We moved into a semi a couple of years back. Non-attached NDN has been there for 30 years plus and extended out into the garden and sideways out into their side of the alleyway, thereby removing their own side access. They’ve also run their fence 3 panels back into the alleyway which has had the effect of restricting the width of our access to less than 60cm.
We could do with the access being wider as we might be doing some work in the back. They could also do with restoring their side access, although the obvious point that they should have thought about that before they extended to remove it is not lost on us.
We get on with them well enough but can’t tell if we’re being walkovers, short-sighted or just behaving reasonably to achieve a win-win.
Hopefully the diagram showing the changes in red explains the rest and you can see that some of our existing private garden space will become shared if we make the change. The gardens are long and wide enough so I don’t think we’ll miss the space we’re losing but we may well feel differently about that when it’s too late.
Also with the drain being there, there’s going to have to be some way of retaining access to it under a fence panel, not sure how that would work?
I don’t think paying for it will be an issue, I assume they will pay all costs. Also I'm wondering if a solicitor needs to be involved.
Thoughts please.