Need access to the outside of house for essential work via neighbours garden

[ClaireH26]

We are about to begin renovating a house, no work been done since 70's, needs new roof, new windows, plumbing, electrics, whole shebang. Our house is strange, old municipal building made into 3 properties. Our property is right angles to next door like an L shape, our windows look onto their private garden. To access the outside of a whole side of our house we need to enter their garden.

The work is due to begin next week and we will need to put scaffolding up the week after. The tenant in the adjacent property is refusing to give access for the scaffolding. The owner lives overseas and we only have an email address for him, we have emailed but not heard anything back. We will be contacting solicitors on Monday but I am wondering if there is any legal minds who know whether we have the right to access our house to do essential works even if it means using someone else's land to do so?

We actually should have access to the light well into our basement which we cannot access as the neighbours garden is fenced off. The next door tenant is refusing to now respond to calls, texts or requests to meet in person to discuss. All I have had is one arsy text to refuse access and no further contact. What should we do?

Have you spoken to a solicitor about this?

If you put up the scaffolding and do the work you would need the landlord to find out and take you to court to get damages. Trespass is a civil matter, again the landlord would have to take you to court.

Perhaps explain to the neighbour that you will go to court to get access under the Neighbouring Land Act. If the court finds his refusal unreasonable the it may make him liable for your costs.

I say this as someone whose neighbour destroyed a whole garden border building an extension with no party wall act in place The only way to stop him would have been an injunction once he started, which we couldn't have afforded. He got away with doing what he wanted because we couldn't afford the thousands we needed to invoke the law that was supposed to protect us. Our solicitor agreed with us!