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?

I'm intrigued! What was the party wall issue and why did they think they had any legal grounds for sending you a bill? Did you pay it?

In my last house it was a small bungalow with an enormous garden - semi detached about £600 K. Next door neighbour not semi detached extended her house legally over the same size out the back- the work went on day and night for 2 years. She lived next to an older couple who had lived there was 60 years and they were 80. It destroyed their lives. The lady was frequently shaking and in tears and the guy was so worried about his wife. She couldn’t sit out in the garden (just after lock down) and it seemed to be relentless banging morning noon and night. Loud radios from builders and swearing. And the dust and despite having large drives they were regularly blocked in my rude workmen. Neighbour having the building work, went off to France often and just left the workmen to it and it was awful. Eventually the elderly couple decided they couldn’t live with it - big extension and their garden now mostly in the shade and they sold it. Despite living there for 60 years. Lady had a stroke and died day after exchange and he moved to a new house and lived 6 months. It was awful. Her nerves were shot to pieces. She had been unable to have children and been through a load of trauma in her life and the garden was their life and the last two years were awful. I miss them and I really feel for them. The neighbour didn’t need the extension she was a single lady and went from a 3 bed to a 6 bed house (!) but it was all legal.

But you can complain if they're breaching building hours regulations. No noise allowed after 2 pm Saturday and none at all on Sundays or bank holidays here. (Not UK, so it may be different.)

And, OP, unless you had grounds for complaint (loss of light, windows overlooked etc) at the planning stage, you just have to deal.

YABU assuming they’ve gone through all the right channels etc.

@Polyestered

because it’s cheaper to buy and extend rather than buy the larger property? Because they want to live in the area and this is the only property suitable? Who knows.

As someone who had a small extension I let neighbours know and kept an eye on the builders. If your neighbours are moving out ask them for contact details and get in touch if there are issues

Ithink YABU. You are actually not entitled to a view, hopefully you put in comments opposing and the decision notice on the planning portal should address those

however it’s six months not a lifetime. Speak to the neighbours about it, ask what they will do re noise dust etc

Just awful and yep the noise from builders shouting with radios blaring as annoying as constant angle grinding and drilling.

I used to know a Brazilian woman who found our planning permission regulations very strange. In Brazil the important thing is when you start and when you finish the work - and if the project goes over it’s going to lead to a fine.

Yes it was part of our complaint but it didn’t stop the noise that weekend itself.

Just added fuel to the fire of hatred on both sides.

They hate us as we hampered their dreams and cost them a fortune.

We hate them as they took the piss, broke the law in multiple ways and damaged our property.

I sympathise, I live next to someone who demolished the modest property that was there originally and built something three times larger. It was overlooking, dusty, noisy and disruptive and took two years.

But. At some point in time the house I live in was being built and probably annoyed some neighbours. Our old house had an extension the previous owners built and that’s why we bought it - but I dare say it was unpleasant for the neighbours while it was being built. One of those neighbours then built their own. It’s just part of life - if you want to live in a nice, maintained house in a community you have to expect that there will be building works, same as you’d expect to be able to do work on your property. So long as they’ve followed the proper planning process then yes, you do have to suck it up.

It’s like people who expect electricity at their home but whinge about roadworks and pylons, or who want full mobile coverage but protest about phone masts.

This exact thing happened to us. They moved out and stayed in a friend’s house overlooking the sea, while we had to suffer the dust, scaffolding, disruption and noise from 8am on the dot, 5 days a week and often on Saturdays too (but they granted us a lie in until 9am those days). It completely ruined the whole summer for us, it ran over schedule and went on for about 8 months in total. It’s lovely from the inside, but an eyesore from the outside, so all in all, we’re not happy bunnies, but they are delighted.
(The only positive thing is they took their yappy dogs with them for the duration, so we were spared their barking!)

There's a reason that big detached houses with no neighbours cost more money OP.....

So people should not expand or improve their property because the neighbors might be disturbed ? Ridiculous. If you work from home and it annoys you , that is not their problem.
However there are rules and regulations that should be respected. Like no trespass on your property ( but they can park their vans on the public street even if it is outside your house ) . Sticking to regulated hours .
Your concerns about light , distance etc should have been brought up at planning stage . But aware that some extensions within a certain size might not need planning. This is something that will hopefully have an end to it . It's out of your control so make peace with it

People are becoming increasingly more selfish OP.

Sorry but yabu. We loved the location of our current house and we bought it due to the extension possibilities. We created 4 extra rooms due to this. Planning permission was lwgally granted. Neighbours had a chance to object. The work was completed within 4 months. Hardly major disruption.

We had a nice home in a quiet cul de sac. Then our lovely retired left door neighour moved out and a family with three indisciplined kids moved next door. The noise from 7 to 9am was very stressful. If it wasn't bad enough, our quiet neighbour on the right moved out because of the noise and a another daily of three kids moved in. I'd never experirnced noise disruption like it! We had no choice to move too.

Lovely house, house on the other side at the start of huge extension. We had noise all last summer. Then it was our turn although only one room and over the weekend. It's now all over and the quiet is heaven. I'll take construction noise with an end in time a 100 times over young children for potentially 10 years or more!

Sorry but what a stupid statement.

Millions of people live in new builds. Are they selfish? Should they have moved into houses already built so that no building work took place to make their home.

Did you live in the property while it was being extended?

I think it ought to be a legal requirement that the people benefiting from the extension ought to also fully experience the disruption.

I'll add to the list of people asking about objecting to the planning permission
I would have put this in the OP

This would only slow the building work down and lengthen the time the neighbours are inconvenienced.

You don't think moving to temporary accommodation is disruptive then?

We've has an extension where we knocked down the garage and built on the side. Couldn't afford to move to anywhere more suitable but DS needed a downstairs bedroom and wet room as he was no longer able to get up the stairs. The builders tried to keep disruption to a minimum and we didnt move out. I dont see how its selfish to make use of the space we had at the time.

I think most people are quite selfish when it comes to building massive extensions on their houses without any thought for how it might impact their neighbours. I remember that scene in a film called 'Friends with Money' when one woman realises the awful impact her building work is having on her neighbour and basically puts a halt to the whole thing... precious few people have that sort of capacity for compassion.

Around my way, there are loads of bungalows - that are becoming fewer and fewer as more people increase them to double-story buildings. Bungalows are, actually, what so many older people want and developers just don't build them as a matter of course in volume development schemes. I'm always a bit confused as to why people don't just buy a double-story house in the first place - rather than keep depleting a stock of housing that's in so much demand - you're effectively cutting off a huge area of resale potential.

But yes, OP, in general, I do agree with you that there's usually little consideration given to neighbours when homeowners plan massive extensions.

Nothing compared to living with the dust and dirt and noise and the loss of facilities no I don’t

Bungalows normally have bigger gardens and get sold off as estate sales.

But I do agree there should be something where a bungalow cannot be turned into a full on house.

Where do you sit on full house renovations? We lived elsewhere when our house was being renovated as it meant the works were completed much quicker.