Tweet
Civil dispute, nightmare neighbour, hate crime! I’ve got it all!
So, In 2014 my partner & I bought a house with a shared driveway, at the very top of the driveway is access to our rear garden & also access for our neighbour to his rear garden. When we bought the house there was a large wooden gate the length across the driveway that opened opposite ways so not to block off the neighbours access to his garden. This gate is the only access for my partner into the rear garden.
We replaced this gate with a metal electric gate as my partner is a wheelchair user & wouldn’t have been able to open the previous gates by himself. We were not involved with the adaptations being made on our property as me had a project manager/architect dealing with this. When the gate was fitted it swung over the ‘boundary line’, The previous owner of our property installed block paving but only laid as far as was needed & didn’t install to scale of the deed plans. Therefore the neighbour just sees when the block paving ends as the boundary line!
The neighbour started to pile pile up rubbish & place this just past the ‘boundary line’ on his side so that when the gate was opened it would get stuck on the rubbish & the gate wouldn’t open. The neighbour at one point also had a key fob for the gate as we all thought he had a turning circle on our property, he would open the gate & jam large sticks & rubbish between the gate post & then close the gate But it wouldn’t close fully because of the rubbish left & he would leave it like this so that it was more difficult for my partner to access the back garden.
We contacted the council to help us with the civil dispute, we had a lovely officer come help up, he looked over deeds, he spoke with the neighbour & things felt like they were moving along. The key fob was removed from the neighbour, we established a little more understanding of what land was who’s & the officer served the neighbour with a CPN (community protection notice) this stated that all rubbish must be removed & disposed of or face a £100 fine, if the fine was not paid he would go to court. Either way if the rubbish wasn’t removed another CPN would be issued.
the neighbour put in a complaint about the officer & anyone else who had dealt with him on our behalf, this almost resulted in the officer losing his job. Now the council are very reluctant to get involved, the lovely officer even sounded offended that we would still be asking for help ‘after everything I’ve done for him & his family!’ Is one of the comments he made. Nothing has change, the gate is still being blocked!
As if the mess with the gate isn’t enough the neighbour tries ever way to intimidate & grab for power. I was 38 weeks pregnant & walking down the street & crossed to avoid walking passed the neighbour, he ran across the road come right in my face put his hand on me & started screaming in my face about seeing a solicitor? That’s all he screamed, ‘go see your solicitor ‘ I was knocked back and almost hit the floor! The police were rang & when an officer came out he said, ‘I can speak to him but what exactly do you want to happen?’ I said I wanted to take it as far as I could & he replied that it wouldn’t go far & that he’ll just talk to him! On separate occasions the neighbour had mocked my disabled partners speech, been cruel about his disability, approached me & my 2 young girls angrily waving a small spade around & left glass on the driveway to pop our car tires? My partners wheelchair tires? We had cctv fitted, alarms upgraded, we modified our windows so he couldn’t see in as he used to stare. This man is a terror on our lives & the police do nothing. We’ve tried to push a hate crime through & were told that it would be dealt with but we’ve heard nothing. The police issued the neighbour with an additional CPN which stated that the neighbour couldn’t interact with us or our guests in any way & he obeyed this.
The gate swung over the end of the block paving about 3 inches, after a few years of the gate being installed he demanded that we remove the gate & put some wooded ones back up, we explained that it’s not an option for us but he didn’t care, seeing his point of view we emailed the architect that oversaw the installation of the gate & eventually they agreed that they would pay for the gate to be modified & shortened so that the gate didn’t swing over the block paving, this was a lengthy process as it wasn’t a priority to them & it was them that would be paying for it, there was also issues with our solicitor giving them the go ahead, they eventually shortened the gate but the rubber sensors at the bottom of the gate couldn’t be shortened as much as we needed but literally swung over the end of the block paving line not over the ‘boundry Line’
As we expected, the neighbour wasn’t happy with this, he came home with a huge concrete block one Saturday & placed it on the grass pushed right up against the.’boundry kine’ We all thought that it would block the gate but the rubber at the end of the gate just bent & scrapped the block & the gate opened. Once the neighbour realised that the block wasn’t stopping the gate opening he moved the block MM by MM each day until it DID stop the gate from opening, the block was now on what is clearly the shared drive by about 2cm. We removed the block & put it on our property to stop him for using it to block my partners access.
The police have just left, my partner was forced to give the block back or face charges of theft. I’ve also been issued with a threat of a caution for calling the neighbour a ‘C**t’ which didn’t happen. So now it feels we either have to keep solving the neighbours problems or just put up with what he’s doing. I’ve asked the neighbour to prove where the boundary line is as it’s him with the issue but he won’t do it, he’s trying to force us to pay for it (his own words) he threatens to take us to court & we tell him we are more than happy with that but never does anything. He’s reported our cctv, our dog, he stands in his garden & just shouts things at our house!
we really have reached an end & don’t know where to turn, this is effecting our mental health & are looking into moving. We just don’t know what to do next?
We replaced this gate with a metal electric gate as my partner is a wheelchair user & wouldn’t have been able to open the previous gates by himself. We were not involved with the adaptations being made on our property as me had a project manager/architect dealing with this. When the gate was fitted it swung over the ‘boundary line’, The previous owner of our property installed block paving but only laid as far as was needed & didn’t install to scale of the deed plans. Therefore the neighbour just sees when the block paving ends as the boundary line!
The neighbour started to pile pile up rubbish & place this just past the ‘boundary line’ on his side so that when the gate was opened it would get stuck on the rubbish & the gate wouldn’t open. The neighbour at one point also had a key fob for the gate as we all thought he had a turning circle on our property, he would open the gate & jam large sticks & rubbish between the gate post & then close the gate But it wouldn’t close fully because of the rubbish left & he would leave it like this so that it was more difficult for my partner to access the back garden.
We contacted the council to help us with the civil dispute, we had a lovely officer come help up, he looked over deeds, he spoke with the neighbour & things felt like they were moving along. The key fob was removed from the neighbour, we established a little more understanding of what land was who’s & the officer served the neighbour with a CPN (community protection notice) this stated that all rubbish must be removed & disposed of or face a £100 fine, if the fine was not paid he would go to court. Either way if the rubbish wasn’t removed another CPN would be issued.
the neighbour put in a complaint about the officer & anyone else who had dealt with him on our behalf, this almost resulted in the officer losing his job. Now the council are very reluctant to get involved, the lovely officer even sounded offended that we would still be asking for help ‘after everything I’ve done for him & his family!’ Is one of the comments he made. Nothing has change, the gate is still being blocked!
As if the mess with the gate isn’t enough the neighbour tries ever way to intimidate & grab for power. I was 38 weeks pregnant & walking down the street & crossed to avoid walking passed the neighbour, he ran across the road come right in my face put his hand on me & started screaming in my face about seeing a solicitor? That’s all he screamed, ‘go see your solicitor ‘ I was knocked back and almost hit the floor! The police were rang & when an officer came out he said, ‘I can speak to him but what exactly do you want to happen?’ I said I wanted to take it as far as I could & he replied that it wouldn’t go far & that he’ll just talk to him! On separate occasions the neighbour had mocked my disabled partners speech, been cruel about his disability, approached me & my 2 young girls angrily waving a small spade around & left glass on the driveway to pop our car tires? My partners wheelchair tires? We had cctv fitted, alarms upgraded, we modified our windows so he couldn’t see in as he used to stare. This man is a terror on our lives & the police do nothing. We’ve tried to push a hate crime through & were told that it would be dealt with but we’ve heard nothing. The police issued the neighbour with an additional CPN which stated that the neighbour couldn’t interact with us or our guests in any way & he obeyed this.
The gate swung over the end of the block paving about 3 inches, after a few years of the gate being installed he demanded that we remove the gate & put some wooded ones back up, we explained that it’s not an option for us but he didn’t care, seeing his point of view we emailed the architect that oversaw the installation of the gate & eventually they agreed that they would pay for the gate to be modified & shortened so that the gate didn’t swing over the block paving, this was a lengthy process as it wasn’t a priority to them & it was them that would be paying for it, there was also issues with our solicitor giving them the go ahead, they eventually shortened the gate but the rubber sensors at the bottom of the gate couldn’t be shortened as much as we needed but literally swung over the end of the block paving line not over the ‘boundry Line’
As we expected, the neighbour wasn’t happy with this, he came home with a huge concrete block one Saturday & placed it on the grass pushed right up against the.’boundry kine’ We all thought that it would block the gate but the rubber at the end of the gate just bent & scrapped the block & the gate opened. Once the neighbour realised that the block wasn’t stopping the gate opening he moved the block MM by MM each day until it DID stop the gate from opening, the block was now on what is clearly the shared drive by about 2cm. We removed the block & put it on our property to stop him for using it to block my partners access.
The police have just left, my partner was forced to give the block back or face charges of theft. I’ve also been issued with a threat of a caution for calling the neighbour a ‘C**t’ which didn’t happen. So now it feels we either have to keep solving the neighbours problems or just put up with what he’s doing. I’ve asked the neighbour to prove where the boundary line is as it’s him with the issue but he won’t do it, he’s trying to force us to pay for it (his own words) he threatens to take us to court & we tell him we are more than happy with that but never does anything. He’s reported our cctv, our dog, he stands in his garden & just shouts things at our house!
we really have reached an end & don’t know where to turn, this is effecting our mental health & are looking into moving. We just don’t know what to do next?
Comment