Dispute over new loft conversion

Our bungalow is the last in a row of link detached bungalows with carports linking each building. Our wall on our neighbours side is on the boundary b ut our roof overhang is over the neighbours carport as is the same for all the other bungalows. The flashing on his carport roof extends over the firs t row of tiles and tucks under the second row of tiles on our roof. The car port rafters attach to our fascia which having been up since 1975 is lookin g distinctly ropey. I would like to replace the fascia but cannot see how i t could be done without dismantling the carport or supporting the carport o n several acrows. The reason for the fascia ropeyness is that our previous residents nor our neighbour have bothered to paint them and the carport roo f does have a number of leaks. There is a covenant in place saying we share responsibility for the drainage as our roof on that side drains onto the c arport which slopes to the front where a gutter collects the water and feed s it to a down pipe on the neighbours side. His roof drains similarly onto the carport.

So far the only joint responsibility exercised has been with replacing the gutter and downpipe which our neighbour sorted out with no request for join t funding. What concerns me more is where individual responsibility ends an d what happens if/when the fascia rots away causing a collapse of the carpo rt. Yes it is his carport but we benefit by having half our roof drain onto it. Methinks sorting it will be a real payday for the lawyers. He has in p assing said if the roof looked about to collapse he would dismantle it and not replace it we would be happy to fit guttering to that side of the house but it would mean our overhang would extend even further over his property . I wish developers would exercise a little forethought when coming up with these sort of designs what the future implications would be. The original developers only interest in the properties now are to use the covenants in the freehold to rake in money. They charged the previous owners £400 w hen they asked permission to build the conservatory in order to "amend thei r records".

Richard

Many thanks to everyone for the new replies; apologies for not responding to every one individually.

As several people have said, the crux of the matter is the accurate definition of the exact boundary line between the two properties. It's not practical to measure the full width of the combined bungalows and divide by two, but given that when built they were mirror-images of each other, it seems reasonable to use the two rear-wall window openings closest to the boundary as indicators, and to halve the distance between them. This, I believe, is what my neighbour has done (relying on photographs of the rear of the properties before my rear wall was demolished and rebuilt with different windows).

By that criterion, the side wall of the ground-floor extension is clear of the boundary line. The cladding on the end wall of the dormer does make it wider than the lower wall but it's ambiguous as to whether or not it takes it across the line. The architect (working from pictures at the moment, though he does plan to make a site visit) says that it doesn't seem to; I'm not sure one way or the other; my neighbour claims that it does.

He also claims that the entire construction is closer to the boundary than is shown in the drawings and that if it had been built in the right place then the overhang wouldn't have happened. The builder is calling tomorrow to talk about this aspect.

And that is the situation in a nutshell.

Robin thanks for your detailed advice; much appreciated. You're quite right in saying that I regard any physical reconstruction work as very much a last resort.

I'm not sure one way or the other; my neighbour claims

Hope it all goes well.

We had a similar problem. A two story extension was put up - the wall was the correct distance from the boundary but what we hadn't realised was that the builder had put the facia board on the boudary. This meant that the gutter was a few inches in next doors air-space.

Fifteen years later the neighbour went cranky and demanded that we pulled the extension down! The cheeky bugger knew very well where the guttering was as he knew the builder and spent a lot of time chatting to him during the construction.

He didn't get anywhere with his demands though. My wife worked at a solictors and a friendly letter calmed him down!

Bert Coules expressed precisely :

The methods of determining the mid point of the two properties, all seem awfully complicated.

I would guess that all that is needed, is to measure the distance inside to the shared wall, allow a bit more to get to the middle - out to the window, then measure the same amount from the window along the outside.

Thanks for that. I think the idea of measuring the distance between two rear windows and simply halving it is pretty straightforward - assuming of course that the two bungalows were identical (albeit mirror-images of each other) when first built.

Let the architect and the builder do the talking, it is their responsibility now. If they upset the neighbor -- well, they will be off.

If you do, you may have a tense relationship for many years...

Thomas Prufer