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I currently own a first floor maisonette Tyneside flat property (with a Tyneside/Criss Cross lease). I own the freehold of the ground floor flat, and the leasehold of my own, with my downstairs neighbour having the opposite.
We have a very bad relationship with out downstairs neighbour, particularly the husband. We have had to notify the police on a number of occasions due to verbal abuse, threats, and him spitting on our front door. He has also intimidated and bullied other residents on our street (one woman told me he kicked her dog, another that he had tried to throttle a boy for playing foot-ball in the back lane) and is generally a very unpleasant character. Initially we tried very hard to be polite, courteous etc and spent money on putting down good quality carpet underlay on the first floor (he complained that he could hear us walking about in one of the rooms) to try and ease the situation but over time it has become clear that no matter what we do, he will find something to complain about. We have tried to ask them to go to mediation and been refused, so it is clear we are never going to get on.
Anyway, one of his complaints has been that previous owners and ourselves have never spent any money on the property. When we moved in we spent 6k on double glazing, hundreds on underlay, and also hundreds more on getting our water supply separated from theirs. We have replaced broken guttering, and had emergency repairs done to our roof (it began to leak last December). A few weeks ago, he came out of the house and verbally abused me because he claimed a tile had fallen from the roof and scratched his window during heavy winds (police informed due to verbal abuse). He told me he would send me a quote for a repair which has not materialised (I am also still awaiting a letter from his solicitor regarding damage we have 'done' to the ceiling in his lounge by us walking across our floor - despite him previously telling me that a previous tenant had damaged the ceiling by having a party with 50 people on that floor).
Yesterday, I arranged for a roofer to come and give us a quote for replacing our roof. Whilst the roofer was outside measuring up, my downstairs neighbour(husband) approached him and told him that he would not allow access into the backyard or allow scaffolding to be put up and that any access granted was at his discretion. A roofer would need access to my downstairs neighbour's back yard, and would probably also have to utilise the flat roof of the extension on their property in order to access the back of our roof and our kitchen roof. I wasn't there when this happened, but I have checked my lease which states:
The other flat: All that portion of the building below the level of the top of the brickwork supporting the joists...and any other areas on land enjoyed exclusively within.
From the rights granted to the Lessee (myself)
The right with or without workmen at all reasonable times on notice to enter upon the Other Flat for the purpose of constructing inspecting cleansing repairing or renewing...any other structure or thing which cannot otherwise reasonably be inspected cleansed repaired or renewed the person exercising such rights doing as little damage as possible and making good all damage caused with all due dispatch.
My understanding of this is that we have a right to access their land/property in order to repair our roof, as there is no way that it can be done safely without that access/scaffolding. I can see nothing in the lease which says this is at the lessor's discretion, we have a right end of, and if we do cause any damage, we would have to repair it (I guess this would be down to the roofers?).
I was thinking of writing a letter citing this part of the lease, and seeing how they respond but I just wanted to check that my understanding was correct.
Thanks in advance.
We have a very bad relationship with out downstairs neighbour, particularly the husband. We have had to notify the police on a number of occasions due to verbal abuse, threats, and him spitting on our front door. He has also intimidated and bullied other residents on our street (one woman told me he kicked her dog, another that he had tried to throttle a boy for playing foot-ball in the back lane) and is generally a very unpleasant character. Initially we tried very hard to be polite, courteous etc and spent money on putting down good quality carpet underlay on the first floor (he complained that he could hear us walking about in one of the rooms) to try and ease the situation but over time it has become clear that no matter what we do, he will find something to complain about. We have tried to ask them to go to mediation and been refused, so it is clear we are never going to get on.
Anyway, one of his complaints has been that previous owners and ourselves have never spent any money on the property. When we moved in we spent 6k on double glazing, hundreds on underlay, and also hundreds more on getting our water supply separated from theirs. We have replaced broken guttering, and had emergency repairs done to our roof (it began to leak last December). A few weeks ago, he came out of the house and verbally abused me because he claimed a tile had fallen from the roof and scratched his window during heavy winds (police informed due to verbal abuse). He told me he would send me a quote for a repair which has not materialised (I am also still awaiting a letter from his solicitor regarding damage we have 'done' to the ceiling in his lounge by us walking across our floor - despite him previously telling me that a previous tenant had damaged the ceiling by having a party with 50 people on that floor).
Yesterday, I arranged for a roofer to come and give us a quote for replacing our roof. Whilst the roofer was outside measuring up, my downstairs neighbour(husband) approached him and told him that he would not allow access into the backyard or allow scaffolding to be put up and that any access granted was at his discretion. A roofer would need access to my downstairs neighbour's back yard, and would probably also have to utilise the flat roof of the extension on their property in order to access the back of our roof and our kitchen roof. I wasn't there when this happened, but I have checked my lease which states:
The other flat: All that portion of the building below the level of the top of the brickwork supporting the joists...and any other areas on land enjoyed exclusively within.
From the rights granted to the Lessee (myself)
The right with or without workmen at all reasonable times on notice to enter upon the Other Flat for the purpose of constructing inspecting cleansing repairing or renewing...any other structure or thing which cannot otherwise reasonably be inspected cleansed repaired or renewed the person exercising such rights doing as little damage as possible and making good all damage caused with all due dispatch.
My understanding of this is that we have a right to access their land/property in order to repair our roof, as there is no way that it can be done safely without that access/scaffolding. I can see nothing in the lease which says this is at the lessor's discretion, we have a right end of, and if we do cause any damage, we would have to repair it (I guess this would be down to the roofers?).
I was thinking of writing a letter citing this part of the lease, and seeing how they respond but I just wanted to check that my understanding was correct.
Thanks in advance.
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