Hi all,
Looking for solution to the following-
Sorry its longwinded!
Neighbour approached partner a few weeks ago stating damp on his garage wall which he built 5yrs ago. There is a gap between his garage wall and my rear garden retaining wall which is our land and was always filled with soil which I use as a flower bed.
My garden and neighbours, is set into steep hillside, and he has built his garage into this land (5ft at the rear and graduates lower in tiers on the side against my boundary) . The neighbour built the garage himself and did not appear to do any sort of damp proofing/treatment and is only one layer (no cavity).
Neighbour is blaming my flower bed for the damp. It is less than 1ft deep and underneath this is a stoney area which I believe provides drainage for some of the steep land behind both of us and below this there is another smaller brick wall which runs out of the rear yard and down between our driveways.
When my neighbour built the garage he removed my fence (without request or consent) in order to pebble dash his garage gable. He then told me that the fence fell apart when he removed it and there was no point putting it back up. He said the garage wall had a nice finish and would make a nice clean boundary so no point putting a grotty fence there. Me being very naive about the situation thought this sounded entirely reasonable and didn't see any future issues.
So now because my flower bed is touching his wall instead of my fence which he removed, is causing him a problem.
The fence was fine before he removed it - we actually replaced some panels when we first moved in 5yrs before him and just painted over the older ones. But I can imagine that the slats did fall out upon removal. His wall does look nice white and bright so I didn't think it best to start an argument by demanding he replace the panels back then.
He now wants to pull out my plants and fill the space with concrete! My father and another family member are both builders and they say he will only be leaving the concrete at an angle so the water runs into my yard/down my wall and could damage my wall. This seems obvious to me because he isn't going to leave it level and have ground water against his garage wall. So I really think he is bold to even suggest this.
We've told him this solution does not seem adequate and he got very irate and aggressive and threatened to come into our yard at midnight or at 5am in the morning and complete the works. This left us shook and we actually reported the incident to the police as it did not make us feel easy and the thought of finding him in our yard in the middle of the night is terrifying!
I'm 25weeks pregnant and we have two small children and could not argue with him over the fence about this situation and asked him to put his proposal in writing so we could get it reviewed to which he declined and said that we wouldn't be in the house all the time!
I don't know if I can demand he replace the fence that held my little flower pad back before - the fence didn't seem to suffer from damp damage due to the stoney drainage below it. The family builders I mentioned say this was always going to happen due to the height of the land behind his garage and his best option is to tank his inner walls/put up a fibreglass membrane/ build a cavity wall inside.
The little wall below my flower pad cannot be removed as it supports my retaining wall and so it is impossible to leave this space empty.
As a comprise I also want to suggest I will remove flower bed and build custom planters on top of the wall with waterproof membrane so I can fully enclose any soil. But I do not want the spaced filled with concrete as it would result in water being diverted into my yard or ruin the integrity of my retaining wall which I intend to build up upon and will form part of my future garage. The builders also suggest that by him concreting this area he will be trying to claim as his own and I need this space as it is where my future garage guttering will hang.
Can anyone suggest any other solution for my neighbour? We are quite terrified to approach him atm and would really like him to start some written correspondence so that we can begin to resolve the situation but he is an older gent who's abit rough and very broad accent.
I also find it odd that this issue happens to of arisen 4.5yrs after he completed his garage which I know is too large in height and floor space to not have planning permission for and should of technically been built 1metre away from the boundary but after 4yrs the building now has immunity and can't be contested I believe.
Any insight or how you dealt with similar issues would be appreciated. Thanks if you made it this far!