My - sorry this turned out so long, but hoping for people with experience, or wise advice to slog on through it and help!
Our neighbours can be nice when we just see them in the road. But we have had a run-in about parking and know that he can be more than grumpy. It seems to be one of his touchpoints - "I've lived here for 27 yrs and there are some people in this road.... rahrahrah-rahrahrahrah..." - but we've persisted in being friendly and got through that one, we think! Generally they keep themselves to themselves and we were told that by other neighbours when we first moved in, with a bit of wink and nod...
They've known for ages that we are planning an extension to our kitchen which is right next to theirs (typical Edwardian L-shaped terrace). It is the usual really straightforward box out the back, basically converting the 3 outhouses into a new room, no planning permission required. I tried to deliver the partywall letter by hand 12 days consecutively - no answer on the door although I knew they were up and about because we could hear people on the stairs. They told us they were happy to sign but 14 days later, still hadn't returned the letter. So we started knocking again - with concern as we know he works shifts. Well today he answered the door at last, extremely grumpy though i apologised profusely for disturbing them and eventually he seemed to accept that we meant well.
Anyway, they've signed, but with the proviso that their garden wall (actually the back wall of their outhouses, long since removed)remains untouched. Totally uninterested in having a new, tidy, secure garden wall because he likes that one, it is the original, he has established plants growing there etc etc etc. All of which I can understand. But to do the work now we'll have to lose another 5cm off the width of the room (it was only 2.4 in the first place!) in order to have ours damp-proofed, and his wall might fall down anyway, especially as it is actually a joint double thickness wall and probably hasn't got very deep foundations. And we'll need to budget £400 to replace it if it does.
Plus the builder now says he thinks we should sort the chimney stack which has got much worse since we bought the house last summer with the awful winter we had. He's quoting £300 to repoint sections of our back wall and to rebuild the top 6 layers of brick in the shared chimney and cap off our side. And much cheaper and easier to do it now while the extension is underway than have to get scaffolding up later. So that means we have to go to this neighbour again to see what he thinks about that.
I just don't know if I can face it. Just coming out of PND, just had the carpel tunnel operation on my dominant hand, just spent a couple of months costing and planning this extension and new kitchen and now potentially £700 extra out of the blue leaving only £300 in our buffer unless I ultra compromise on appliances and other planned work. Just feel a bit weary and despondent.
Sorry this is so long (but it really helped to type it all out)...
Please tell me what you would do, or what did in similar circumstances...