Oh Pants

[Miss Wiggle]

well we've not yet had a full legal consultation, meeting with solicitor on friday, but the advice to date is what they have done is trespass, obviously thats a legal offence and one which must be rectified. we cna rectify it one of two ways

1 - go through solicitors/courts etc to get them to move the wall back onto their side of the property and possibly pay us damages

2 - come to an out of court settlement where we agree that they can leave the wall there and they pay us damages/compensation

because the wall that they have built is illegal and not structurally sound option 2 is not possible so we have to get them to move it.

i don't know exactly where the law stands if we were to take matters into our own hands and remove the wall ourselves, however i don't fancy risking it, if we have got to go through courts then i want to make sure that we have done everything by the book, if we do something like that then there's a chance the case would get thrown out of court so it's not worth it.

oh and yes, we would definately be up for some voluntary work, the other problem is i've currently got some health problems meaning i can't drive and i've a bad back so can't lift anything, so can't be very much practical use to anyone. although tbh time is the issue right now, between hunting for jobs, Ian trying to sort out getting himself enrolled in Uni for Sept, fixing this whole mess with the house, sorting my health issues out and looking after the animals we don't really have all that much free time to give up!!

 

[Duck1976]

That's a big bag of worms.

Is it a brick wall as that would have to placed above a load-bearing wall anyway and not over roofing joists unless a lintel was put in place. If so, then it sounds like it is a danger to the structural integrity of your property, plus the fact that it is on your property so you should be well within your rights to remove the wall.

However, if by removing it you would/could cause structural damage to your neighbours property this could then be criminal damage (which you prob would with it being a loft conversion). Plus not too sure if you would have then construct some type of divider so seperate the two lofts.

Have the neighbours not said anything about moving it? I'd say it would be 95% in your favour for winning any legal action and would only cost both parties more than them just having the work done.

A decent builder should be able to take down the offending wall, then rebuild it in the correct and legal place in a couple of days as they would be re-using the same bricks. Plus, with the way the building market is at the moment they should be able to get them in quickly and cheaply.

Less hassle and less cost all round.

Then you can get back on track with yours and get to look after the pets.

 

[B13]

Ohmigods!!!

Just read your post and I really hope things get sorted for you very very very soon!!

(((((hugs)))))

 

[Brette]

So sorry Miss Wiggle... I know how awful that is. We lost power here in Montreal for over a week ten years ago and i was unable to prevent my fish from freezing to death. All of them. Many of them I had had for 3 years or so.

I hope your luck picks up soon and that this is a bump in the road. You've been really helpful to me in the "emergency" forum... just thought I'd mention that and say thanks again.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

thanks everyone

fishy news first, some good nad some bad, tank is now back up to temp, we do seem to still have quite a few fish alive, at least 4/5 nannacara's when i originally could only find 2 alive so better than we expected. but the dominant male of the group 'big daddy' who was my favourite fish is sadly no longer with us.

house news, it's not a brick wall, it's a stud wall, so it wouldn't be any issue for them to move it. the problem is we can't get in touch with our neighbours, it's a rented property and it's empty. we don't know who the landlord is so although we've tried to get hold of him through the letting agent we have no idea if our messages have even got through. undoubtedly the best way forward for us would be to just speak to them directly and if they're reasonable they'll see quite easily that what they've done is unsafe and needs rectifying. however as it's been a week since we tried to make contact with no response i don't think we can assume they're gonna be reasonable with us.

anyway had building control round to inspect it yesterday, they agreed it's very dodgy. they want to speak to the dangerous buildings specialist who isn't back in work until friday, no guarantees but they hope that it comes under one of the categories of dangerous buildings and they could serve them with 28 days notice to rectify (or makes suitable arrangements towards rectifying it) the problem. as you said there's no reason why they'd struggle to find a tradesman right now, there's thousands of them out of work and struggling!!

also we've got a surveyor coming to do a proper inspection and report on monday so hopefully armed with that and the response from building control then that will be enough to get them to sort it out, however if they don't then we take the lot to the solicitors next week and start legal proceedings against them.