Neighbours Garden Office

[Soontobesingles]

My neighbours have recently started having work done to add an office/summer house thing to their garden. No planning permission and it is absolutely massive - to the point it will put 1/2 my lovey sunny garden in shade. I have told them that it is too high and they need planning permission. Builders insisting they don’t as something to do with a slope in the garden but rules are about height from foundations. Anyway, I have said I will report if it isn’t sufficiently reduced and both neighbour and builders are going mad saying £1,000s already spent on materials and plans, labour etc. AIBU to say I don’t care an will report? My garden is my sanctuary and many of my plants will die if shaded year round.

Just report it and see what the council say.

Report it; you tried talking to them. The £1000s they’ve spent are their own idiot decisions, and it will hugely impact your quality of life. Which they didn’t give a shit about.

Id report and seek legal advice ASAP

This exactly.

Don't be concerned about not being a 'nicer' (i.e. more of a walkover) neighbour to them than they are being to you. They fired the opening salvo for what they must have known was unacceptable treatment of you and totally disregarding your comfort and enjoyment of your home - as well as the law.

As PPs say, if they know that it's all legal (whether or not it's kind or neighbourly), they would be inviting you to report it to the council, so they could be proven to be in the right. Getting angry is a giveaway that they know they are massively chancing it.

Definitely report. Their initial reaction speaks volumes. Like pp said if they havedone anything wrong they have nothing to worry about.

Look on the planning portal for advice on permitted development. Generally 4m to a true pitched roof ridge and 3m to flat roof. This is from the ground level in their side not foundations.

the amount golf building that can be do without permission is surprisingly large.

report to planning enforcement but they will continue building and submit a planning application that you can object to on valid planning grounds and they may get permission. Putting your garden into shade is a grey area for an objection and it would depend on the size of garden and how much it is shaded.

Definitely report, as others have said if they are legal then it won't be a problem

Hope this helps!

Report it to the planning people and then everyone will have the official answer.

Report it, so annoyed with entitled fuckers not considering anyone else.

if the cuncildo nothing send them a solicitors letter. That should get things moving hopefully.

Permittd Development rules are very generous- just check on line plannng portal for guidance and yes slopes do mean one part can look huge but still ok..

Don't engage them or their builders further. Just report it.

My friend had a similar problem - her neighbour installed some kind of decking with a new, tall fence on top at one point.

She asked them to lower while the work was being done. They dismissed her concerns. (They were a young couple - she's an elderly widow. They tried to bully her - at one point they called the police, claiming that she was blocking their shared drive.)

She took pics and sent them to the council planning dept. The fence had to be lowered.

If there is a slope, the height is measured from the highest point. But if the OPsays the height is 4.5, the slope is probably really steep

You need to look at the GPDO 2015 as amended. It falls under Class E (being a building incidental to the enjoyment of a dwelling house).

Para E.1 (e) states that development is not PD where:

e) the height of the building, enclosure or container would exceed—
(i) 4 metres in the case of a building with a dual-pitched roof,

(ii) 2.5 metres in the case of a building, enclosure or container within 2 metres of the boundary of the curtilage of the dwellinghouse, or

(iii) 3 metres in any other case;

Where the ground is not uniform (i.e it’s on a slope) the measurement is taken from the highest part of the surface of the ground adjacent to it.

(There are other exclusions too).

You’ve said it’s 4.5m but it isn’t clear where that has been measured from, and it also isn’t clear if the building has a dual pitched roof.

If you’re in doubt you can report it to your planning enforcement team with photos and your measurements and they will investigate, but bear in mind that it might take a while. Our enforcement team are regularly sending out enforcement notices in the nick of time that they’ve had for years.

Also bear in mind that even if it is a breach of planning control, enforcement action should only be taken where it’s expedient to do so. Planning officers can (and do) use their discretion to decide against taking enforcement action.

If I was your neighbour I’d apply for a lawful development certificate before doing any further work which will clarify for them whether or not the LA consider it to be PD. It might be worth advising them of this to get clarity on the matter sooner rather than later.

Does it have a flat roof or pitched roof?

Report it right away.

Have you checked Ali Express to see if they sell grenades?

Op the only thing I would add to "report it" is don't be surprised if council do nothing. I had an issue with a neighbour doing a loft conversion with no building regs approval (different to planning but still council). Because they had punched holes in the party wall we reported to council for lack of building regs- who waited until the works were complete, said the roof structures were compliant with fire regs even though they admitted to not inspecting the roof structures, and didn't actually take the building regs fee because they had a slot to inspect before the fee was paid (six months after the fee should have been paid).

Report them. If they've done nothing wrong the complaint will go nowhere.

Report it immediately. Don't negotiate. Report it. and formally complain about it.

Report it quickly and tell the planners that they're still building it and send photos - hopefully they can get someone out sharpish, whilst the builders are still working

Yanbu at all x

To add another dimension my husband is a builder. We’ve bulit a large sunhouse/bar at the bottom of our garden. Husband very aware of planning rules. When we returned from our holiday last year I received a letter from local planning saying that a neighbour had reported us and officer needed to inspect it.

of course we complied and planning confirmed it was permitted and we continued. We now have no relationship with our neighbours unfortunately as they feel too awkward to speak to is anymore.

It was all fine as you’d complied with building regulations. No problem at all.