AIBU to be upset by my neighbours' huge extension?

[ElfinsMum]

We (family of 5) live in a 30 year old property built on a small site that was originally our neighbour's garden. We bought several years ago from them. At that time, they were doing a renovation on the old cottage as the grandmother had died so that the early 20s DGD and her partner could move in. At the time i was a bit 🤔about it if i'm honest just because my (wealthy as it happens) parents have never and would never give me a house, let alone spend weeks personally slaving over a full blown renovation for me. Since then we have lived perfectly peacefully next door to them.

Now they are doing a large extension. They have bulldozed their whole back garden and the final house will now stretch all the way along our boundary front to back, as well as adding an extra storey to overlook our whole bungalow. The builders literally have to work on our land all day to build it. They have even had to remove a small section of our drive to lay foundations. They have moved out for the duration, i assume back with mum and dad for free. We are stuck here.

I know i am not being unreasonable to worry that their huge new extension will be ugly, dominate our space, reduce our privacy and probably damage the value of our house.

BUT we love living here, love the area, school, public transport, other neighbours etc. Our house is worn and lived in as everyone's is that is 15 years into this parenting caper.

I am aware, as you will now be, that I am being bitter and twisted on the subject. How can i continue to like living in our home? How do i avoid turning into one of THOSE people that has a stupid one-sided vendetta with the neighbours? How do i avoid being resentful that they will have a massive, polished home for the two of them, while we slum it over here with 5 of us in a cottage with one bathroom and a kitchen made of MDF? How do i forgive them for choosing to use every centimetre of their land when they must know it is at our expense?

P.S. The development meets local planning regs to the milimetre so don't bother with planning arguments.

I am assuming the italics are sarcasm?!

I know it is unpleasant to feel this way - that's why i am venting here and not irl.

If im honest i think its very mean of your parents who can clearly afford to help you to take that attitude, life is bloody hard enough, much harder than it was 50 years ago. Its not like you want them to fund your day to day living!

my parents were clear to me that they would not support me financially as an adult at all because i needed to stand on my own two feet....but I and DH are currently grappling with how to fund x3 first time buys.

This is the heart of what’s bothering you really, isn’t it? The building work next door is just a physical reminder of it.

Can you talk to your parents about it? Perhaps they might be prepared to help out their DGC and then you would have less worry over it.

Sorry you got the worst of Mumsnet on your thread @ElfinsMum . What a load of obnoxious bile.

They won't do it. They are worth a lot and receive more in pensions per month than we get from two Mumsnet "big" jobs but they worry all the time about future care costs. As well as living in a big crumbling heap that costs a bomb to heat etc.

They contributed about one third of the cost of my DD's school trip as a gift earlier this year. My DM is still marvelling at how much it was. She is unaware of the true cost because i know she would blow a gaskett if i told her.

So why blame her for only contributing one third if you never told her how much the full cost was?

Haha it's a risk you take in AIBU @bigboykitty I honestly value the "give your head a wobble" responses. There is truth to them. I do honestly want to make peace with the situation rather than talk myself into having to move.

Then just ride it out and see how it is when you're finished. Give them before and after photos of your garden and get a written commitment from them to reinstate it when the work is finished. You're not wrong about AIBU.

Can't you see you are coming across as 'princessy' too? It's really childish to look at your neighbour and resent them for having a bigger house and resenting your parents for not giving you one .

Thanks, my favourite series 😊

But you don't have to fund three first time buys. Of course it is a lot harder to buy first property now than it was twenty years ago, but that still doesn't mean you have to do the funding. Your kids will have to make it on their own, just as you did, but you can probably still help out with furnishing and decoration and things like that. It does build character/resilience to have things less easy - I remember the hard struggle of having my own house with everything to pay for myself from my crap salary, and wondering which item of furniture I could sell to make ends meet a little better. It wasn't a fun time but it made me stronger to have that adversity to work around. The best thing you can do for your children is encourage them to have a Can Do attitude, which will work in their favour better than seeing your resentment over your NDN's easy life (which you might be hiding from them but they might be picking up on it).

You do seem to have a very distant relationship with the neighbours, are they not friendly towards your family? And on a separate note, can you not get your own copy of the deeds showing the boundary lines? You said you're not in the UK, but doesn't your country have property deeds online and obtainable? They shouldn't be encroaching onto your property at all without your permission, surely?

@ElfinsMum are you saying that where you live, its legal to invade someone else's land and damage it without the landowners permission or restitution for damage?

Yeah, if i introduced you to my mother, after about two weeks of thinking she's a polite old stick, you would work out why i would hide this kind of thing. Not everyone's mum is sensible and kindly.

I’d focus on writing a little list, every day if you have to, of all the reasons you are lucky and grateful about where you live, your large family and your life in general. However small, you need to
work on building your appreciation of what you have got rather than envy of what you don’t have.

A small garage next to our bungalow was demolished, and a three story house built in it's place! Yes it complied with the regulations - not unfrosted windows on that side was all that was required. During inital building works they destroyed the raised side path at the side of our house. I literally came home one day to find it gone. As they had not done a party wall agreement despite me requesting it on multiple occaisaions they had to admit they had stuffed up and I got an agreement in writing that it and the and the fence on the side of the garden would be rebuilt - to my specs. There is now a fancy house next to me little bungalow - but I am not embarassed in the slightest. I hope you have a party wall agreement in placce covering their acces to your garden and making it good afterwards

I did take pics on day 1 (of the rest of the garden that is clearly going to get ruined).

Dunno about our rights re refusing them access. But tbh it is in our interest for them to get finished asap so i'm not v keen on making it harder for the builders. I do assume they will have to make good but not sure i would take them to court to enforce that. I would like to still live next door to them without them obviously hating me!

My mother is a deeply flawed human being and an inadequate parent, with yawning gaps in her safeguarding of her four children from danger in childhood, all in the guise of a sweet, elderly woman. I would still feel that her response to the cost of a child’s school trip was hers to manage.

Sorry to hear that you had this happen @insomniacalways Can i ask how you feel about the property now and the people who live in it? And how long it took you to feel better?

You didn't look into what your rights were before they started building?

OP, I can’t see that you’ve answered about whether you objected to the planning permission application? As you say you’re hyper-aware of what others thinking of you, you’ve rolled over about damage to your property and you don’t think you’d legally enforce your neighbours to make the damage good, are you in fact a people-pleaser who struggles to assert herself and maintain boundaries (literal and metaphorical) and rather than acting seethes in silence?

We looked at the plans and the local authority regulations online, deduced they had complied to the letter while absolutely maxing out the development of their land and decided that complaining would be pointless (and burn goodwill).

You need to seperate the two things.

one they are entitled and in line with planning to use their land as they wish, they should not not do so to make you feel happy,
they need to put right and damage.

thats the first thing.

your envy is only poisoning you, envy of their home, their finances and you can’t sit in judgement about what their parents decide to gift them as a family. Well you can but it doesn’t change anything and just fuels your envy.

the decision to let it complete is the right one, can you get over it really. If you can’t get over it, you will need to move.

The story with your mum reminds me of when I went to uni… my lovely Dad kindly [had to] pay my board and lodging, and told me to take out the student loan but invest it, as he’d then also give me a spending allowance. I could never bring myself to tell him the £5 a week wasn’t really enough and I spent the loan. (Fully my choice, all good, but just a different understanding of costs).

@ElfinsMum Why let them onto your land? How bizarre. Even where you are, surely they have no right to that. I am afraid you will have to talk to them about reinstatement and come to an agreement. If you are in a country where over development is permitted, you just have to suck it up I’m afraid. Most people don’t sit in bedrooms looking at other people though!

You don’t want to spend money on your house - so be it. I would not harp on about how basic it is if that’s the case. I’d improve my enjoyment of a house and spend some money. Or sell as a redevelopment site.

Yes absolutely. I said so earlier too.

(As well as admitting i white lied to my mother about the true value of the school trip to save her from a rude shock.)

Did they get a party wall agreement? At a basic level they need to put right everything they’ve done to your land.