Neighbour dispute

[finallyhappyinlife]

In may 2024 we had our drive paved by a local businessman . We are very happy with the work he did for us however the white residue from the hardcore he used underneath the blocks has run onto our neighbours drive leaving a strip of lighter tarmac which shows up when her drive is dry . She is extremely unhappy as expected and I have made several attempts to get the workmen back to discuss this issue however he flatly refuses . I have been totally civil with neighbour agreeing that it’s unacceptable and I have tried many many times to get him to sort this issue . I have ended up falling out with the owner of the business as I believe he is totally out of order . He refuses to speak to my neighbour saying she is just jealous of us having the work done . This has caused us immense stress and she has stopped speaking to us . Earlier in the year her son said she was going to have a fence installed between us and was that ok ? I said that’s up to you as we cannot stop your mum doing anything on her own property and it was no business of ours . This fence has never materialised .
Now today I have received a recorded letter saying she has been advised to get 3 quotes for re tarmacing the whole drive . The quotes range from £8800 to £11000 as she is asking us to pay for this work .
She is asking us to respond within 14 days or she will take it to small claims court .
I feel she should be sending said letter to the workmen who did the work and ruined her drive . Am I wrong ? Why should we pay out £10000 approx for the workmen’s error . And advice would be much appreciated on our rights and the next steps for us to take .

In essence, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You haven’t resolved the problem. It’s not her problem, it’s YOUR problem to solve. This isn’t some random third party who happened by, it’s a contractor you…contracted. You should have checked their liability insurance with them working so close to your neighbour. You’re naive thinking the contractor will say gosh, sorry, let me fix your neighbour’s drive. There’s no easy fix if it doesn’t come off. And fuck that, having it painted?! No.

We had a neighbour who accidentally sprayed our stone patio with Cuprinol while spraying their fence. They were horrified and immediately claimed through their home insurance who reimbursed us to have a new patio. The age of it was irrelevant. All sorted and no harm done. No bad feeling, no dispute to declare when we eventually moved, You should have done this.

OP, your neighbour is totally taking the utter piss out of you with those quotes. Looking at the photos, I’d love to know how any run off from your drive onto hers has defied gravity - the white stains do not appear to be where you would expect them to be given that the drives look like they are sloping down towards the road and hers is also sloping away from yours. Any residual staining would therefore be likely to show falling diagonally away from your wall towards the front left hand of her drive. In one photo, the white actually seems to bend up the drive towards her house.
In addition, looking at the tarmac drives across the street, they also appear to have white areas on them. Go and have a closer look, take photos of those drives and photos of hers from the pavement end of the driveway.

OP has admitted several times that their worker caused the stains.

Offer an acid wash?

I wouldn't like to be neighbours with some of you.Quite happy to damage a neighbours property and not care because it was old in the first place. If you caused damage to something brand new would you feel you had an obligation to repair then?
Its very much the attitude that poorer people should expect less, be happy with what they've got and if they ask for a repair they are trying it on. Shes obviously not due a new drive but she is due some consideration and a solution.

Well the neighbor sues you as its your property thats the cause and you sue the contractor as you held the contract with them.

Also I assume you have home insurance.

Obvious question but have they tried pressure washing it?

Stains. Not damage making the driveway unuseable. On a 30 year old driveway. Tarmac driveways have a lifespan of up to 20 years if laid properly and maintained. Discolouration can easily be remedied, even on driveways that are well past their lifespan.
https://www.hazellj.co.uk/blog/how-long-will-a-tarmac-driveway-last/

Do you have any photos of her drive before you did the work to yours? Asking because the third house on the left opposite yours seems to have the same problem as well.

A 30 year old driveway that is a slightly lighter colour in some places is not ‘ruined’. It still serves as a driveway perfectly well. The hyperbole is hilarious!

You're unwillingness to accept responsibility is quite shocking. Why can't you comprehend that it is your action that created the problem? You action is that you employed someone who was unprofessional and that resulted in damage. Unprofessional because like tou, they are washing their hands with the issue.

I suspect they were prepared to consider a reasonable remedy but they have now reached the point of not caring about being reasonable any longer and are prepared to go for as mjuch as they can. They probably know the courts wouldn't grant a full re-tarmac but they might get compensation in the thousands.

You need to start dealing with the issue rather than passing the buck and then telling yourself you've done your part.

Legally, you are in the wrong. How much in the wrong would be for a judge to decide

Let's say you have an older car, which I think is ugly. I accidently drop a load of paint on it. It still drives, it just now has streaks of paint. Do I have to fix it, or can I just walk away as (in my opinion) it was already old and ugly, so you're not any worse off.

The legal standard is:
Restore the claimant to the position they were in before the nuisance,
not improve it.
Her drive was:

• 30+ years old
• Faded, cracked, end-of-life tarmac
• Unmaintained

She is therefore not entitled to:

• A brand-new £10–11k driveway
• Betterment at your expense

Courts are extremely hostile to betterment claims.

I am sure if it were YOUR drive that he had not completed to standard, you would have been far more successful in chasing him. In fact, you are coming to MN now only because the neighbour has finally escalated things. Did you pay VAT in your driveway? If not, then I guess he also does not have insurance. If you did, then it is a reputable company and therefore he will have insurance. Currently he is just burying his head in the sand, hoping you will go away. Just as you have done with your neighbour. Your contractor, your problem. Don't just tell her to deal with him! You contracted him to do a job, and he has caused damage. He needs to resolve it. If YOUR contractor can't or won't resolve it, then YOU need to do it. The person who should not have to be doing any of this is your neighbour. Irrelevant how old her driveway is. Irrelevant that she said she could not afford to put in a new driveway. Until you had YOUR driveway done, she had no NEED to replace hers. Just get on with it and stop whining and saying you have tried. Clearly you have not tried hard enough.

It's £10k.

She is entitled to have the stain removed. If this can be done by washing, great. If it needs painting, great. If the only way to remove the stain is to retarmac, that's what needs to be done. It would be significantly more expensive to retarmac and then artificially age it to look 30+ years old, faded, cracked and unmaintained. So if retarmacking that is the only solution, she will indeed end up with a brand new driveway.

She is obviously not entitled to block paving etc, so if that's what she is claiming then it certainly won't be considered. But if that's the price to retarmac, that's the price the op will owe. And as it's been dragged out so long and the op appears to have been entirely unwilling to even discuss options, I suspect most judges will happily order retarmacking rather than muck about with paint etc that may or may not work.

This to me is fine

I don't think a judge will make you pay for a new drive if you can do this

Also if you picked the type of stones you wanted is it then up to the builder to be responsible if the colour leaks

Maybe a light drive above a dark drive was going to cause problems in the rain

Assume even if you replaced it, in a years time it would still leak the colour again

IANAL - but I know enough to know that much of the "advice" you are getting here is just bonkers. You need to get a drive specialist around to look at her drive and give you a quote for remedying the problem. That might involve an extra layer of tarmac over the top rather than digging up and replacing the whole drive. This would raise the height of the neighbours drive so may not be possible but would reduce rainwater run off if it is possible. They can tell you if painting the drive would work. Then you can discuss "betterment" with your neighbour and what contribution she might be willing to offer to the cost.

What I can see of your drive actually looks like pretty poor quality work and I'm surprised you were happy with that.

You will lose in court - and have to pay court fees - unless you take positive action to sort this out. You can sue your contractor to recover the cost.

Tarmac done properly is expensive btw, those prices may be correct. Our neighbour had it done cheaply, had it redone a few months later.

This.

Its on you to sort out. The fact that you've attempted to get the tradesman to sort it many times is irrelevant. Its still not fixed.
I had a similar issue with a neighbours new wall. The brickies made it neat on their side but they left huge chunks of cement all over my side path and the side facing me was an absolute cement oozing mess. Neighbour had to pay someone to fix it. Your neighbour doesn't want to discuss it anymore. They want it fixed and they've been patient long enough.

TBH I've had tarmac paths before and after a few years they've all gone patchy/discoloured and started to break up just as hers clearly has at the bottom. I've found the worst cause to be the heat in the summer. I'm not saying that all of the issue is down to the weather but this last summer we had was super hot and probably sped up the discolouration. If run off from the work you had done added to the discolouration you still can't be blamed 100% for the colour it is now. I'd offer to buy her son some tarmac paint just incase a proportion was due to the run off dust and then tell her/him that you consider it delt with.

you can't actually consider something "dealt with" if the person you have wronged doesn't agree with you!

Sorry @finallyhappyinlife I would be very pissed off if I was the neighbour. No wonder she has stopped speaking to you! I am 100% team neighbour. This is your issue to fix. As some posters have suggested, you could try to get it clean for her, but it may be actually stained permanently if it's been damaged for quite a while/a number of months...

But yeah, as has been said, you need to take action against the contractor if he won't do it do it/denies culpability. If he won't do it, and you can't do it, you will have to pay someone else to do it, and then take the contractor to court to get your money back. Your neighbour should NOT have to sue the contractor. You are responsible for sorting her issue

I don't envy you, this is a shitshow, and it's not going away. Good luck, I wish you well and hope you can get this sorted without being out of pocket, but I am 100% on your neighbour's side. That does seem like a high bill for a not very big drive though I have to say. I may be out of touch with prices though...

You've been ineffective for over 12 months. Poor neighbor.

This.
And it should have been sorted out by you before now. Poor neighbour.

I’ve only read your replies OP so not sure if someone else has already done this but I’ve fed this into copilot (ai)

who very clearly says you are not liable (backed up by links to money saving expert site)

It also suggests reporting to trading standards.

Seems to go against most of the responses here…