We are currently building an extension on the back of our house. It’s 5m x 4.5m so a decent size but nothing extravagant. We are in a semi detached property, and the builders have temporarily removed the fence between our garden and next door while the extension is built stepped in slightly from the boundary line.
This afternoon, my husband caught sight out of the window of my NDN’s adult son (lady next door is elderly and her son I think is in his late 40’s) standing inside the foundations of our new extension measuring the width and length. My husband had our son with him and didn’t want to confront NDN in case it kicked off, so watched as about a minute later, he hopped out and back into their side of the boundary through where the fence used to be.
WTF was he doing??
We wrote to them prior to getting planning permission to let them know we were planning a build and included a printed copy of our plans, and invited them to come and chat to us providing our number and the times we are usually available for a chat during the week. We didn’t hear anything so DH popped his head over the front drive fence about week later when he saw one of NDN’s children (she has 4 kids) and asked if they’d received the letter to which he said ‘yes we did and all looks fine although I’ll check with the others’. We heard nothing else, so applied for planning permission 2 weeks later. Next door were written to during planning to ask for formal objections but no objections were received and planning was granted 6 weeks later.
The build is the right size, we have had the building inspector out to check the hole for the footings and he’ll be out again tomorrow to check the DPC before the concrete slab goes in.
Im confident we’ve satisfied our legal and moral duty to inform next door about the build and gave them ample opportunity to object - what happens if they object now??