Out of the blue £1,000 bill from our neighbours!

[MamaVikki]

Help! I’m stunned… My neighbour knocked on the door on a Monday to say that they’d organised for our road to be tarmacked on that Wednesday at a cost of £8K between 8 houses. A year ago they’d muttered something about the road needing to be tarmacked but that was that. We’ve had no discussion since. They then bizarrely said that they would pay for it and whoever wants to chip in can chip in. We don’t have a spare £1k sitting around and if there’d been a discussion about it we would’ve wanted more time to try and save for it – but would’ve also liked to have looked into all the options (like patching the potholes maybe?) We have no idea if they even compared quotes. The work has now been done. They ended up only tarmacking the part in front of their house, although we drive over this to access our house. They’ve come round with the bill – which we need to pay into their bank account – in a fairly aggressive manner but still saying it’s up to us if we pay -? I’m upset and confused and have no idea where we stand with this? Can anyone offer any advice?! 🙏

This must be joke night,right?

I'd just be honest with them, say you cannot afford it and even if you could, you should have been consulted before the work went ahead.
Also if they only had the bit in front of their house done then surely it's not a benefit to other residents on the street anyway?!

Honestly I’d say no, you can’t afford it and weren’t asked beforehand. Ridiculous for them to behave like this.

Tell them you would pay but it appears they missed a bit.

I’d say -
(A) why was there no proper discussion or quotes provided?
(B) why was only the bit in front of their house done, not it all?
(C) why didn’t they initially look at just filling pot holes?
(D) you couldn’t afford it at the moment even if you approved of what they’d done. Had they told you in advance you’d have said no.
(E) so because of the above points you’re declining.

I live on a private road which needed to be repaired. One CF took it upon himself to contact a company then proceeded to tell us what each house would pay. We were having none of it. In the end I took on the project, got three quotes, emailed them to everyone and we voted on which company to use. We had it set out in our deeds which properties were responsible for which part of the road so worked out the relevant portion of the shared cost for each house. Only after we were in agreement did the job go ahead and each house had to pay their share directly to the road repair company.
Your neighbour has overstepped in not gaining your agreement to use that particular company or sharing the repair cost, so the bill is not your responsibility. Do not be intimidated by your neighbour's demands, after all, you might have been able to negotiate a cheaper price with a different company.

Good god no.

You only pay for work if you agreed the need for & cost of the job beforehand.

This

This ….. and we’d like to see a diagram with dimensions.

Whilst I’ve never had any tarmacking done £8k does seem a lot for the area you describe.

No input in planning the work. No input in obtaining quotes. No input in timing the work. No way I'd be paying a penny

A relative lives in a similar road. Every so often a newcomer tries this. It always fails. That's why they finish up just doing the bit outside their own house. Often because the road got churned up by their bloody builders lorries when adjusting their own house after buying. Don't pay, you're not in an agreement with them and ìts of no benefit to you.

They have not had any agreement in writting from you.

Thats where it begins and ends.

Tarmac is often done by cowboy, cash in hand “businesses”.
Don’t give the CF a penny.

Nope. I wouldn't pay. You didn't agree to this. It was their decision.

So they are expecting all of you down your street to just pay for their bit of tarmac? Mad!

No pictures, no advice

I've recently moved to a private road that used to be unmade the residents agreed after years of spending out a fortune yearly to fill the holes with stones that didn't last long to get it tarmaced.
It did cost a good few thousand which I think one person paid, some but definitely not all in the road contribute by way of paying a small amount back to them monthly.
You are certainly under no obligation to pay any money that wasn't agreed by you before they started work it's not as though you have had and works done on your part of the road so asking you to contribute is out of order.
How do you even know the actual cost is correct.
Do you know if anyone else was asked to contribute?
Incidentally your neighbour can't stop you driving over said tarmac.
If they persist ask them what's the reason behind why they think you own money when you haven't had work done and infact it's only their part of the drive that gas been done.
That's like you having your living room decorated and asking them to pay towards it.

What’s the right of access agreement you have with them? If you have to drive over their land to access your house there should be an agreement which states how repairs are dealt with.

Er just don’t pay
Even if they demanded payment - to which you are saying they are not demanding payment -you still wouldn’t have to pay. Just politely explain to them what you have written here and leave it at that, Explain that you would like to help at this moment in time you don’t have the finances .

I live in a small row of old terraced cottages which have private roads both to the front and rear, over which all the cottages have access rights.

The deeds clearly mark out the property boundaries extending over both front and rear road, which are the bits I am responsible for maintaining.

Can I have £1,000 too please?

Has this neighbour fallen for a dodgy tarmac scam? This sounds quite similar to what happened in a private road my sister lived on a few years ago.

For a few years the houses contributed to a few bags of tarmac and got together to fill potholes when they got too bad. There was some talk of getting the road resurfaced but some people weren't keen and it never got off the ground. Then one house was approached by one of these guys who claims to have a load of leftover tarmac from another job and offers to do it the following day at a really cheap price. The neighbour said yes, without consulting anyone because the price was so cheap and he'd always been keen on the resurfacing plan. He managed to speak to a couple of the other houses who weren't very happy about not being consulted but agreed to the work because the price was good. The work was done and then the foreman of tarmac gang said the price they'd quoted was per square foot, not per square metre. So it was about 10 times what this neighbour had agreed to and several thousand pounds instead of a few hundred. The tarmac guys were very intimidating and of course, nothing was in writing.
He paid up and tried to get everyone in the road to contribute on the basis the cost was approaching what would have been charged by a kosher company and they'd all be getting the benefit of the resurfaced road.
It caused a massive falling out amongst the neighbours. Some paid up, some refused to pay anything at all, some paid a bit, some paid in instalments. He was left well out of pocket.
It caused a lot of resentment not just against him but between the different neighbours who took different views on whether to contribute or not.

Depending on how much you value relationships with your neighbours OP it may be worth sounding out what their views are without committing to anything yourself. A common approach would be the ideal outcome.

Problem with giving them a token amount as some pp suggested is that you’ve then accepted you have a liability to pay. I assume they’ve sent identical requests to other houses, meaning they’ll expect £7k for their small amount of tarmac when the quote for the road was £8k? Very bizarre. I’d ignore it.

Looks smart @comefromaway!

Spent most of today putting in.loads of washing and cleaning Dds room. 7 bags of recycling/rubbish/clothes bank. I texted her not to buy anything more.

I May have bought her some Christmas bedding . Sorry for the c word all!

Ugh sorry wrong thread