Neighbour has a massive window into our garden (pic)!

[WhatapityWapiti]

This pic is of our neighbour’s lean-to extension which has a giant window looking right over our patio. Our patio doors are on the right, just out of the picture. Neighbour was a very nice elderly chap who has sadly passed away recently.

We knew it was there when we bought 10 years ago, previous owners had planned to grow plants over the trellis but it never worked as in too much shade. To be honest it’s not bothered us that much as it’s textured glass and the old chap lived alone, had net curtains up and barely used the room.

The house will be sold soon, will be a total renovation job and I am sure that the new owner will tear down the lean-to and agree a new boundary with us. (We’re in a Victorian terrace).

It has got me thinking though, I can’t begin to imagine how the neighbour-to neighbour conversations went in the 1970s or whenever it was built, resulting in the former inhabitants of our place agreeing to it! Must breach every regulation going.

I also wonder if we would have any way of forcing its removal if the buyers inexplicably decided not to get rid of it?

@WhatapityWapiti It doesn't bother me actually. It's our kitchen and that's where the only light comes in so no I wasn't planning on putting up blinds or anything. It's only small so it's not somewhere I can sit down or spend much time so it's probably different if yours is more of a conservatory where people would sit.

What in the everloving name of the Holy donkey is THAT?! 😂

Why would anyone do this? WHYYYYYYYYY?! 😆

Seriously @WhatapityWapiti put a 6 foot fence up! Block these weirdos out!

What's the point of that window if it's just going to have plants growing up it? How ridiculous.

It looks like the ivy is thriving there so you could try growing more of that... Or I'm sure there are shade-loving climbers you could find! I'd want to cover a window that intrusive as quickly as possible!

Remove trellis, paint the glass. Then buy the fake plastic plant “tiles” from ikea and staple all over the trellis. Pretend it’s always been like that

The ivy is plastic 😀. It’s there to cover a gap between the end of the lean-to and the fence panel. Very much a quick temporary solution when we were using the garden more in the summer. I had fake ivy across the whole trellis at one point but it looked a bit shit. Did look into growing real stuff but never quite settled on what sort of planters we’d need, or whether better to take up paving slabs to plant it in the ground.

Oh! 🤦🏼‍♀️

@WhatapityWapiti surely the sun could come from a window facing his own garden? It seems so weird. But now I think about it I remember my mates neighbour installed a toilet in an extension and faced the window right into their patio?! 'Here, lovely neighbours having a campari on the terrace...smell and hear, (even if your lucky..see) me shitting and pissing'. I'd imagine hyacinth bucket dealing with a scene like that, or maybe having to use the outhouse while posh neighbours were having tea! 🤣🤣

Well, I think that the window was built assuming nothing would cover it, then the people in this house before us installed the trellis 20 years later, so the neighbour had 20 years of windows with nothing at all covering them. He was fine with the idea of plants covering the trellis but neither we nor our predecessors managed to make it happen. Neither of us tried all that hard though!

Well there's overlooking windows and then there's that! Oh my. Your neighbour could practically join you for dinner on your patio.

I don't think any new owner is going to want to keep that. Any replacement extension would, I expect, need planning permission where you could object if the window is like that again - although I don't know if it already being like that might mean they could continue.

I'd put up a better screen for now. A shower curtain or that screening made from straw or willow stems. Inexpensive but enough to make sure you are properly blocked off from the window.

It's a conservatory, in order to be exempt from planning it had to be substantially glazed, regardless of where it's facing. So nothing strange there.

Our house was almost identical when we bought it, no fence, conservatory with clear glass set back 3 inches from the boundary. the first thing the neighbours did when they had moved in was a 6 foot fence on the boundary.

There are no rules against conservatory or shed windows on the boundary as long as they don't trespass including if they open.

Who knows how it came about, could have been something being totally inconsiderate the the neighbours didn't want to persue any kind of argument or a mutual thing as both sides got on.

Assuming the extension is within the neighbour's boundary and it isn't changed, there's nothing to stop you installing a fence/trellis on your side.

I would absolutely put up a fence in place of the trellis right now. You don’t want any new neighbours who are replacing that extension to be able to argue they have an established window/right to light and sticking a window there in whatever replacement they build.

Years ago I had neighbours who built something similar along the length of the house, and it was shambolic to say the least. Eventually they put the house up for sale and left, leaving everything in the hands of the estate agents.
One morning I answered a knock at the door to find a surveyor there, requesting the use of my garden to access the back of the neighbours house so that she could assess the shanty shed. She had been sent by potential buyers to see if it was safe. It wasn't.
A few weeks later workmen turned up and the entire thing was removed and the space it left was returned to full garden.

I think it is right on top of the boundary. I mean, it IS the boundary. Technically we’d lose a bit of space on our side if we had to put a wall or fence up.

We had very similar, only it was a conservatory with same size windows and an elderly man sleeping in there with only net curtains. At night time we could see far too much. In the end after discussion with them we bought frosted window film and put it on our side of their windows. It was all far too awkward seeing an elderly gentleman in his pants. He did live with other people btw.

There was also a gate into our garden so they could use our tap! We had a tiny basement flat and they had a 4 storey house. It was very odd.

Yes, our house is listed so we have to get permission for fencing, although they let us off the costs of the planning at least. We still had to pay a grand or so for the fence panels though and all because the lazy gits in planning wouldn't even make it a condition of retrospective permission that the neighbour had to mitigate his breach and the socking horrible great impact it had on our house.

I don't think you will be in anything like that position of course - your neighbours will want to play nicely and no-one would want to reinstate something that random.

In any case, wishing you the best next neighbours the market can bring you.