Can my neighbour sue us for this??

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New neighbour has moved in, all guns blazing. He claims that our extension encroaches over the boundary line by 2 inches. We have never had any inkling of this, certainly wasn't mentioned by our solicitor when we bought the house (extension was already there when we bought the house.) Im not sure why he has told us this or to what end but he mentioned legal action. Can he do anything?? DH is worried he can sue us or such like. TIA for any advice.

"Else no doubt he'll just find something else to be arsey about."

With that in mind, pretend you know nothing about the extension - that way he'll spend the next 5 years and all his money trying to prove it's his land. And when he fails with any luck he'll be so crushed/broke that he won't move on to the hedges...

I don't have any advice in this case, but I'm somehow guessing this isn't the last you'll hear from your charming new neighbour. He sounds honestly bonkers. Why would he buy the house if this 2 inches bothered him so much?

Say "Yes, two inches is very important to some people. Nice sports car"

Yes, deliberate vagueness, disinterest, bland chat.

I'll pop my bill in the post then. Do I send it to your neighbour?

Sigh. It has all become clear today. He has attached a fuck off huge wooden post to our garage wall to attach a fuck off huge wooden gate to. So I guess as far as he is concerned, because our garage wall is on 'his' 2 inches, he is free to drill holes in it. Charming of him to not have passed it by us first. Im so looking forward to years of happiness having this man living next door...

It's a party wall so he can attach a gate to it I think - it's what we have in our alleyway - the neighbour has a post to attach the gate, and I have a post to attach the 'sneck' for the gate to go into.

Just ignore him, he sounds like a twat.

You need to look at the boundary in the plan. Often down the side of the property there will be a straight line. If the brick wall is in line with, say, a fence, then you have to use your judgment as to whether it's on your side,but up to the boundary, or whether it straddles the boundary. If the latter, it's a party wall and your neighbour is entitled to do this. If the former, they are trespassing.

Hi, I am not a solicitor just a law student. I doubt anyone will take your neighbour seriously over 2 inches. However the law on adverse possession which has been quoted here has changed, if the land is registered then you can apply for the extra land to be registered to you but your neighbour can object and then start proceedings to recover the land which he seems intent on doing anyway. I would do as Laurie suggests and ignore him

When you bought your house, the planning permission granted should be with your deeds, which I had, when buying mine, but the actual plans were not included and council could not find them as was granted in 1969. Surveyors always disagree, as seems too difficult to determine boundaries, My sister's surveyor said the garden wall her husband erected was 2" inside his land and neighbour's surveyor said it was 4" inside their client's land !!!!! Ignore it unless your neighbour's surveyor says it is 2" onto his land, and then your surveyor will say it's on your land, and so on. It's a hellish game they play, it seems But it could just become a stale mate, as costs lots of money. I have read several times that if the extension straddles the boundary then it is a party wall, but determining that is almost impossible. And if extension was built more than 12 years ago, this adverse possession may apply.
Do let us know how you get on with this obnoxious neighbour

Just read about your neighbour drilling into your garage wall - he is not entitled to do this just like that and you are entitled to remove it, and bill him for damage to the wall to be repaired. You could try calling community police as is an arrestable offence - and see what happens. Some police will come and others not bother. If you have legal protection in your house insurance, you can phione that number and you will get this reply, as I did " Is it your wall" "Yes" " Write him a letter demanding him to take everything out of your wall and make good the holes/other damage in 2 weeks, or else you will do it yourself," but must be done from your property and not his, if you do it. He has not yet proved that the wall is on his property, and even if he does in future, which is highly unlikely, he cannot do this to your garage until then. He bought this house as it was, including all assets and liabilities

wow what an idiot - does he have kids?

Is it possible he started blowing excess wind about the 2" so you didn't dare object to his 'fuck-off' gate post being attached to your wall?

It is very easy to go in all guns blazing and demanding that he removes the post from your garage wall, however I would advise you to consider where this could go.

As Methe pointed out, read the Gardenlaw forums on not just boundaries but fences and general topics, it will shock the hell out of you as to how far these things can go and how many years they can go on for. Also that the police aren't as helpful as you think.

Scenario, you come home from work and find the dilapidated fence between you and your neighbour has gone and a brand new fence has been erected, only this one is now 2 feet over and your neighbour has those extra 2 feet.

You say you took my land, he says on my deeds it says it is mine. You say remove that fence, he says no. You decide to remove it, neighbour calls police and reports you for criminal damage, he can prove he paid for the fence you are touching. You say to police officer, but he has nicked my land, police officer says that is a civil matter but you touching his fence is criminal damage.

Getting no help from the police you instruct a solicitor to resolve fence position. You pay this solicitor thousands of pounds to prove that original fence has been there 20 years.

Solicitor gets richer, you endure life of hell as neighbour provokes you in any way they can, parking a bit over your drive, being in their garden every time you are, or watching you from an upstairs window, calling you paranoid as you feel you are being spied on.

You decide in the end you need to move, but now you can't sell because you live next door to a nutjob and no-one will buy your house.

This didn't happen to me, but I do know someone who endured this for years. Sadly it wasn't their forever house so trying to move was an absolute nightmare as no-one wanted to buy their beautiful house. In the end the neighbour moved and the several of the neighbours cheered the removal van he didn't just antagonise my friend but the whole street with his 7 cars that he couldn't ft on his drive

Slightly off the topic but my elderly mum has a neighbour, naice family, 3 DC, naval officer DH, all OK, who moved in, oh, 12 years ago (Mum's been there 40 years). They put up one of those stand alone double carports in their front garden, brick built, raked tiled roof. The back of it is actually on the boundary line and the gutter overhangs mum's property by the 3" that gutters do. Whilst building this, neighbour asked mum if it'd be OK if her builders put up scaffolding in mum's front garden etc which mum agreed to 'as long as they made no permanent mess' which they didn't. She also had the builder's vans parked on her grass verge (only chipping them for chucking cementy water in her drain- rural, I should add, all gardens 1/4 of an acre- for weeks (other works going on inside the house).

Anyway, the dividing fence is 6' wooden panels, mum's responsibility. The panels that ran between mum's shed and the windowless side of her house were collapsing, so, 4 or 5 years ago, after informing the neighbour (as they have a dog) DH and DB set to and did the replacement properly, taking out the rotten wooden posts and replacing them with cemented in posts that you slide the wooden panels down into. Hell of a job, but the end the result was smart and semi-permanent.

All OK. Til a couple of weeks later, Mrs neighbour arrives on mum's doorstep, still all polite and pleasant, just wanting to 'inform' mum that one of the new fence posts encroached on their land by 'an inch or 2'. 'If you stand on a box and run your eye along the line of the fence, it deviated towards our property a bit at that point..... Just so you know'.

'Oh, OK' says mum.

End of story.

I was ready to serve them a notice to take their bloody garage roof guttering down but find another solution for their nuisance rainwater run off etc etc

I just think they didn't stop for a moment and go 'Hang on, we get on perfectly well with the elderly lady next door, she chucks our kids balls back without complaint, she never complains about high jinx in our backyard, she takes in parcels, she let our workmen erect scaffolding in her garden for weeks to build our garage, let's just let what was obviously a slight error, even of 'post-crete' concrete drying, go, shall we?'

Luckily, nothing more was said or done but it still irritates me that Mrs Neighbour was prepared to jeopardise the good neighbourliness between them over that.

You need to speak to a surveyor. Even if it is a party wall then he can't just drill into it as he wishes in case he causes damage to your property. According to my understanding he would need to serve notices under the Party Wall Act and he will also be responsible for bearing your costs as well as his own. If he's already started this work without issuing the correct notices then he can be ordered to stop the work. A surveyor they will be able to tell you more.