We are having a loft conversion done on our Victorian terrace house. We are end terrace and the last house on the street. Three of the houses on the neighbouring street have gardens that run right up to our gable wall - so our wall forms the boundary between the properties. It's a hip to gable conversion so the works will involve building up the gable wall, and there will need to be scaffolding to enable the builders to access that wall. As two of the three neighbours have sheds at the back of their gardens that extend right up to our house wall, the only real option is to put scaffolding footings in the garden of the third neighbour.
We don't know that neighbour well, although we've never had any issues with them - we've been living in this house for 8 years. As far as we know there is a young man (mid 20s) who lives there with his mother, and they've recently acquired a large dog - crossbreed, looks part mastiff. We can see into their garden from our side window and they basically never use it, other than the dog is sometimes out there by itself. The garden is not maintained and is just overgrown grass and pavers, no plants or flowerbeds or garden furniture. For this reason we didn't really anticipate that there would be problems with the scaffolding.
To cut a very long story short, the neighbour initially gave permission for the scaffolding, but today the scaffolders have arrived and it appears he has had second thoughts, because he's concerned that our building works will stress his dog out. Apparently the dog is home alone during the day and if it sees or hears anything unusual it gets anxious and wrecks the house. The neighbour suggested we could postpone our building works until the summer when he is off work and can better manage the dog. This isn't an option for us. We offered to screen the scaffolding so at least the dog won't be able to see people moving around but he felt the noise would still be an issue.
To add an additional complication the neighbour has just this morning informed us that the property is rented. Apparently his mother has been in touch with the landlord who is ok with the scaffolding but said he would need to do an inspection first - this doesn't really make much sense as it's not a Party Wall and there's nothing in the garden that could be damaged. We asked for the landlord's contacts details so we can clarify with them directly but the neighbour now isn't responding to our messages and won't answer the door. We've had to send the scaffolders away for the day with the job half finished.
Anyone have any advice on how to deal with this, we are at our wits end. If our builders can't start next week we are going to get bumped from their schedule.