Neighbour's wall

[NainAGP]

Has anybody had a similar situation? Am I obliged to agree to this, who pays for the work? I live in a terraced house near an intersection with my neighbour round the corner having his main house wall running behind my garden, no rear access. He wants to repair and render this 2 storey wall. In order to reach the whole wall a workshop/shed in my garden would have to be dismantled (and rebuilt) to gain access to the wall. It was built by my late husband about 8 years ago, it's not a shed made from a kit. The wall does need fixing so it's a reasonable request but the logistics are off putting, a builder dismantling and reerecting a workshop building, as well as find room in a small courtyard for all the tools and materials of the dismantled building while scaffold is up.
OP posts:See all

There should be a way of scaffolding over the outbuilding and you may be able to charge if the work requires access for long. Does it need a party wall agreement?

Does his wall form any part of your workshop? Or was it just built very close?

@NainAGP It probably was not very clever to build your outbuilding so it prevented maintenance to a house. I’m not sure you can do much about this. I assume they cannot work behind the building? I’m wondering if they can remove a bit of your building and prop it up? Taking it all down seems excessive.

A wall of a house against a garden is not a party wall. It could be the op should have informed the house owner before their building was erected. They have created the problem I think.

It certainly can be a party wall if it is built right up to the boundary line.

OP look on gov.uk for details of what he can and can't do. Or repost your question on Garden Law website forum.

You need to lookat your deeds and the neighbours deeds to see if the wall is built up to the boundary.

I think it might be your responsibility to remove the workshop to allow access as the workshop was built after the wall. With hindsight, it would have been sensible to leave a gap so there was room to repair the wall without moving it but what’s done is done now.

If the workshop is full of your husbands tools that are no longer used, you could view it as an opportunity to sort through the contents and sell things that you do not use. I’m thinking back to when my father died and left what appeared to be the contents of a bike repair shop in the garage! After about 10 years, mum needed to replace the garage so decided it was time to get rid of all the stuff that dad had used/ hoarded. We all helped her and managed to sell a lot or give it away to fellow cyclists and mum was eventually very pleased with her almost empty garage. As there was already an electric supply, she put her washing machine and tumble dryer in there to free up space in the kitchen - when dad was alive, there was no room for any of mums things!

People are allowed to build up to the boundary of their property, as OP's neighbour did.

OP - chances are overwhelmingly that this is not a party wall.

You are not obliged to permit access to maintain it, but if you refuse access your neighbour could apply to the court for an order under the Access to Neighbouring Land Act. It is therefore best to consider reaching an agreement with the neighbour now subject to conditions that protect you.

This is s2 of the Act, which sets out what conditions the court can impose https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/23/section/2

If I were you I would say that you want to appoint a surveyor to advise you, paid for by them. The surveyor will negotiate access on your behalf, and conditions you want to impose can include scaffolding oversailing the shed/outbuilding, no materials to be stored on your side of the boundary, site access is secured from public entry, and there are strict dates on which the works can be carried out. You can restrict the hours of work to avoid disturbing your weekends, say between 9am and 5pm, and say no playing of music or radio. You can have financial penalties in the event that they are not off your porperty by the end date, and they must reinstate your property to the condition it was in before the work started.

Forgot to mention - they will want to do this as cheaply as they can. It is not a valid objection to your requested restriction that it is going to cost them more. It is they who are interfering with your property rights, not the other way round.

If the works are “reasonably” necessary to preserve the property, it’s expected that access will be granted. The op did make access a lot more difficult. Agreement is always best. Prime London Holdings vs Thurloe Lodge is a case about access for rendering.

I never said access would not be granted. By building so close to the boundary, indeed as close as the neighbour's property is to the boundary, OP did nothing wrong for which they should expect to be inconvienced more than absolutely necessary.

Depending on how the garden workshop has been built it may have needed a party wall agreement at that point. It's also possibly in the ops deeds that the house has right of access for repair. We don't know which house is older

Thanks everyone, food for thought! I have already received legal advice and was hoping someone on here might have had a similar experience.

@NainAGP I would try and agree access that is the least detrimental to you. What did your legal advice say? You can draw up an agreement about the workshop, access, Length of time for the work, hours of working, loud workman’s music etc . I tend to think - put yourself in their shoes. What would you do if you needed to maintain your house but another building prevented this? Would you not bother or negotiate? You would probably negotiate. Far better than getting lawyers involved.

The advice was to negotiate compensation so that after the whole task is completed I will still have a functioning outbuilding though obviously not the original one. The neighbour seems to think the shed will magically remove and rebuild itself with no cost to anyone.

@NainAGP has the work been done ? How are things ?