we are a mid terrace house, 1 house each side. the gardens go down into a kinda triangle at the bottom. if you look out our back window the house on the right has a shed at the bottom of their garden, but cause of the pointy end of the garden there was an empty space behind it, roughly the same length as a fence panel. the fence that seperates us and them was their responsibility, but as they had the shed at the end there was 1 pannel missing on our side. their end panel ( on the far side seperating their garden from the path) blew down in storms, 6, or 7 yrs ago. as their shed was at the end it meant their garden was not open but ours was. so we asked them to repair either the boundry from us to them, or their far panel which had blown down, they refused, as it didnt leave their garden open. they also rented the house out privatley, so didn't care about the fences.
but it left our garden not secure and it meant the kids couldn't go out alone, as they could just wander out of the garden.
so after asking them for 4 months, and getting absolutley nowhere, to the point they wouldn't reply to calls, refused to talk to us in the street etc, we put a panel at the back of their shed, attaching it to our panel at the bottom of our garden. in doing this we gained a triangle of their garden. about 100cm by 60cm by 60cm.
this was 6 yrs ago.
today the husband knocked on the door and went batty at me, that we have stolen his land and devalued his house, and he would take us to court...
i said he was welcome to his land back, as long as he made sure that our garden was not left open again. i even told him he could use the fence panel we had put up to enclose his garden again, so ours would remain closed.
but no, thats not good enough. he wants compensation!!!
so oh wise mumsnetters, what the hell do i do????