The Lemon Fool

Hi,
My house has boundary which is around 12 feet raised above the next door neighbour's ground level, so that the bottom of my garden is half way up his house. As best as I can determine, the ground is steeply banked on his property, with some stone walls to support. The neighbour is now looking at digging down next to this boundary in order to build an extension. There is an obvious danger that the digging will cause my garden to drop and potentially landslide and I would like to understand how best to protect myself against this.

1. Does the neighbour have any responsibility to support my boundary?
2. What is the best way to protect myself against any damage which may be caused by his works?

Cheers,

waterville

There are definite obligations under the building regulations and will also come under the Party Wall Act.

ISTR previous discussions on TMF that the neighbour has to pay for your surveyor costs.

https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/2 ... tensions/5

Adjacent structures
It is important to ensure that the excavation for the new foundation does not undermine adjacent structures. In general it is good practice to excavate at least to the same depth as the bottom of the foundation to the adjacent building. If the excavation runs alongside an existing footing then care will be needed - for example, by excavating and concreting the foundation in shorter sections to avoid undermining a whole length of an adjacent structure (see also guidance on the The Party Wall etc. Act 1996).

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/party-wall- ... 6-guidance

a wall that stands on the lands of 2 owners but does not form part of a building, such as a garden wall but not including timber fences

Hi Supremetwo,

Thanks for the reply, the boundary doesn't have any structures on it (or near it), other than a hedge. My concern is that the neighbour is essentially removing the support for my garden.

Cheers,

waterville

waterville wrote:My concern is that the neighbour is essentially removing the support for my garden.

The neighbour needs to erect a retaining wall to ensure that the integrity of the hillside is maintained. That would most likely be the wall at the end of his extension.

So when my neighbour submitted plans to perform a similar excavation for an extension, I had his plan inspected by a structural engineer, who recommended some changes. As a neighbour you will have the opportunity to review the plans and influence them if there is a potential problem that impacts you.

That's not the end of it, however, as you also need to ensure that the construction accurately complies with those plans. So we also agreed a schedule of inspection at key points where my structural engineer could validate the plan was being followed.

The best part was that the neighbour agreed to pay for my structural engineer, which seemed only fair, to me anyway. But I'm not sure you can insist on that without a battle anyway. But he wanted to be a good neighbour, and so did I.