14:13

If I loved the house then this wouldn’t bother me. The very worst case scenario seems to be that you would have to dismantle the car port. And the likelihood of being able to enclose the carport is very slim.

So do you like the house without the car port?

Original poster
OverdueMover · 22/11/2019 14:14

Birdsfoot: the neighbours could only access the strip of land in question if they removed the hedge, not their back garden. This is because they built a brick wall blocking access to their garden at the other end of their house.

Of course they could knock down that part of the brick wall too, but right now they cannot gain access to this strip of land from either the front or the back of their house.

As I say, it's a bit odd - I've certainly never seen anyone block off access like this, but then again it is only a tiny strip - the edge of their house is almost up to their own boundary, bar about the width of a bin.

OP posts:
Birdsfoottrefoil · 22/11/2019 14:21

It is up to the neighbours if they want to wall off a section of their property. They can change their mind and take out a hedge. or wall in minutes. They might decide to do this if they want to extend the other side of the house up to their boundary to keep access to the garden, or if the wall needed repointing, or their was an issue with the chimney, or if services ran under the strip....

Original poster
OverdueMover · 22/11/2019 14:22

Letthemysterybe: Yes I think we would like it even if the carport wasn't there. It's just a really good carport, made of oak, with a tiled pitched roof - however ideally we'd want to enclose it and use it for storage.

I have no idea how much it increases the value of the house (and conversely decreases it if it's removed) - our accepted offer was already well below the asking price and massively below the initial asking price - of course perhaps this might be why!

OP posts:
Ellie56 · 22/11/2019 14:22

OP however much you love the house this sounds fraught with all kinds of problems and could come back to bite you years down the line when you want to sell.

My parents bought a bungalow with a loft conversion. Everything was supposedly fine. It wasn't.

When we came to sell it years later, there was a problem as there was no paperwork relating to the loft conversion. Three potential sales fell through as a result. We went to one department of the council who gave us advice what to do. We paid for some sort of paperwork. We later found out this wasn't enough.

We went back to the council and spoke to a different department. They came out and looked at the extension and gave us more advice. To cut a long story short, after several months faffing about and paying out over £2000 for extra work to be done to satisfy planning/building regulations we finally had the paperwork that we needed to be able to sell the house.

If my parents / the solicitors / whoever had been more diligent when they bought the house originally, we might have avoided all the aggro we ended up with 15 years later.

As PP have suggested I would make the seller do whatever needs to be done to make everything above board and legal. After all, he's likely to have the same problem with any other potential buyer.

Original poster
OverdueMover · 22/11/2019 14:24

Birdsfoot: I agree, however I've still never come across it before and I can't imagine there are many people that have ever done it either!

OP posts:
Original poster
OverdueMover · 22/11/2019 14:27

Ellie56: hmmm, that is rather sobering - thank you for sharing your parents experience.

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 22/11/2019 14:33

At which point I would be quite aggrieved with how much land seems to have been taken.

They haven't taken any land.