by alwaystired »
Sat Apr 27, 2019 5:35 pm
Hi all, I hope this is the right place for a question like this. We are building a 6 metre ground floor extension on the back of a mid terraced house that is replacing a 3 metre extension. The 3 metre extension has been there between 40-50 years and for whatever reason was built a good few inches over the middle of the party wall. The fence line continued from the corner of our 3m extension. The neighbours themselves also had an old extension that was separated by a gap of around 4 inches. The original intention (even in the planning permission application) was to continue the 3m extension until we discovered that the extension had minimal foundations at which point we decided to knock it down and build again. We kept our neighbours informed at all stages who are also building a 6m extension. Their walls for the new extension went up before we even made a start on our demolition and until Wednesday this week, they have never made any complaints or stated that we should rebuild our new wall without going over what they are calling the boundary line. On Wednesday this week after our roofing had started, they complained to our builder that we had built on their side even though we actually kept our new wall an inch or two further away from where our original extension wall was to make sure our new wall was inside the fence line. The neighbours have made it clear they see it as us building on their land and will not consider any other option other than us knocking the extension down. All the plans that their architects submitted for the extension and loft conversion show our original extension wall as the boundary line and we have never hidden our intentions from them. If they had highlighted this right at the beginning before building the walls, we would have agreed to move the wall in just to be "good neighbours". Where do we stand on this and what should we actually do? I have been to speak to the neighbours but they just seem bitter and angry and are definitely not interested in anything I have to say.
