Oops! Just started an accidental neighbour dispute

[tinytoessize4]

Any legal eagles reading? Advice please...

We have a shared passageway only with next door, enclosed at either end, and locked at our end (we did not put the lock on and have evidence to prove this). We thought we owned it outright, but this is not the case as it is a restrictive covenant in the deeds. Anyway, we propsed to move our kitchen downstairs into the passageway area, knockig down our internal wall to create an open room. Yes, we know the planning permission necessary and checked this out. Out of courtesy we informed our neighbour of our pending planning permission application. We have a small son and one bedroom. We only have 2k to do the alterations. I'll continue...we informed her of this, and that she had never utilised the right of access since we had been there and never since the previous owner of our house had been there either. She got a wee bit shirty. Saying that we admitted blocking our passage by placing a lock on the door (!) to which she didn't have a key (why? because she never bothered to get one when whoever put the lock on did it.) and that this was actionable nuisance. grr. she said she wanted monetary compensation for this. We said we didn't have any money. But we do have a shared right of access across the back of her property. We offered to exchange this. She hasn't yet responded. We said it would be best if we met face to face (terrible but we haven't met her and we've been here 2yrs! We were talking by letter). She's a litigation lawyer and though I am a law student, still have a year left. She quoted James v Stevenson [1893] AC 291 at me but I couldn't find it on Westlaw. Where do we stand with regard to the fact the right of access hasn't been exercised by her for about 10yrs? is there any precedent of lapsed right of access? Sorry its long ladies & gents....

God you're rude tinytoes.

Writing 'Look" is probably worse than emailing it if you're trying to start afresh with someone.

Sorry twiglett, I am not trying to make it a personal dig. I am just that someone who professes to know the law, and intends to practice in that field can disregard it so freely when conducting her own affairs.

On a less personal note, tinytoes, I do agree that the email gives the impression that your mind is made up with regards to submitting PPA.

I apologise that I commented on your personal capabilities as a potential law professional. It is only relevant in as much as the fact that if you hadn't revealed your subject of study, most people would be saying "talk to someone about the law, because you have misunderstood it".

i am beginning to think that this forum is full of flawed rejected human beings..myself included in this..who have short attention spans and even shorter tempers.

my hubby does good plastering, though its not his trade. you don't rush jobs to get them done, then they won't be done right, you take time considering everything and then proceed properly.

TBH tinytoes is suffering from law student-itis. That is, she's done a bit of law at university and thinks that it can be directly applied into the real world in the way it says in her text book. I see it all the time. Our trainee solicitors generally have to have the commercial reality knocked into them pretty fast so she's not exactly alone in this.

TinyToes, you seem to be getting exasperated with people for pointing out perfectly reasonable flaws in your plans. Can you really not see that if this many people think it's all a bit , then maybe, just perhaps, it is?

Tinytoes, could you clarify which part of my post veers from the facts of this thread, in your opinion, please?

I do think you need to consider that there is a huge noise difference between having an adjoining wall and having an external wall, a space used for stacking boxes then an additional external wall, particularly when talking about a kitchen and a young family

It doesn't matter how great you think your dh is at plastering, no-one in their right mind is going to let someone do an amateur job on their house at the same time as turning it into a semi-detached.

If you were representing your neighbour what advice would you be giving her?

soupdragon - you stated that you don't plaster outside walls. i was correcting you on this. again, i didn't email. and i didn't use the word look at the beginning (only for the hurried purposes of this post).

Tinytoes, you are not going to be allowed to have her external wall as your internal wall. I suggest you reconsider your plans and amend them.

Maybe not rushing in and figuring out who owned the land and who had right of way over it would have actually started things off in the right way though eh?

You don't plaster outside walls, you render them.

Well you stated that you used the word Look. I;m very pleased you didn't.

I was correcting you on this because I am right and you are wrong.

Tinytoes, can I infer from your subsequent posts that the fact that you wrote, rather than emailed, is where you feel I was inaccurate?

Funnily enough, and totally beside the point, my MIL lives in a terrace in Ireland, only her house is built so that it has one of the upstairs rooms of the terraced house next door ... so imagine you're looking at row of 2 up, 2 down terraces .. hers has the window of next door too ... it's very odd, it took me at least 5 years to notice and get my head round it

I'm laughing now that the difference between an email and letter is so important, but the difference between plastering and rendering doesn't matter.

I don't think you've got a chance of this plan going ahead - perhaps rethink.

plaster and render do have a different make-up, plaster can't be used externally, but render can, I believe be used internally

And even if you construct a new wall just inside the bounadry (more expense, mind) she might well still object. How would she maintain that wall in future?

if you rendered an internal wall though you'd plaster on top of it

yes lou, along with points BC & D.

soupdragon - gosh, i do apologise. i thought i posted the plaster/render thing after you? but perhaps this was a x-post.

armarda - yes, probably lawstudent-itis. only cure: legal practice.

PMSL - I think the chances of someone plastering or rendering any sort of currently external wall in this case are somewhere around zero.

but clam if the OP gets what she wants the neighbour will no longer own that side of the wall and it will belong to the OP so it will be up to her to maintain

"and no, i did send:

Dear *

Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot, would you like to come round for a cup of tea on * to discuss it properly and look at the proposed plans before we submit them?"

You can kind of see how people got the impression that you started your communications with "Look", can't you?