Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask neighbours if digger can come through

201 replies

hobbeschild · 17/12/2020 11:29

We'd like to build a swimming pool in our garden. Our side access is not wide enough for a mini-digger. Manually digging and shipping the dirt out will add thousands to the cost.

Our neighbours have a wide side-access right next to us, and if we took the adjoining fence down it would mean coming over a few metres of their land, gravel and a bit of grass (not the perfect lawn type) and removing a woodstore (not the precious type).

We would commit to put all their land and the fence back exactly how it was before and build a new woodstore (this would still be much cheaper). The digging will take about a week.

We will tell them they can use the pool whenever they wish, as long as we don't have visitors. They are lovely people in their 50s with grown-up kids. We have a good relationship but are not friends. In the past we used a friend's pool on this basis so we know what it's like to be on the other end of this arrangement.

If they say no we will probably not go ahead, so it's not like if they say no we'll build it anyway and not let them use it! We would say there's absolutely no obligation and it's just at the ideas stage, just getting a feel for cost.

Personally, if I could have the luxury of easy access to a pool with none of the responsibility I would jump at the chance!

I realise this is a relatively first-world and trivial problem compared to what a lot of people are going through at the moment, but if we're going to do it then we should now, before another restrictive year in terms of holidays and exercise opportunities.

How would you feel if you were the neighbour? AIBU to ask them?

OP posts:
BlankProfile · 17/12/2020 13:20

We let our neighbours have access through our garden for a digger and dumper truck. They put boards over the lawn, were careful and no damage done. BUT they did not have to take down fences on our side, or any buildings, so I do think it is a bigger ask from you. I would speak to them politely but understand they may well say no.

ThomasHardyPerennial · 17/12/2020 13:21

@notapizzaeater

I'd def allow it, but then I'm 'up north' and we're friendlier !
What a load of rubbish. I don't think people "up north" are friendlier (I live there too), they just talk more.
BlankProfile · 17/12/2020 13:23

I also agree that giving them access to the pool when they like is a recipe for disaster - you could well find they are round all the time, bring friends with them and a few bottles of wine, music on.

OoohTheStatsDontLie · 17/12/2020 13:24

I'd add something financial to them as compensation for building work eg a few hundred £ if you really want them to say yes

titchy · 17/12/2020 13:25

@user1497207191

Can you not get the digger lifted in by crane?
Yeah I was going to suggest this. Esp. as you presumably have single storey garage etc on the other side.
BeakyWinder · 17/12/2020 13:25

You need to take your own stuff down to make room for the digger.

titchy · 17/12/2020 13:26

Or just ask how much it would cost to be installed. It's feasible to do manually - with a dozen labourers would take the same time as a man with a digger.

ivfbeenbusy · 17/12/2020 13:30

I'd want something in writing if I was the neighbours and maybe even some kind of bond if you reneged on paying for the rectification works. The agreement would need to give timescales for you to make good the land and detail exactly what specification went back in - because you can guarantee your works will
Cost more than you think and then you might be inclined to scrimp on how you put it right.
Also damages if you failed to make it good by the agreed timescales

Thehollyandtheirony · 17/12/2020 13:32

Are you in the uk? If so, YABU to have an outdoor pool. Not much of an incentive for the neighbours, how many weeks of the year can you even use it?

BlankProfile · 17/12/2020 13:33

Mini diggers can get through some very narrow spaces. You only need about 80 cm to get a small one in.

UserEleventyNine · 17/12/2020 13:35

If I was going to even consider this, I'd want an offer of significant financial compensation in addition to the making good. A few hundred £££ is derisory for something that will save you thousands but cause them damage and inconvenience.

And a pp raised a good point about insurance. Who will be liable if any major damage is caused to their property?

HeronLanyon · 17/12/2020 13:36

I would agree if -
Agreed start and finish date for digger.
Nothing to be taken down before start date confirmed.
Access to be used for nothing but digger - ie once it’s dug your guys and materials come through your house /access.
Photos before and after.
Everything you agree to put back or replace to be listed and photographed.
As a keen swimmer I wouldn’t at all be swayed by use of someone else’s pool.
Good luck.

ClaireP20 · 17/12/2020 13:36

I can't think of anything worse than donning a swimming costume and jumping into my neighbour's swimming pool. Imagine knocking and asking 'can we come into your pool'. At the age of 50. At any age over 18. I seriously find it bizarre that you think they would do that. Maybe it's just me..xx

BlankProfile · 17/12/2020 13:39

It will take much longer than a week - our neighbours took about 6-8 weeks to refurbish an old pool. Putting a new one in will take a lot longer.

Ylvamoon · 17/12/2020 13:41

We had a similar request and said no.
But no harm in asking!

That's because of the removal of the fence. I don't fancy work men getting through my garden, not having a fence to keep dogs in for days / weeks and the danger of building sites to DC.

Bluntness100 · 17/12/2020 13:42

Honestly jist ask them op, on here people don’t let their neighbours do anything.

Ask them, don’t offer use of pool say you’ll give written agreement to make good and then price up using a crane if they say no. Don’t offer them loads of money. Decent neighbours who you have a good relationship with would say yes. I certainly would

Disfordarkchocolate · 17/12/2020 13:42

I would never let you so this in a million years. However, you can ask.

MatildaonaWaltzer · 17/12/2020 13:46

hang on - if you have wide access, why can't you just take down the relevant panels of your own wooden garage and replace them? You are looking increasingly like you know exactly what the hassle is but would rather impose it on your neighbours (and because your garage is naice vs their nasty woodstore. They may see it differently). There's also q an air of noblesse oblige over the offer to use the pool which is unlikely to be received in the same manner.

purplecorkheart · 17/12/2020 13:50

It would be a no from me I am afraid I have seem what damage a digger does to a garden and how long before it goes back fully to what it was.

ScalpHelp · 17/12/2020 13:52

Hell no.

I see your reasoning but at the end of the day, it will be a massive upheaval for them. They have no assurances that you will completely restore their property back to how it was - it could easily get messy and involve solicitors.

Alethiometrical · 17/12/2020 13:55

YANBU to ask them, and I hope they'll say Yes, but I think you need to be very clear about what restoration you'll cover - if I were them, I'd want something cast-iron & written down.

And I don't think you should offer this:
We will tell them they can use the pool whenever they wish, as long as we don't have visitors

Where I grew up we had a big swimming pool, and it was an issue with people wanting to use it and them being intrusive, noisy and messy.

If you let them use it whenever they wish, and they do, you will quickly come to resent them. And if this happens, they will come to resent you.

Don't think that offering them use of the pool will compensate them for the hassle of having their garden pretty much taken over - you say a week, but it'll be longer than that, as will the restoration.

MerylStreet · 17/12/2020 13:59

The work will turn their garden into a mud bath that could take over a year to recover from. There’s no way I’d agree to this. The use of a pool wouldn’t induce me at all. I’m sure where you are, but I can’t imagine British weather lends itself to much outdoor pool use. Mind you, I do live up north where it just pisses down 24/7.

There’s nothing to lose in asking.

ScottishStottie · 17/12/2020 14:00

So you have the space but you dont want to inconvenience yourself by having to remove and rebuild one of your sheds? Defo still a hard no from me and tbh given that update i think even asking is verging on CF territory...

Hawkins001 · 17/12/2020 14:03

I'd draw up a contract on what they allow you to do if they give you permission, otherwise it could end up being we agreed x but not x and if it's only verbal communication, then it's you agreed x but we did not ect

friendlycat · 17/12/2020 14:04

Well you really need to take down your own newly build structures to enable digger access.
Since your update I really don’t think you can ask this since you should have built the pool prior to your own building work. Or now you have you need to take down and rebuild to allow access or hand dig at great expense.

I would think you very very cheeky asking me to have all the disruption and rebuilding when actually you should have planned better or have the opportunity to still have a digger but at your inconvenience or a more expensive bill for manually digging and removal. You have chosen though to put me in a difficult position as it were.