Neighbours Garden

[Meerkat9]

Neighbours house behind ours is unoccupied and their back garden is overgrown with 6-7 foot high brambles which are now pushing into my garden and causing damage to both the fence and out buildings.

I've no idea who owns the property and neither do the other surrounding neighbours.

What's the worst that can happen if I access the neighbours garden and strim some of the brambles away from my property?

I also need access to do maintenance on an outbuilding on the boundry

I’d just go ahead. I have brambles outside my allotment and it’s a constant battle keeping them out - in a month nobody will be able to tell you’ve even had a go.

Sometimes you can report this kind of thing to the local authority

If you can lift your fence panels and get in then I'd just do it. Yes you can go through the council but it could take months.

No ones going to care if you trim some brambles in an abandoned building. Especially if it's to prevent damage if your property.

You can get the deeds for £3 if you want to find the owners name and then ask about them on local Facebook pages maybe.

As others have said, just go ahead with the brambles.

"I also need access to do maintenance on an outbuilding on the boundry"

In this situation you are absolutely entitled to enter your neighbour's property to undertake maintenance.

Although it does depend on what that maintenance is. If it's merely to paint an external wall then likely will not count but otherwise most types of maintenance would entitle you to enter their property.

I would definitely strim the brambles. I know the owner of an empty property and I’d be furious to live next to the wilderness of a wholly neglected garden. I doubt the owner would be upset if you strim the brambles OP.

I would take it up with your Local Authority

Most have empty homes teams they can also serve notice on the owner to keep the garden in good condition and of course they may want to double his Council Tax which might encourage the owner to sell

I used to spray weed killer over the fence line…. It’s never got rid of them but knocked them back a bit

Agree with this, our neighbour had a wilderness area needing onto a similar area in our garden with no real fence. Having clear ed our side it was a constant battle, but they said they doesn't want it but didn't have time to tidy it up. In the end I just kept being liberal with the weedkiller and it made a really big difference.