We shared a yard wall with a neighbour, double thickness with one brick on our side and one on theirs butt up to the rear of our houses.
When they had a kitchen extension the yard wall went. Their new kitchen wall is right up to the boundary but all on their side. It was all amicable FWIW.
I was merely wondering (no plans) what would happen if we wanted to do similar?
Would our builders build 2 skins of wall bang up against their wall?
Should there have been a small space left between their wall and the boundary, then our builders would do the same and leave the silly sort of gap I often see? That serves no purpose other than to trap crisp packets!
Is it common to come to an arrangement with a neighbour where you use their new wall as one of yours? ie. their exterior wall as your interior.
Party walls in a semi or terrace can cause all sorts of problems if one of the neighbours is an awkward sod.
Our previous house was the middle house in a terrace of three. They had been council houses. The neighbour on one end rented from the housing association that had taken over from the council as owner; our house and the one on the other end had been bought by the tenants at the time of Maggie's "Right to Buy" legislation in the 1980s. So there was a certain amount of chip-on-his-shoulder "history" with the neighbour who rented.
Being the middle house, we had an alley (part of our land) which ran from front to back through the ground floor of our house (our upstairs rooms were partly over this alley). One wall of the alley backed onto our living room; the other wall was shared with the rental neighbour and backed onto his living room. When we bought the house, there were a number of nails that looked as if they had been hammered into the brickwork in the alley for hanging up brushes etc. When I installed a solar-powered light in the alley, and one by the back door, I installed the little solar panels on the front of our house (south-facing) and ran the wires through the alley, crudely hung from those nails (I never did get round to do a need job with cable staples). When a nail worked loose, I hammered it back in.
Quick as a flash, the neighbour stuck his head over the boundary wall and looked along our alley. "You're not allowed to have anything on that wall. Take it all down. That wall belongs to the council and you can't do anything with it. I'm going to tell them." And on he blustered. He even took offence to the fact that I had repainted the white paint on the alley wall. "Only the council can paint that wall". Of course I pre-empted him by phoning his "account manager" at the housing association. I'd spoken to her many times before when he started cutting (hacking!) the hedge that formed the boundary in the front garden and which is shown as belonging to / maintained by us on the deeds, to ask what the situation was - reply "it's your hedge, we'll tell him to stop". So I warned her that she was about to be deluged with another verbal tirade. Everything he did was symptomatic of "little man syndrome" (he was about 5' 5") with the added overtone of "I'm only a council house tenant - I'm too poor to be able to buy my house. The world owes me a living."
There were a few items in our deeds because the alley had a party wall. We were required to allow access to the housing association if they wanted to maintain what was effectively the outside wall of the guy's living room. on one occasion they needed to do that. No problem: they gave us a few days' warning, they chiselled out a few bricks, did whatever work they needed, replaced and re-mortared the bricks, and repainted that section of wall. But this guy seemed to think that *he* (or "the council" on his behalf) owned our side of the party wall and that *he* could dictate what we used the wall for.
Just because he was in the wrong, he wouldn't back down but instead kept up a constant tirade of "fake news" and whingeing - now which almost-ex US president does that make me think of? ;-)
I have often thought this and I would like to agree their plans if they built the foundations where the outside wall could become your outside wall too and with sufficient width to build your internal wall in the same way as theirs.
That consent would stay with the house and deeds (Land Registry) if possible.
That would also solve issues of flying freehold where roofs could overhang your property.
If it's just gutter, downpipe etc then they don't count as "flying freehold". Usually the subject of an "easement" if all the planning etc done properly. And in any event a court may not be sympathetic to an attempt to insist they are removed if they are doing no harm.
ITYWF the Party Wall Act allows an owner to cut back those items and make other provision for rainwater.
But it is one reason planners these days may not let people build up to the boundary; and why it's worth getting advice (eg from a Party Wall Surveyor) even if it's all amicable.
When our neighbours planned an extension to their extension, it was shown as 6" from the boundary. The existing extension (and ours) meet on the boundary. Our letter to the planners suggested that it would be better for their new extension to stick to the same line, in case we ever decided to extend further and avoiding a stupidly narrow, unmaintainable gap.
As it happened, they changed their minds and only extended the kitchen on the far side of the house.
Our first home was an ex railway workers semi. We had no end of run ins with the difficult neighbour we were attached to. At one point they installed a new stereo with speakers mounted on the party wall, we couldn't hear our own telly!
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.