Fence moved and concreted over our land?

[BankFodder]

Please monitor this thread for a reply later but in the meantime maybe you could lay out a bullet pointed chronology  of the timescale over which this has happened.

Also, how come you have allowed it to happen?

[BankFodder]

I've looked at the previous thread that you have been running since 2018 about your nuisance neighbour. I see that at some point you have mentioned the problem of the concreting on your land – but frankly it was only a mention and nothing else.

By and large, you've allowed this issue to trail along without doing anything and with popping in here from time to time in giving excuses et cetera and then going silent again. If this is the way that you are dealing with your nuisance neighbour then I'm not surprised that they are getting away with it and they are running roughshod over you.

Although many of the issues are a bit difficult because measuring what is a nuisance or what is harassment can be very subjective, something like moving posts onto your land and concreting on your land is very clear, measurable and very easy to deal with if you are prepared to take the required action

On this issue we can help you – if you are prepared to get involved. However, we are not really interested in somebody who is half-hearted about it and so it's up to you.

Already you have posted a new thread 13 hours ago and haven't been back. You have referred to a problem which it turns out you referred to in a separate thread about two years ago. We are a volunteer organisation and we don't make money and we don't charge money – but that's no reason to waste our time. You need to engage with this thread and treat this is if you were paying us a commercial rate. I'm quite sure that that would focus you enormously.

Do you want to take this seriously yes or no?

[BankFodder]

Okay well if you're prepared to try and take control of this then we are prepared to try and help you.

In terms of anxiety, once you are in control then it should help to dilute your anxiety.

You will have to begin some careful preparation. You may be having to begin an action in trespass and if you do bring a court action then you may as well contemplate bringing an action for nuisance as well.

The first thing to do is to send an SAR to the council or any other agency which has been involved with this so far. You need to gather as much information as possible. Send the SARs today.

The second thing you need to do is you need to get the filed plan for your land and then will be helpful if you could post it up here with a reasonably accurate line over it to show the extent to which they have encroached on your property.

I really don't understand how this could have happened – that people can simply go ahead and move the boundaries of their own property onto someone else's and then concrete over. And your anxiety notwithstanding, I'm still amazed that you have allowed it to happen.

Maybe you can tell us more about that and how long it has been going on.

By the way, this thread will focus on that aspect of your problem and we will have a look at the rest of it at some other time.

I would also like to know what exchanges you have had with your neighbours about their encroachment on your land – assuming that you have tried to raise the matter with them.

Have you tried to raise the issue of the trespass with any agency?

[BankFodder]

I specifically said that we only want to deal with the concrete issue here. Not all the rest.

I'm afraid this is already cluttering up the focus of this thread. I'm afraid that I'm going to edit everything out and I'd like you simply to tell us the story of the concreting.

We must keep this thread on track

[BankFodder]

Whether or not part of your land was obstructing access to his garage, if the land belonged to you then he had no right to occupy it. It's a trespass and it needs to be addressed.

However, you better be prepared for some unpleasantness and I suggest that you be meticulous about keeping a paper trail and about recording any exchanges between you. If you don't have one or two cameras around then I suggest that you get them and install them. These things should be done before you start to challenge your neighbour over the trespass.

You have 30 days for the various agencies to comply with your SARs – and that gives you time to prepare

[BankFodder]

If they have moved the boundary and in that is what should concern you.

I understand that they have moved the boundary fence and then concreted a small portion of land which in fact belongs to you. The concrete is irrelevant. It is the fact that they have moved the boundary.

Two great extent of course the same issue – please focus on the boundary. Once the proper boundary has been restored then deal with the concrete as you wish – and by the way, if it costs money to restore the boundary or to undo the concrete or any other work they have done to your land, then they will have to foot the bill.

[BankFodder]

No, you can't acquiesce to trespass in that way. It would take at least 12 years and in fact there are new rules relating to adverse possession. It is now very difficult possess other people's land adversely

[BankFodder]

Please would you send a Google satellite view link showing the properties – to us by email at our admin email address. We will keep it confidential.

I don't fully understand your diagram – but maybe if I had a look at a satellite view, then I might understand. Send us a streets view link as well in the same email

[BankFodder]

Okay I'm forming a better idea. The little orange line is how the fence has been moved across your land at an angle.

Why would he have moved it in this way and an angle?

According to your drawing above, your land extends into the shared lane which grants access to all of the garages. So that means everybody owns a part that shared lane but of course there is a right of way across all of it for each garage.

I also have a sense that the concrete is not really the problem – but it is the fact that he has moved is boundary fence to take up some of your land. With this be a correct assessment?

Of course you don't really want the concrete there – but it doesn't impede you at all. It is his fence which is now on your land which is obstructing your access to a part of your own land

[BankFodder]

Frankly I don't really know what you are saying. I'm a bit worried because your responses to this thread are starting to become a bit leisurely again.

If you end up wanting to take an action then you will have to get an independent report from a surveyor

[BankFodder]

Afraid I still don't altogether understand the extent of the trespass. At the end of the day, it probably doesn't matter too much. The important thing is that you understand it, you can demonstrate it to a surveyor and then using a surveyor's report you can demonstrate it to a court

I hope you won't mind me saying but I think that you are having difficulty explaining it and this is going to cause a problem because if you do make a claim for trespass then you are going to have to be able to explain to a judge. A judge will want to know quite quickly exactly what the trespasses, the extent of it and also the back story.
I think that you are going to have to decide if you want to proceed to deal with this trespass. The advantages are that basically you draw a line in the sand and you make it clear to your neighbour that this behaviour can't go on. Proving the trespass is relatively easy because as I have already said, it is measurable and it is easy to prove because you will have to get a surveyor along you will confirm your story. After that it is slamdunk and your chances of success in court will be much better than 95%.

This hopefully will start to give you confidence in dealing with the other issues and also because you have got a judgement for trespass this will give you further ammunition when you want to start dealing with your neighbours in respect of their general attitude to you and their harassment. So bringing an action for trespass will bring you a lot of benefit. And that is in addition to the money that you would get and I would suggest that if you do bring the action then you would probably sue for a figure not exceeding £1000 – although we would have to see the report.

However, if you want to bring an action for trespass then I think that the next thing you're going to have to do is you're going to have to instruct a surveyor to come along, have a look at the land, prepare a report which will include diagrams and a description of what has happened and a comparison with the original filed plan.
This report will be expressed in a way which will be easy for a judge to understand and a judge will be completely comfortable of giving a judgement on that basis. There will be a fee for the report but on the basis that you win the case, the fee will be paid by your neighbour.

If you want to do this, there are two ways to go about it.
You could begin simply by getting the report and then sending your neighbour letter telling them that you want the trespass addressed and it has to end and that they must make good the land which they have taken from you. You would give them seven days to reply and then after that you would issue a letter of claim and then issue the claim.

Or, you could take a chance that your neighbours are going to cooperate – you could send a letter in advance, complaining about the trespass and asking them to remedy the trespass and see what they say. Then if they didn't respond or they became aggressive about it, you would then give them five days notice that you are commissioning a report and that you will be taking them to court and that you will expect them to pay for the cost of the report as well. Once you had received the report, you would then send them the letter of claim and then proceed.

Of course on the basis of what you have said above, the neighbours are not going to comply at all and in fact they're going to start getting a bit rough and nasty. I'm afraid that this unpleasantness is something that you are going to have to get ready to tolerate for the duration of the action.

It is likely to continue after the action – but in fact once the action started, I think you would be in a good position to ask the court for an order to prevent them from harassing you. And also you will be in a good position to bring the matter to a peak to the council and get the necessary order from them as well.

Of course you would be recording everything on cameras and also keeping daily notes of everything that happened.

So I think the question is do you want to address this. I have to say if you don't want to – or if you feel uncomfortable about doing it (and I wouldn't blame you) then I think that you will find that it is going to get worse. Clearly the neighbours now understand that you are not prepared to take any action and that they can bully you anyway they want.

I think it is time to bring it to a halt – and with our help you can. However once again, you're going to have to engage with it. The longer you allowed to go on, the more comfortable and the more bullish your neighbours are going to be about giving you a hard time.

So it's your choice.

If you do decide to proceed, then once you issue the letter of claim then you must go through with your threat. Don't bluff because if you do then that will be the end of it and you will incur the aggressive behaviour are neighbour and also extra confidence by them that actually you're not prepared to take any action at all.

So if you issue a letter of claim this means that you are absolutely going to go ahead, bring the action, and stop their aggressive behaviour towards you.




 

[BankFodder]

There are several different types of trespass but here we are dealing with trespass to land.

Trespass to land is where somebody deals with your land as if it is their own by going onto it without permission or using it in some way without permission – or in extreme cases, effectively asserting their own ownership of it – as seems to be the case here.

In other words you own certain land and your neighbour has pushed is boundary and effectively "stolen" part of your land.

This amounts to a trespass and you can bring a claim in the County Court is for it for compensation – and if he refused to desist from the trespass then eventually you will get a court order preventing him from carrying on and there would be various sanctions if he defied the court order.

Trespass damages would be calculated according to any actual loss that you had suffered and also for trespass there is a measure of "punitive" damages which can be awarded for the insult which you have suffered by somebody depriving you of your property.

The actual loss that you appear to have suffered here is extremely low – but it would probably involve the cost of removing the concrete and restoring the boundary. I don't know what that would cost. In addition to that, there is the question of the insult. The level of punitive damages is decided by the court. You would want to limit it because you would want to limit your exposure to court costs so I would suggest that you claim a figure "not exceeding £1000 in the discretion of the court" – although given the level of trespass, £500 might be more reasonable. This would reduce your court costs a great deal and the court then might decide to what you a couple of hundred quid or if you are able to show evidence of provocation and that your reasonable requests that the trespass stop had been refused, then the court might decide to award you the maximum that you add asked for – the £500.

In fact I think that I would consider claiming about £650 so that if you could show good evidence of provocation then this would take very clearly over the £600 limit – including your actual losses – to put it within the realm of High Court enforcement so then you have a no-nonsense enforcement against your neighbour – which might will then bring everything to an end.

On the basis of what you say it seems to me that you have suffered quite a lot of provocation from your neighbour over the years. Of course it hasn't been helped by the fact that you seem to have put up with it which of course has encouraged your neighbour.

I still don't fully understand the extent of the trespass – so we have to rely on the fact that you are quite certain that your neighbour has encroached upon your property in the way that you say.

From what you say, your neighbour is so aggressive that even if you try to reach out to him amicably, he will rebuff you and simply provoke you even more. He may even try to suggest that you have provoked him.

I think you need to decide if you're going to take action. If you take action then you will win. There is pretty well known doubt. You say that you are prepared to tolerate the inevitable increase in aggression that will accompany an action. This is a decision you have to make.

If you want to bring this action then you will have to get an independent survey done. I don't know how much this is going to cost – but it is a necessary step.

I would suggest that you do the following things in this order.

First of all you contact a surveyor and get a quote for inspecting the area in dispute and comparing it to the filed plan and giving you a written report that your neighbour is encroached on your property and description of their encroachment. Get a quote for that.

Once you have that quote and you think you are prepared to pay that money (you'll get it back when you win) – then write to your neighbour and tell him that you are not happy about the way that he has encroached on your property and that you would like him to stop and to remedy the situation without any delay. Tell your neighbour that if that isn't done within seven days then you will be obliged to instruct a surveyor to prepare a report and that you will then begin a legal action and that you will be expecting your neighbour to pay for all of these costs. Tell your neighbour that you've already found a surveyor and tell your neighbour what the cost of the report will be. It's important to make sure that your neighbour is aware of every possible expense before it happens. You can also tell your neighbour that if he disagrees then he is welcome to produce his own surveyor to carry out an inspection in order to show that you are wrong.

You give him seven days. This letter would have been sent to your neighbour recorded delivery and also a copy posted through his letterbox by hand.

At the end of the seven days, instruct the surveyor to carry out the survey.

If the survey returns a report which supports your position then you would issue a letter of claim to your neighbour including a copy of the report showing that it has now been confirmed by an expert that the trespass has occurred. Want your neighbour that unless he takes immediate steps to remedy the trespass and also to pay for the cost of the report, that you will begin an action in the County Court. Give your neighbour 14 days.

At the end of the 14 days, if your neighbour has not done anything then you issue the claim. We will help you of course.

You shouldn't bluff. You should stick rigidly to your timescales and not get involved in any discussion which extends any time limits or get into any provocation.

That's what you should do. If you want to take this kind of action then let us know and start getting the quote for a survey.

If you don't want to take this action then frankly you better just stop and put up with it because it won't go away on its own.

I don't know if you are ever thinking of selling your property, but if you do then I'm afraid that this trespass and this dispute will put a blight on it and you won't be able to sell the property unless the whole situation is dealt with and resolved.

[BankFodder]

You could use the legal cover but then you will be using a legal service which won't have any control over and they will start engaging in correspondence. It will start becoming delayed and eventually the legal service will be reluctant proceedings – but of course they will. They will still have to get a survey and they will commission it and you will probably find that the cost of that won't be included in the legal cover.

Frankly I think that you could manage this yourself. I don't think it's very difficult if you get the survey that supports what you say – then I don't see that there would be any difficulty in winning.

It's up to you.

You don't need to post any more photographs up here. It's up to you and your surveyor to make sure that you agree that there has been a trespass got the evidence. The survey will produce a report with accompanying photographs in a way which is easy to understand the judge. Need to be the surveyor can give evidence – although that probably wouldn't be necessary. However all of that would incur costs which wouldn't be covered anyway by your legal service – but on the basis that you win, you will get all of those back.

Once again I would suggest that you keep your neighbour informed of every step and the likely cost of anything so that he can't later on challenge costs that you have incurred without his knowledge. You should also invite him to carry out his own survey

I think that once you decide to take action then you should do it quickly in a brisk and businesslike manner without wasting any further time in order to reduce the amount of time there is for recrimination and provocation.

Once you have started the action you should probably let the authorities that have so far been involved in the harassment, know about this so that they understand what is happening and they can update their files.

I can't remember if I told you to contact them all and send them SARs – but you should do.

 

 

[BankFodder]

I didn't completely understand it – but that is not important. The important thing is that you get a surveyor to agree with you. If there is a hanging electrical wire over your space then make sure that the surveyor comments on that as well.

Get photographs of everything which are clear. Also ask the surveyor to make photographs and to reference them in the report.

I don't think we can do anything more until you have the report

[BankFodder]

I think it would be best if you sent your neighbour letter. Although it will exacerbate the bad relations between you, I think your interest will be best served if your neighbour is made aware that there is a possible legal action and that he has an opportunity to avoid it. Also I think it would be in your interests to alert your neighbour that he may be subject to your surveyor's fees if he fails to cooperate.

On that basis, I drafted the letter below. If you are happy to send it in to get over and correct anything you think is wrong. Let us know if you think there is anything missing.

Note that I said that you will be sending copies of this letter to the various agencies which have been involved in your disputes in the past. I think this is important to make sure everybody knows what's going on. So if you have had the police involved the local council – anyone, make sure they all get a copy of the letter with the appropriate reference number on top.

If you are prepared to send this letter then I suggest that you send it by recorded delivery. I suppose you could put a copy through his letterbox but it may not be a good idea for you to enter on his land to do that.

If you send it recorded delivery then make sure you keep a copy of any postal receipts et cetera.

 

However, find a surveyor who is prepared to do this for you first before you start firing off any letters. You need to be completely ready and when you set deadlines – seven days or 14 days all whatever, you need to stick by them rigidly. No mistakes.
 

Quote

Dear Mr XXX

I'm writing to you because for some time I have been aware that you have moved the boundary boundary and laid concrete on part of my land. I also recently realised that you have some kind of electrical cable overhanging my property as well.
Given the rather difficult relationship that we have, I think it is better to write to you about this and to let you know that I would like you to move the boundary back and to remove the concrete and electrical cable.
This encroachment on my land amounts to a trespass. This is not an accidental trespass. It is clear that this is deliberate and that you have spent some time and effort moving the boundary and laying the concrete.
Clearly this can't be allowed to continue.
I'm writing to let you know that unless I hear from you within seven days that you are prepared to bring this trespass to an end, but I shall be instructing a surveyor to prepare a formal report to confirm the trespass. I expect this report will cost some fees and I shall be asking you to reimburse me. I'm writing to you in advance so that you have an opportunity to avoid this expense.
Once I the from the surveyor then I shall be sending you a further letter giving you 14 days to address the situation after which I shall begin an action in the County Court trespass result in you paying a level of damages to me as well as being obliged to pay for the cost of restoring the proper land boundaries.
I'm sending a copy of this letter to the various authorities which have been contacted in respect of the problems between us as neighbours so that they are fully aware of everything that is going on. I think it's important to keep maximum transparency in any of these dealings because I suppose that this is going to lead to further problems between us which I'm very sorry about and I would prefer to avoid.
Please let me have a response within seven days or I shall be obliged to continue as outlined above.
Be grateful if you could keep all your communications in respect of this in writing.

Yours sincerely

[BankFodder]

Yes, it could cause issues but on the other hand if you get it resolved then that should reduce any problems. It's really a question of a potential buyer being wary about buying a property with a troublesome neighbour. Because you've already had all of these difficulties with the neighbour you would probably be obliged to disclose the problems anyway to a prospective buyer.

You would be best off dealing very transparently with any prospective purchaser. If your neighbour is prepared to give you a statement then I suggest that you get it as soon as possible. I should try to get it before the trouble starts. When this trouble around, sometimes people think twice about making statements. Persuade your neighbour that any statement they give will not be used or disclosed to anybody outside the court process. You should certainly not let your troublesome neighbour know that one of the neighbours has cooperated with you against him

[BankFodder]

Well certainly if you want a quick solution without risking a possible sale of your own property, then that would be the best thing to do.

[BankFodder]

Not able to advise on this sort of thing