Retaining wall dispute

[af1981]

Hi, my parents are in their 70s and having a dispute over a retaining wall/wall.
Twenty years ago, my parents purchased a plot of land off their neighbour to build a new house.

The neighbour lowered their land level and build a standard wall on the boundary (my parents' land is about 1 metre higher).

My parents built a fence on their side, as per the conditions on their deeds. The fence and its foundations caused the neighbour's wall to collapse.

The neighbour claimed on my parent's insurance and was awarded a sum of nearly £20k (which the insurer disclosed to my dad recently following lots of attempts). This was not disclosed at the time, neither were the terms and conditions of the award.

The neighbour did not repair or replace the wall and it fell during the storms over Christmas. Part of my parents garden has now collapsed.

The neighbour is refusing to build a retaining wall and has become quite nasty, making demands on my parents to lower their garden level, not to build a new fence and help clear the mess created by the foundations on their side.

My parents' insurance cannot help because of the time that has passed.
Can anyone please advise on what may be the most appropriate steps?

I think your parents will have to consult a solicitor specialising in boundary disputes and land issues. Get advice from them first and see what they recommend. It could be that for the price of one solicitors letter the issue can be resolved amicably. However that is being optimistic, really.

Not exactly the same thing, but our garden is similar to your parents in topography, much higher than our neighbours. In our case originally our neighbours garden sloped down from ours with a gentle bank, no problem. Until the day our other farming neighbour informed us that this guy had had a digger in and undermined our garden, and also the farmers boundary. We were both left with approx 4 metres of garden/land unsupported.

Like your parents, we tried talking to this neighbour but he was aggressive and unhelpful. We and the farmer joined forces and consulted a specialist solicitor. The upshot was a letter was sent to him requesting a robust wall, signed off by a structural engineer. It dragged on very acrimoniously for ages, until one stormy night when he went round to our farmer neighbour, gibbering with terror that the land surrounding his very small garden area was going to collapse into his house and garden. Ironically he called himself a builder lol - but seemed unaware that a wall requires drainage holes, etc.

In the end, having approached the local council as well, it turned out he needed retrospective planning permission and there were specific structural elements required. So the wall was built, problem solved - all for the price of one solicitors letter. I was terrified as we had to declare all of this when we sold our house, but our purchasers were pretty laid back about it.

Litigation is so expensive - your parents definitely want to avoid Court action which can cost tens of thousands. On the positive side, at least we're only talking about a three foot retaining wall. Obviously there is the issue that there is no way he built a structurally sound wall, for it to collapse in this way - but of course that is hard to prove.

I guess your parents have to think about the outcome they want, which is presumably a structurally robust wall supporting their garden. There are no winners. Get solicitors advice and in the end, although morally they shouldn't have to, they could offer to go halves on the new wall, with the caveat that it is inspected by structural engineers at every stage, to ensure rebar reinforcement, drainage etc. Sorry to be so long-winded, but I see you haven't had any replies yet. Hopefully an expert in these issues will be along to this thread to help you. Your poor parents -the neighbour obviously took the money under false pretences, keeping the money and just building a cheap, shoddy wall.