Can someone please reassure me that I haven't lost all my marbles....

[Hassled]

...and that I am not breaking a law if I choose to paint the outside of our half of a semi-detached house a different colour to our neighbours? Our neighbour's house is white, ours was cream and is now becoming a slightly yellower cream. The malevolent old witch next door says that a)our house was white and b)we can't change the colour of a semi-detached without "permission". This is the latest in a long line of insanity (yesterday I was told to keep my cat indoors all the time because it had allegedly scaled a flat garage wall, reached inside a birdbox and killed "her" bluetits). ARGH! She may be 90 but I could quite happily kill her at the moment.

You have to check your deeds (original deed when the property was build and any subsequent transfer deeds) to check to see if there are any covenants against the Property. Modern houses do sometimes have such covenants preventing any major change to the "facia" of the building.

Your neighbour is right in that sense but wrong in another because unless it's in the last 20 years, it's quite hard to prevent people from breaching this type of covenant and they're not generally that specific as to prevent you from painting your house a different colour.

When was your house built?

Unless your house is listed property or in conservation area you could........in theory do this to it.

Oh yeah - forgot about conservation area and stuff like that
Maybe you should call the planning dep't and ask them the hypothetical question. Don't give them your exact address though otherwise you'll alert them to it if it's not allowed!

omigod LGJ - that is puke worthy!

Built 1931. The thing is it was a different colour to hers when we bought it - she disputes this, though.
Sherlock - I can't believe I didn't think of that first - why am I bothering with cream?

Why are you even talking to your neighbour about painting your house? Does she think you have to seek her permission? If you're only considering changing it from "off white" to "cream" it's hardly going to have an adverse effect on the value of her property!

She sounds thoroughly bonkers! I would just carry on as you like - maybe buy a pot of neon pink paint and leave it outside your front door for a while

If you're really concerned, maybe get your solicitor who purchased the house to double check the deeds for you to make sure that you're not breaching anything, and if you are whether or not you can get written consent (from e.g. the original builder) for what you're doing.