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I purchased my current property two years ago, and, unfortunately, the neighbour’s balcony at the rear of the property has been partly fixed onto the wall on my side of the boundary, encroaching and damaging the rendering/brickwork. In fact, the length of the entire balcony encroaches over the boundary. I was overseas at the time of the purchase, and a family member who did the viewing on my behalf didn’t notice the issue. When I spotted the problem, rather than ceate a boundary dispute, I decided to suck it up and ignore the matter. At that time, the neighbour’s balcony was in disrepair and not in use.
All of the houses in the terrace have rear balconies at first floor level, but they are quite small, whereas the neighbour’s balcony has been extended so that it is at least four times larger than the original balcony they had. This wasn’t an issue until last summer, when they decided to refurbish the balcony, which had previously not been in use. Unfortunately, they are now using it quite a lot, and because the balcony has been extended so far, it is proving to be very intrusive indeed, as they can see right into my house. In fact, they complimented the layout of my new kitchen! In short, my living room and kitchen are no longer private, and we feel that we have to keep the curtains closed whenever we want to switch off and relax. This is a great pity, as the rear of the property has large picture windows that look out onto the garden.
As the balcony was probably extended more than four years ago, is there anything I can do about this? My understanding is that they should have obtained planning permission, but neglected to do so. However, I imagine that, due to the length of time that the balcony has been in situ, the local council will not be willing to act. However, I may have some sort of cause of action, I guess, particularly in relation to the encroachment. I suspect that they are going to say that the previous owner of my property, an elderly lady, was quite happy for them to extend the balcony as they did.
Ideally, from my perspective, they should take the balcony down and replace it with a balcony of the original size, on their side of the boundary. Obviously, I cannot see them being at all happy to do this.
Any advice would be most welcome.
All of the houses in the terrace have rear balconies at first floor level, but they are quite small, whereas the neighbour’s balcony has been extended so that it is at least four times larger than the original balcony they had. This wasn’t an issue until last summer, when they decided to refurbish the balcony, which had previously not been in use. Unfortunately, they are now using it quite a lot, and because the balcony has been extended so far, it is proving to be very intrusive indeed, as they can see right into my house. In fact, they complimented the layout of my new kitchen! In short, my living room and kitchen are no longer private, and we feel that we have to keep the curtains closed whenever we want to switch off and relax. This is a great pity, as the rear of the property has large picture windows that look out onto the garden.
As the balcony was probably extended more than four years ago, is there anything I can do about this? My understanding is that they should have obtained planning permission, but neglected to do so. However, I imagine that, due to the length of time that the balcony has been in situ, the local council will not be willing to act. However, I may have some sort of cause of action, I guess, particularly in relation to the encroachment. I suspect that they are going to say that the previous owner of my property, an elderly lady, was quite happy for them to extend the balcony as they did.
Ideally, from my perspective, they should take the balcony down and replace it with a balcony of the original size, on their side of the boundary. Obviously, I cannot see them being at all happy to do this.
Any advice would be most welcome.
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