Is this legal? Blackmail threatened...long story...

[Solo2]

I paid the owners of a privately owned field, that backs onto our garden, to allow workmen to distribute excavated soil from our garden. The owners agreed, their farmer, employed by them, agreed and the excavated soil has top soil covering it.

My neighbours have told me that it's illegal to put what would be deemed 'domestic waste' onto greenbelt land and are threatening to blackmail me, using this information.

There's an ongoing dispute between us, as they keep using the private field as their recreation ground, ruining our privacy and view. The field owners have forbidden trespassing (and we agree with them) and are v angry and had asked me to 'police' their land.

I can't really do this but the neighbours are now saying that if I 'tell on them' for STILL accessing the private land, then they 'might' raise the issue of illegal spread of waste soil. I feel angry that I'm now being threatened with blackmail and angry that the neighbours are still flouting the request of the field owners.

This is the outline of a long saga but my question is - is it really illegal to put soil from a garden onto a greenbelt field used only for occasional pastureland?

Would it really be deemed domestic waste, if it's just the transfer of soil from one area (our garden) to another (the field backing onto our garden)? Does it make a difference if the owners of the field expressly allowed me to do this and accepted payment for this?

No Your neigbours are just bluffing.

Soil from your garden is NOT domestic waste.

Ignore their empty threats.

Thanks LucindaCarlisle. Do you know this to be a fact and is there some law I can quote at them to back what I say?

I personally wouldn't get involved in arguing with them over the letter of the law, just tell them to go ahead if they want. The council will probably PTSL if they do. There's really no point arguing with people like that IME.

i dont think soil is domestic waste, if it has been spread out, then it has been irrigated into the land, it is not waste

can you right environmental health to check?

They are just trying to frighten you into keeping quiet about their activities. Tell them to go right ahead.

Sounds like a v. nasty situation. If I were you I wouldn't get involved in disputes between the landowner and your neighbours. Let the landowner sort out his own problems.

I would leave it to the landowners to sort out.

It can depend on whether the land has been put aside and in receipt of conservation payments.

That would make totally NO difference.

It may be different in different areas but we did something similar which the local authority knew about and had no problem at all with.
Not specific legal precedent I know but why don't you ring your council and pretend to be asking advice in advance of doing it, ';m sure they won't ask your details and just see what they say.
Your neighbour sounds like they are trying to make trouble.

The issue is not whether what you did is illegal, it is whether you allow your awful neighbours to control your life with threats. If you do, you will be opening the door to all kinds of unacceptable behaviour from them, while they dangle the threat of "reporting you" to stop your complaints.

Call their bluff. My guess is that they won't report you, but even if they did, realistically what could happen? It's not as if you were sprinkling nuclear waste on the field.

Please don't give in to their bullying tactics, but it might be worth a call to the council asking a hypothetical question as to the legality of transferring soil from a garden to a privately owned field.

I'd suggest reporting the neighbours for blackmail as well as trespass. Bullying fuckwits like this can rarely cope with being firmly stood up to.

Thanks everyone.

The soil from our garden is the same type of soil as the field - a few yards away and my garden top soil has been spread over the 'under' soil anyway. All it's done is level off a natural dip in the field and porbably enrich the pastureland.

The field is currently greenbelt, but not under any conservation rules and being used for grazing sheep twice a year. The owners actually want to develop the land for building but have been thwarted regularly over several years.

That's v empowering to hear all your views on the neighbours and my stance towards them. I feel threatened by them - with the male being almost outwardly aggressive towards me the other day and then his wife playing the "poor little me, I've done nothing wrong, how could you be so cruel" role - yet threatening to report the soil distribution. She told me - reducing herself to tears - that she was 'pleading with me' not to tell on them for flouting the field owners request to stop trespassing.

I suggested several times that she take it up directly with the field owners and not with me, although I fully agree with the owners about not liking trespassing.

I suggested that she offers to pay them for recreational use of the field and access, as I've paid them - albeit temporarily - for access to the rear of my garden and the distribution of excavated soil. She said she didn't think she should be having to pay to use the land...So I guess we just have v different moral views.

I find it hard to stay assertive in the face of both the more aggressive male and the 'pathetic' female - caught, myself - between fear and then compassion. But this shouldn't cloud the issue which is that my neighbours are repeatedly refusing not to trespass on private land (they also let their children enter my garden and spoil the pond construction...but that's another story!)and threatening me if I suggest I might need to let the owners know.

I am of course currently liable if the trespasses get injured on our site or cause damage to our garden project or to the field areas I'm currently trying to return to a previous state.

It's a difficult situation all in all...

You need to let the landowners sort out their own trespass disputes and not get involved in your neighbours activities.

You're right, scurryfunge. The difficulty is that the owners live miles away and we're affected every day by the trespassing, in terms of loss of privacy in our garden, security risk to our property etc.

Also, at present, it's had to become more my issue, as I'm temporarily responsible for the field - or at least areas of it and am paying in a sense to 'rent' it. The owners have sent their shepherd twice to tell the neighbours to keep off the land but as he too isn't around and has no sheep grazing at present, he can't see what's going on and isn't currently affected (only was when the trespasses began to chase the flock of sheep and throw stones at them).

I can't police the field for them but can only look after my own interests in so far as these are affected by the trepasses. Maybe I'll write to the neighbours now suggesting again that they contact the field owners directly...

Could you formally have responsibility for the field by either paying a nominal rent or being named as custodian on behalf of the owners. I would guess they would be happy for this arrangement if you are minding it officially. It needs to be something that can be enforced though.

If you are successful with this, write to the neighbours telling them access must cease or you will seek advice regarding a civil action.

Can the owners block access to the field easily?

It's an idea, scurryfunge. Not sure the owners would go for it nor if I could really police the field full-time without being aggressed even more by the neighbours....

I think I need to put in writing what was said betwene the neighbour and I so they can at least see that for the next few months at the v least, I really can't have them in the field.

The shepherd put a v strong piece of wire around their garden-to-field access gate but I expect they can still easily step over the fence as it's quite low down or the dad will simply untie the wire.

The only other method would be for the owners to put up a proper fence all around the field instead of a kind of fairly low in height pasture fencing. I doubt they'd want to go to the expense however.

Install an electrified fence without telling the nasty neighbours.

What do they do in this field?

Like the idea of an electrified fence...but wouldn't do it in reality of course!!

Yuno....they've really used it as if it's an extension to their garden....placing a large trampoline there last summer, mowing a path round the perimeter for their children to use for biking and karting, joggin, practising golf, teenage noisy screaming parties till midnight, kite flying and lots and lots and lots of standing at the end of our fence at the bottom of the garden, looking in at us in our garden and also in our house.

There's a natural gap there and anyone in the field tends to congregate there all the time, so we feel constantly on show. My DCs have been catcalled and sneered at and bullied to the extent that they rarely now go in the garden.

Meanwhile, since the neighbours were forced to return their trampoline to their garden, they've put it so that each time they bounce (several hrs a day), they get the best view of our garden and of course, given it's a trampoline, they just can't go on it without shrieking constantly.

Since the escalating issues in the last few days, the women has started to use the trampoline also and also to shriek. I expect she wants to make her presence felt...as if she hadn't already.

At present, I feel hardly able to go into our garden unless there are other adults there too (I'm a single mum) or else I feel quite vulnerable. I know this is silly but the whole situation is getting to me a lot, as these things can do with direct neighbours disputes.

Can anyone ledn me a temporary rottweiler and a hunky man for a while???!!!

The landowner could apply for an Injunction to prohibit them trespassing on to his field.

Rent the field and get a couple of pigs in there?????

Your neighbours sound like loons, but next time they try anything and trying to blackmail just look them straight in the eye and tell them that if they feel it is an issue, they should go ahead.

Plant some trees at the bottom of your garden.

I would also seriously consider getting a dog.

Ideally I'd like to rent the field and have a large bull in there!!! Yes, i do plan to plant lots of trees at the bottom of the gardne and also down the side boundary asap.

We're definitely getting a dog within the next year - a golden retriever puppy - so not exactly ferocious. It's likely that the neighbours will complain every time it barks! They've done nothing but complain - in the nicest possible way - and until now I've never ever complained back to them.

They complained the wasp nest in our eaves one year was producing more wasps in their garden so could I pay someone to get rid of it - which I did (although the DCs and I had no problem with our resident wasps).

They complained our cats were coming through their cat flap and that they had to shout and scare them out....I listened kindly and patiently to that telephone call and then explained that our cats are house cats and have never gone out - so it must be some other cat!

Now they're complaining that we've tried to stop them trespassing...which I have done....but once again it's made to look - by them - as if we're in the wrong and they're in the right. It gets surreal and I find myself feeling really guilty and scared!

Interesting to hear about getting a possible injunction, Lucinda...

We have 2 golden retrievers. One sounds like a doberman if someone knocks at the door. But if the door is opened, he gets terribly excited and just wags his tail.

The problem about putting any of this in writing to your neighbours is that you do have to disclose it if you decide to sell your home and move.

And if I read a letter like that I would think twice about buying even a dream house.

However, since it is clearly making your life a misery, is their a neighbourhood mediation scheme you could go to, where you can reach a compromise on some of these issues eg amount of time spent trampolining, not hassling your kids, etc.

I am not sure that the neighbours will acquire rights if the landlord has taken steps to put up signs/ new fencing.