To buy this house (picture included)

[OverdueMover]

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...

Honestly it sounds like the introduction to almost every neighbours from hell-type TV programme I've ever seen. Unless there is something very, very special about this house I would walk away.

Unless the seller bought the land from the neighbour and included it in your sale with the house, I’d walk away. Nothing is ever a big problem. Until it is.

Neighbour could change their mind. Neighbour could sell, and the new neighbours could insist on access to and use of their land. You n a position where you can never sell. If your vendor is dishonest about planning permission etc what is are they being dishonest about

I don't think there would be a huge problem with this.

If the current neighbours change their mind, the worst thing that could happen is you need to dismantle the car port or fix the overhang. Get an indemnity for this.

If the current neighbours sell, then it may become more of an issue.

Don't try to enclose the car port and all will likely be fine!

As you are aware of an issue you need to have that reflected legally somehow, but really, if after 9 years the neighbours haven't cared to remove their hedge or build a gate in their back wall garden for access to this strip, they probably genuinely don't mind about the bins and the overhang.

We could potentially have this on our house - our neighbour has a set back garage with a drive to it (very common in older houses round here) and if they decided to build a car port instead it would probably end up like yours is, and encroach on our access strip on that side. It's just a walkway, really. Literally the only time I go round there is to check guttering or brickwork. It's not our primary access to the garden so it's kind of irrelevant. If I could NEVER access it because you enclosed it, that would be a big problem, but if I could access it off your property/car port and you knew that was the deal, I'd be fine with it as the existing owner. A new owner might feel differently.

our accepted offer was already well below the asking price and massively below the initial asking price

Ah, so not surprisingly they have already had difficulty selling it - and that could easily be you in future, especially if new people move in next door

Is the place truly exceptional in some way, or just a nice house at an (apparently) good price?

What if the neighbours sell up and the new ones hate your car port? Have you thought of that? Could happen.

It could be that your vendor is a bit of a bully and the neighbour has never felt able to broach the subject with them. When a new purchaser occupies they may then raise it with you.

Personally if I were the neighbour I would not sell you this strip of land as it's the only access I have for repairs and maintenance to this wall of my house. I would also write to you giving you permission to use the land so that you wouldn't be able to claim any sort of adverse possession in years to come.

If I were you I would walk away. But if you are certain you want to buy it I would want an indemnity from the vendor.

If the neighbour took back their 1.4m strip would this mean you wouldn't be able to park a car off road?

If the support posts don't encroach and op just moved the roof edge back flush with them (putting in some sort of guttering within her property), it wouldn't matter one jot whether new neighbours like the car port or not.

Op, would putting everything back within the boundary of the property change anything you love or can live with about the house?
The beauty of this situation is that you are not in any way dependent on asking the neighbour to do anything to make it problem free.

This is worth a read naturenet.net/law/boundaries.html
I would definitely insure the risk though as if a new owner moves in next door and decides to get sticky, then the legal costs can be eye watering.

Sorry, it's the bins which are kept on the 1.4m strip and the car port roof which is encroaching the neighbours airspace. I think I'd look at how the roof could be changed so there was no overhang and get the vendor's indemnity to cover this cost.

Unless the seller bought the land from the neighbour and included it in your sale with the house

What land?

Neighbour could change their mind. Neighbour could sell, and the new neighbours could insist on access to and use of their land.

Then they would have to remove their own hedge. Nothing of the OP's potential house is on their land or preventing them access to their land.

If the current neighbours change their mind, the worst thing that could happen is you need to dismantle the car port or fix the overhang. Get an indemnity for this.

This.

Nothing of the OP's potential house is on their land or preventing them access to their land

‘Land’ goes up into the sky a reasonable distance. You couldn’t, say, build a cantilevered deck out over someone’s garden then say it doesn’t count because it doesn’t touch the ground. And if in this case the owner of their land wanted to carry something tall over their land then it is preventing them accessing their property.

The hedge is a red herring. Would take five minutes with a saw to gain access.

What land?

The land that the OP relies on for the carport, and to store their bins

The carport is entirely on their land (the overhang is in the airspace and easily remedied) and a bin can be stored anywhere.

No land has been taken.

Until the overhang it removed it counts as on their land.

You couldn’t, say, build a cantilevered deck out over someone’s garden then say it doesn’t count because it doesn’t touch the ground

No shit Sherlock 🙄

And if in this case the owner of their land wanted to carry something tall over their land then it is preventing them accessing their property.

The overhang is easily remedied.

@SoupDragon you’re being purposefully obtuse I think. I never said any land has been taken. But currently, and especially if the OP has plans to enclose port, they are depending on a strip of land that the neighbour owns.

Sorry I've been out helping set up the school fair - again thank you for all the thoughts and possible permutations.

Yoga: the 1.4m strip is entirely hypothetical - it was detailed in the plans for the carport and was supposed to exist on the land belonging to the house we are purchasing. The land belonging to the neighbours, upon which our seller is storing his bins, is less than 1.4m - it is literally about as wide as the top of one of the large bins people store outside - you can see it in the first image coloured in pink. So from the side of the neighbours house to the boundary between the two properties is about 80cm - not even really wide enough to be a passageway, which is perhaps why they've set it up as they have (blocked off with no access to it).

I suspect that nowadays you would not be able to build a house with such a small amount of space between the side of the house and its boundary, but back when it was built I suppose the rules and regulations were different.

If we were their neighbours, for example, we would certainly not mind them needing to put a ladder onto our land if that side of their house needed work - who would mind unless their neighbours were CFs.

It is perhaps telling that the seller has stated that his neighbours are the nicest neighbours you could hope for - I think he is probably being truthful, although that didn't stop them from putting in very polite concerns in via planning when he has had other work done (all seemingly compliant), unlike the carport. So they are capable of raising issues, and if they were unhappy with the carport they only needed to contact planning, I'm sure it would have been dealt with given how different it is from the plans!

Overall though everyone that is saying that the overhang could be corrected by shortening the roof with a raised gutter, is correct, although this would leave the oak posts more open to the elements.

What can't be corrected is that the carport does not follow the plan agreed through planning permission but an indemnity policy would insure against needing to take it down (to cover the next two years, because after that I think too much time will have elapsed).

And for those asking, it is pretty much our perfect house, the location being the key factor, so if there is a way to work around this issue we would be keen to take it.

Sorry someone else asked whether this is the only land for cars I think - no there's a good sized driveway so plenty of other places to put cars (and bins!!)

Get a quote for sorting out the roof or replacing it if needed. Knock that much off the price.

Ah, okay, I thought you just had particularly enormous wheelie bins in your part of the country

I know what you mean about allowing access for neighbour repairs but it really is stunning how many people do not seem to want to allow this. (I spent a long boring train journey reading the Garden Law forum once - it was a total eye opener and I will never buy a house with shared access or a right of way over it as a result!)

It doesn't sound as though the possibility of needing to change the overhanging car port roof will affect the value of the property and as it's your almost perfect house, and you know the risks, I would proceed but only with the indemnity.

Good luck OverdueMover [flower]

Thanks Yoga, I will get onto our conveyancer about it - also thanks to everyone else too, survey reports always make me go a little goggle eyed and kind of take the wind out of your sails given there are alway problems, but the collective Mumsnet wisdom has definitely given us some sound options to take things forward.

I don't think this is a major issue at all.