If you have a big extension to your home, AIBU to think you should consider the impact on your neighbours?

[angelos02]

Neighbour is having a huge extension - so much so, we have found out that they are moving out for 6 months. It will have a huge impact on my life - noise, scaffolding etc. At the end of it I will have lost a huge amount of view - they will gain everything and the only person to be negatively impacted is me! So do I just have to suck it up as it is just the way things are now?

You do. It has to be reasonable though. But they can’t put your whole garden in shade and leave you with an eyesore. The council will ultimately judge it on how reasonable the objections are. I appreciate you may not want the disruption or like to aesthetics but this is why we have laws. We all live in close proximity to one another and we can’t have one person lord it over another. You buy property you should be able to do as you please. It’s not as simplistic as move and buy what you want. Some people just don’t have the means to do that.

The new proposed extension next door meant that what little light we got through our (side alley) kitchen window was vastly reduced. The view of the council was that, since we got very little light anyway, the loss of this light was not relevant. If we had more light coming in, we'd have had a greater reduction and would have been able to block the extension. Completely illogical but that is what happened.

She's not being unfair at all. These people are selfish and have no consideration for others and their future quality of life.... only theirs.
The same can be said for the councils that allow these horrors.
What new builds have to do with this, I don't know.

Losing a view is hard, sympathy on that Putting up with a temporary situation during building is just life. My neighbours had a big build, I accepted that this was just something to put up with. I facilitated it by allowing builders to enter my garden as needed. I have excellent relationships with my neigbours, that is worth a lot.

Views are not protected.
I remember when I had an extension done my builders parked in the lane behind as there was direct access to our garden. They were not blocking anyone. A bloke who lived on the road told him off and said ‘we don’t want your type around here’. The builder was so taken aback he told me.
So you remind me of this man. Don’t like the (temporary) noise and disturbance, but if you ever need work done you’d change your tune.
I used to renovate house, bought at auction etc. They were generally unmodernised and I did the dirty work to bring them up to good standard for first time buyers. I would always go to the neighbours with a bunch of flowers and apologise in advance for any noise or disturbance and tell them to talk to me if there were any issues. But I was certainly still going to do the work.

Did you not get notice of planning permission? We did when our neighbours put in for an extension. There's was only one story but they had wanted to put a window on the side which would have overlooked our garden. We object to this and they decided not to add the window so the planning could go through. DH couldn't initially see my concern as he said we could just insist it was frosted glass, I pointed out that would stop a new owner changing it and he finally unstood my object. Note the window would have been above our 6ft fence line and looked straight into our garden.

They where lucky that was all we objected to, when DH spoke to them when they were having the work done, they said they really wanted it to be 2 stories but couldn't afford it. I said I really would have objected then as it would have blocked out a large amount of light from our garden due to the way the houses were originally built. And it was a total pain while they where having the work done, their builders where useless and made an awful lot of noise, playing radio so load I could here it clearly in the house even with windows shut. I wasn't to impressed, I don't think they where either as it took a lot longer then it should have.

when your own house was built, it likely inpacted someone's view!

Have you looked at the plans and lodged an objection? Will the works potentially damage your property and foundations

As if moving out and having to live somewhere else for 6 months while having to go back and forth isn’t an inconvenience

They moved out, I class that as a disruption to their lives

My neighbours haven’t even moved it. Definitely no disturbance for them.

God knows when they will as everything keeps getting pushed back as they seem to know as much about planning and building as a toddler does about being doctor.

Yes. Clearly a comment made by someone who has never had the stress of building work!

That would have been a planning consideration though, surely?