NEIGHBOUR CROSSED THE BOUNDARY BEFORE EXCHANGE

[MummyToBeAgain1]

Hi

I need some advice please.

We're buying a semi detached property and due to exchange and complete in a week or 2.

Over the weekend we drove past the property to find a fence being built between our garden and the property on the right. I suspected they had come in to our garden at a glance so drove past again yesterday.

The fence had fully been up and clearly it crossed in to our garden (to be). I've attached a quick drawing which shows what I mean. The red line is the fence the neighbour has put up.

Just for some context this is a auction property as the owner has died and the children wanted a quick sale. This means that we have a deadline for completition which makes things more stressful.

What do we do now?

Tia

Be firm
stand your ground

you are not accepting any thing less than what was presented at sale & hammer

and if that’s not what you are getting, all of your ££ back, and your solicitor is not good making u wait & doing nothing

If the solicitors were acting quickly, I'd agree, however anyone can send a Letter Before Action and a well worded letter to the effect of:

'we know what you've done, put it back or you could be in deep legal doo-doo'

can be surprisingly effective with some people.

Theres no law saying you can't write to anyone you like, and sending the above isn't illegal either, its factually accurate - if they don't put it back, they could be in the poo legally.

Yes but OP has done this I thought so I was suggesting some extra belt and braces as the deadline is set by auction house not vendors

I would be calling the estate agents/auction house today rather than emailing them. And if you don't get a decent response first time, call again, and again, and again. Make a complete pain of yourself until it's less effort for them to do what's needed rather than field calls and make excuses all day - remember the old saying "the squeaky wheel gets the oil".

When you do email the named contact, copy in everyone you can think of at the organisation especially managers, or if you don't have their details ensure it goes to their admin/central mailbox every time then there's no excuse of someone missing the email or being out for the day.

The vendors appear to be oblivious to whats happening.

If someone would just tell them, they'd probably have done exactly this by now!

I'm not sure if this has already been said, but can you suggest sellers solicitior sends a letter to the neighbour thats basically a legally worded version of "Put it back as it was with 14 days and we won't report the criminal damage to our wall and bushes to the police"

I feel like that will propely movitave the CF neighbours, and as it's coming from the sellers soicitors OP should hopefuly be suffucently insulated from any ill feeling once they've moved in.

Who do I suggest this to though?

No-one. It’s not up to you to suggest how the sellers deal with this. It’s up to them.
The importing you need to do is make sure they and the auctioneer knows what is happening and that it will delay completion if not sorted pronto.

I was thinking the same. I don't want them to think this is my issue, I need them to think it's THEY issue.

I've told everyone I could possibly tell at this stage. I just need to keep chasing.

Feeling a bit silly this morning for wasting a whole week but I'll take it as a lesson to be learnt!

They’re not selling with vacant possession. Someone is literally occupying part of the property subject to contract so I think you have good grounds to withdraw or allow them time to rectify. The other option is to accept you have unauthorised occupier and take the property on with a boundary dispute - which can soon get very expensive.

You have 2 priorities OP. To make sure the seller knows what's going on and that you view it seriously enough to put the sale in jeopardy.

You should be willing to threaten the seller with pulling out. (I realise you're against this but there's nothing to stop you making the threat so that the seller is galvanised into action.)

But to make things happen you really really need to be assertive and to push this continually.

including the auction house?

Yes

I doubt the sellers know. EA doesn't seem to be taking this very seriously imo. They won't want the sellers to know there are useless. Days off indeed. No time for that!

@MummyToBeAgain1We’ve sold and bought many houses over the years, and I’ve been reading the tread with interest.
If I were you I would contact the seller direct, say it’s because you don’t think the solicitors (your and theirs) are acting fast enough. You need to check that they know what has happened. IME some estate agents are not exactly fast at letting you know what is happening, and solicitors prefer to do things by snail mail slooowly.

Glad to see you are being more proactive- you have to be”that” client!

It’s not just about the land grab. The CFs also destroyed established plants and bushes which were your property as buyer of the house. You need compensation for that as well.

This is it. It isn't your problem to solve. The issue is that they are trying to sell you something that they have no access to. They need to sort this out.

umm no. If I have understood correctly, the house is not the property of the OP yet. Its a modern auction and therefore not completion at hammerfall and also (and more importantly) the property details do not match the legal pack which PROBABLY (not a legal beagle) renders the auction invalid.

I've been following this thread from afar OP and I agree with PP that you need to make them understand that this is THEIR issue to sort out, not yours. I think it's time to channel your inner frustration into putting a rocket up everyone!

I suggest sending a round robin email marked urgent right now that includes your solicitor, all relevant EA, the auction house and the auction house's solicitor's/seller's solicitors. State that you are frustrated and disappointed that you are still waiting for responses from all parties and that no action is being taken to resolve this issue since you raised it on xx. Then state that, as a consequence, you now are considering withdrawing from the sale because you are not prepared to buy a property where the neighbours have done a land grab of the garden, destroying a section of it in the process, and are being allowed to get away with it. Give them until 5pm today to get back with a response.

@MummyToBeAgain1 I would pull out and tell them to let you know when sorted so you can decide if you want to engage again.

Good luck @MummyToBeAgain1

With my recent nightmare purchase, I had to threaten to pull out to get the seller and their solicitor going. It did the trick and we completed the following week.

This, OP. You need to make it very clear that the property now is not what you bought and that you'll not be going ahead if it isn't sorted immediately.

From what you've written so far, no one seems to think this issue is in any way important or urgent.

Sadly, the only times I've ever got results with any kind of issue is when I've made a complete pain in the arse of myself.

Hi. Do you have any contact with the sellers directly? I haven’t read everyone’s responses to you but as you don’t yet own the property, if you can contact the seller direct you could tell them that unless the issue is sorted, you won’t be completing. If you don’t have contact with them, explaining the same to the agent selling the property would mean they could contact the seller.
I know you want the house but sometimes you have to push back to get people to sort things.

Edited to say, apologies, since I started writing this and then got round to finishing it and hitting post, others have said the same.

It isn't a criminal matter though. It is a civil dispute and the Police won't get involved which I would imagine the neighbours know. There is no harm in sending a letter before action but this can only come from the vendors. In your situation, you will be aware of their details from the sellers pack. If you are not, you need to search the LR for the legal owner and then search the probate grant for the name of the person who applied for it and contact them.

Sadly the auction house/ EA will have their fees accounted for in your deposit money (only the Vendor will be returned the remainder) so they are under no pressure to react. If I were you, I would be minded to see which governing body the Auction House/EA is registered with and complain to them in writing today. Contact the MD of the Auction House/EA via linkedIn and complain to that person and also take to twitter/X to make the issue public (normally resolves things). You have been patient enough but going nuclear on a Friday should actually make you both feel better and get things moving. At the end of all that you know you have tried your best.

If you cannot resolve this, I still stand by my original advice to walk away - you do not need to purchase a house with a boundary dispute so unless it is resolved to the most transparent level do not proceed. If your circumstances change in the future (and things can happen unexpectedly) you may not be able to sell it easily.

Good luck today.

The thing is I can't start blaming anyone for not doing anything at this stage because no one knew of the situation apart from my sol.

I assumed my sol would have contacted the sellers sol by now. Yesterday, I figured she hasn't and so I contacted everyone via phone and email to alert them.

I need to give them a chance of a few working days to look in to it and get back to me.