Our neighbours are wanting to renovate their garage to incorporate it into their house. It sits alongside our garden boundary wall which is at an angle. Than angle makes it hard for them to do the changes they want because the room would be very narrow at the bottom.
They have previously talked to us about swapping land so they have a more regular shaped room. We expressed reluctance as we don't need the land they were offering and we have some mature bushes/trees growing out of the wall (it's a wide very old stone one). These trees and bushes provide privacy screening so that we don't see their house. If they are cut down, or die due to disturbed roots, we'll be staring at the side of their house rather than greenery. That was the end of the conversation.
They have now sent through technical drawings for their proposal and the proposed wall for the renovated garage appears be to on our land. It feels a bit cheeky given how we'd left things.
Should we let them proceed? The land is the corner of our garden and isn't used for anything useful - it's very dark and full of garden junk. I feel for them that the shape of the land makes their plans pretty hard to achieve with the boundary plan as it is.
My main concern is loss of privacy from the loss of the trees. But then I'm wondering what the situation would be if they change their plans to follow the boundary - they may still end up killing the trees as I imagine the roots will be disturbed whatever work they do. If this is going to be the case (not that I want them to kill our trees!) should we just suck it up?
I don't know for certain, but am reasonably sure the wall is ours as our house was built a long time before theirs. I've attached a very bad drawing.
YABU - it's only a small amount of land and makes their plans possible. Suck it up.
YANBU - you don't have to give away your land and lose your trees to make your neighbours' life better.