Someone else's wall fallen onto my parents property

[MaverickSnoopy]

Looking for some advice on behalf of my parents. In the recent storms a wall behind their house blew down into their back garden, damaging some of their property. To explain - there is my parents garden, then a trellace and my parents fence which were both partially knocked down/broken by the wall, then a little gap where plants grow, then the wall and then a private car park which backs onto a housing estate (where this house is). This now means that there is free access to my parents back garden which is causing my mum a huge amount of anxiety. They have checked on the land registry website and it shows that this portion of wall on the edge of the car park belongs to house X.

They have spoken to their insurance company who have advised they write and ask the people at that address to fix the wall and remove the bricks. They have told my parents they are not allowed to touch the bricks as the bricks are not their property and that they also cannot leave them on the other side as it would be tresspassing as it's private land. My parents wrote and asked them to make contact by a set date but this date has passed with no contact. The insurance company say the next step is to take them to court. My parents would really like to resolve this without going to court. The other concern is that if they did take them to court then my parents may end up paying for the costs if it didn't go their way, which they cannot afford. My parents are good people and don't want to make anyone's life difficult - perhaps it's a sitiation where the other party cannot afford to fix it, but my parents need them to make contact at the very least to discuss it and to try and find a solution. They have mobility and health problems and wouldn't feel confident just walking round for a chat.

I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience with something like this or can offer some advice?

Have they tried talking to the people who own House X?

Awkward situation, which the insurance company have advised what action should be taken.
A) can you speak to house x in your parents behalf?
Or (and this is probably what I would do, rightly or wrongly, but in the interest of neighbourly peace and security, toss the bricks back to where that came, and put up another fence/wall just inside the boundary line in your parents property.

I think I would put it back in the hands of the insurance company... like you would do in case of a car accident.

Surely your parents just fix their own fence, meaning their garden is enclosed again. If the neighbours decide to fix their wall, or not, is then neither here nor there.

I could go round and talk to them but it wouldn't be for another couple of weeks and of course there's no guarantee they'll be in when I do go. They'd go themselves but they're both fairly immobile at the moment with knee problems having recently come out of hospital.

I suggested putting a new fence up to replace their old one but apparently only part of this wall has fallen down in one area, the rest of it has crumbled and very dangerous but is still upright. They're concerned that when the rest of it falls down it will knock down any new fence they put up. Their insurance will only offer advice and doesn't cover their fences in terms of replacing or dealing with this sort of thing unfortunately. I suggested throwing the bricks over (as you would with tree branches from a neighbous tree that was growing over) but my mum says the insurance company told them not to do that. They've spoken to the council but they've said that they dont get involved when it's private land. I'm concerned because the wall is very unstable and children often play football in this car park. It's an accident waiting to happen.

Will building control not get involved if it is an immediately dangerous structure? They have a couple of options to either force the owner to repair or to repair themselves and bill the owner

But not your parents fault if an accident were to befall someone in the car park. They’ve been responsible and done as asked.

Fwiw. If your parents are church members, perhaps approach the vicar and ask if someone could approach house x via a letter or assist them in going around? Like a mediator.

@ChateauMargaux

I think I would put it back in the hands of the insurance company... like you would do in case of a car accident.

Their buildings insurers will not get involved as it is not their property that is actually damaged. Also there is no legal requirement to secure a boundary. Although the fallen bricks can be removed the other owners do not actually need to rebuild the wall.

Certainly wouldn't help to speak to them about the work but get a builder(s) to quote so you know what costs are involved. Doses it have to be a brick wall would a secure fence do? It could be a plastering job? Has any repair options been explored.

However if it is damaged and a risk to others it won't be your parents fault. They just need to be very clear they don't have ownership and they can keep copies of letters they have written about the risk.

As the saving goes "strong fences make good neighbours" but you can force someone to maintain their property.

But it has also damaged their property, broken their fence, trellace and some garden things also....

I've just been googling and come across Building Control so that might be a next step. I will talk to them first though, I'm just not sure how soon I can get there.

I’m surprised the council said they won’t get involved. Years ago the council sent me a letter telling me to make my dangerous brick garden wall safe. Said I had thirty days to do it and if I didn’t they would do the work and send me the bill!

Just put the bricks in the void bit between your parents fence and the remains of the wall. Your parents fix their fence/trellis. Anything that happens beyond your parents fence isn't your parent's concern and they have no agency over. It's worth writing again to the neighbour that owns the wall (and copy in the owner of the car park if not the same person) to point out that the wall is falling down and someone could get hurt, or property could get damaged and keep a copy of this letter just in case something does happen in the future . I'm pretty sure they can't force someone to fix the wall though.

@QuebecBagnet

I’m surprised the council said they won’t get involved. Years ago the council sent me a letter telling me to make my dangerous brick garden wall safe. Said I had thirty days to do it and if I didn’t they would do the work and send me the bill!

Presumably that was because the wall was bordering a council owned pavement though? If this wall is sandwiched between a privately owned car park and a privately owned garden I don't think the Council will get involved.

can your parents write a letter to house X saying - if you don't fix the dangerous wall in the next 10 days, we will remove the dangerous bit and fix our fence etc. And then go ahead & do the work when the 10 days pass. And document everything with lots of photos. I can't believe that a partly collapsed dangerous wall can just wait to fall down because the owner's don't reply to a letter.

I suspect the council will only do something if the wall borders public land ie. the pavement, a public road, or a public building in or within which council employees or members of the public have access. I would be inclined to say that the council will say that the problem wall is between neighbours on private land and not their problem. Most likely would refer you to your insurance company.
Will your parents household insurance pay out for the garden fence etc damage? If it’s not covered by their insurance, then it’s not their problem. It would be down to a conversation between house x and your parents and I guess, a claim on house x insurance. If a conversation can’t be obtained, then it’s a solicitors letter/court or your parents secure their boundary and lob the bricks back and hope for the best.

The council will get involved if it borders council property.

Building control is a good option.

Although it’s worth noting that unless the deeds specify that there has to be a wall, they can just get rid of it, and the legal process would take into account any delays caused by the current builder shortage etc.

If they don’t want to wait it out, they really should go and see the house owner. It’s unlikely to be considered legally reasonable for them not to.

I would also contact the owners of the private car park. I'm not sure from your description, but it sounds as though the wall isn't actually on the boundary of the other house - the car park separates the other house from the boundary wall

It sounds like at some point land has been sold to create the car park. I'm surprised that the house retains ownership of that wall - maybe your parents weren't looking at up-to-date Land Registry documents, or didn't notice a land transfer or something? It seems far more likely that the car park would have ownership of the wall.

@mrsm43s no it was the rear garden wall which backed onto another house which as far as I was aware was a privately owned terrace house. Possible it was a council owned terrace but I’d be amazed if it was.

I never spoke to the council about it….maybe it was a fake scam letter from the neighbours! 😄

My neighbour was told exactly the same thing by the council @QuebecBagnet when the front of her house was damaged by a car crash. The house did not adjoin council or public land.

I think this is difficult as your parents havenot spoken to them and have no one to do so on their behalf, this has obviously been awhile now. Is there any local community support groups they could contact to help them?

I'll try and respond to all points. The house in question backs onto my parents garden - so the boundary is at the very end of my parents garden. They have their fence which marks their boundary. Then there's a slight gap where plants are growing and then there's this wall. According to my parents next door neighbour (who has lived there over 40 years), he went to work one day and came home and the wall had been constructed - no one was informed in advance. The wall is part of the housing estate that was built behind my parents house. The wall goes around the edge of the private car park and various bits of this wall belong to different houses in the estate. Actually looking at the deeds it looks as if the entirity of the portion of wall running behind my parents garden is shared between two houses from the estate, although the bit that fell down just by one of the houses. The wall hasn't been maintained and is old.

My parents could replace their fence with something bigger but as soon as the wall falls down (and it will at some point if it stays like this) then their new fence will be knocked down. So they would have spent a lot of money, only to have to pay to replace it again. They have also had their property damaged by this wall falling down. My Mum loved the trellace inparticular and had saved up a long time for it. She'd like it replacing ideally.

I'm going to try and go over next weekend but if they can manage it they'll walk round and see if they can speak to them. Failing that Building Control. Both the insurance company and council have been quite useless with information and not been able to tell them about Building Control. I've looked into what they do and it seems that they will get involved with private land. Both myself and my parents really disliked the advice of just taking them to court!

I really don't think that your parents are going to get anywhere in getting their fence and their trellis replaced by someone else. It would be quite hard to prove that it was a wall a few feet away rather than just the wind that caused damage, and it's likely to come under "Act of God" anyway. If your parents own insurance won't cover it (the first step is always to make a claim on your own insurance as your parents rightly did) and won't pursue it with the neighbours insurance, they are basically telling you that they don't think that they'd be able make a claim for this. If they thought they could claim back against the neighbours, they'd take this on for you. Reading between the lines, if your parents take it to court, they are unlikely to win.

Honestly, their best bet is to secure their own garden, replace their own trellis, and move any loose bricks onto the ground away from their fence,so that it doesn't happen again.

They're going to cause themselves a lot of stress and misery, and potentially cost themselves a lot of money trying to pursue this. Better to suck it up and move on with their lives.

@mrsm43s they don't want to pursue anything, least of all go to court. It was the insurance company saying it was the right course of action but we didn't feel it was. They just want to make sure that when they put up a new fence, it doesn't get knocked down like the last one did. Having seen the wall, I can see why this concerns them. They can't afford to replace a fence, for it to come down in a couple of months when the rest of the wall does. So somehow we need to make sure the wall is either removed or secured. I think that's fair, but perhaps it's not.

Your post is very helpful though and I think you're right about their own property being damaged. I'm so glad I posted on here because my parents didn't really know what to do and were worried about not taking the advice from the insurance company, but also not agreeing with it. It was the insurance company who actually said they mustn't speak to the owners and they might say something wrong!

I hope you make some progress but not sure building control can help, especially if no one can establish when it was built. Regs change all the time so might not existed at the time.