Even if we were to agree on your premise of a verbal contract and the likelihood of it being enforced, "do as you please" is an idiom and any reasonable judge would not take it's meaning to have been literal.
Do I need a Structural Engineer ?
- Thread starter Mano
- Start date
-
- Tags
- structural engineer
Even if we were to agree on your premise of a verbal contract and the likelihood of it being enforced, "do as you please" is an idiom and any reasonable judge would not take it's meaning to have been literal.
Soldato
What?
That makes no sense at all, seeing as do as you please can be taken many ways, it certainly is not exclusively used as a negative.
Eg "1. In whatever way one wishes or which suits one best.I'm really not concerned with what way you go about researching your report. Do as you please, so long as the report is good!
Bill: "I'll not take your dirty money." George: "As you please, it makes no difference to me.""
OP why are you not following this advice?
I feel like the neighbour has bullied you into accepting his requests, and you're looking for someone on here to effectively act as a qualified structural engineer to officially declare that no structural engineer is required.
From what you've said so far, you've acted perfectly reasonable, and if the neighbour wants excessive costs such as a structural engineer then he has to pay for it out of his own pocket.
Looking at the pictures of the brick, it doesn't even look like the integrity has been compromised. So it's likely cosmetic damage only.
So let's rephrase it:
If it makes you happy, get a structural engineer and then take me to court to recover your costs.
Is this a verbal contract agreeing to pay those costs?
Soldato
No, its an offer, it needs acceptance as well.
But anyway its somewhat of an irrelevance, it was ****** advice and far far better advice was listed above.
Plus consideration and, more importantly to my point, intention. The use of the idiom "do as you please" would not intend the literal meaning of asking the other party to incur such costs and you agreeing to reimburse them.
Soldato
But as I point out, do as you please is not a cut and dry case of it always meaning the negative, it can also be used as a positive but in a way to basically avoid any comment on the approach or subject matter detail. Which makes the comment somewhat open to interpretion.
Of course its often different when something is written in words compared to how it would come across in conversation, but again, leading back to that, don't do it verbally thing.
Consideration is, or would I would argue be taken as granted in the conversation between two people, one of which has caused damage to anothers property when the conversation is surrounding fixing that damage.
Rather than being smart, the OP is better off sticking with his reasonable approach.
Relying that a judge would dismiss the conversation as some sort of trickery using do as you please to mean something that is far from set in stone is considerably ramping up the risk, when as it stands right now, the OP is being reasonable and the other party isn't.
I disagree that moving to a position of being unreasonable is the best approach when continuing to act reasonably is probably best.
And, considering that the other party seems to use dubious English (just like the OP) I think trying to get tricksy with language is far from ideal.
Soldato
If it was my garage Id definitely be annoyed, but would be satisfied if the builder replaced the damaged bricks.
IANAL but I imagine if you take reasonable action as outlined by kindai and get an independent builder to quote, confirm it's not a structural issue and offer to pay, the courts would take a dim view if he refuses to entertain it.
Do you have a history with the neighbour or something? Why are they being so unreasonable?
IANAL but I imagine if you take reasonable action as outlined by kindai and get an independent builder to quote, confirm it's not a structural issue and offer to pay, the courts would take a dim view if he refuses to entertain it.
Do you have a history with the neighbour or something? Why are they being so unreasonable?
Soldato
OP I'm disappointed that you've not yet given the neighbour a final response and left it at that, he's clearly not being reasonable.
I think the first reply to this thread summarises things accurately.
Where in the country are you OP?
Use findanengineer.com to locate a nearby engineer. Call them, email them the pics. Explain what you need. Once they've finished laughing it will be the easiest £30 email they've ever written. I would want to do the biggest sarcastic stick it up your backside letter to this prune but professional responsibility will mean they will have to be factual. It just needs:
1 unscrew the screws and replace with ones of appropriate length.
2 repair with brick repair mortar.
Or rake out and relace brick locally and then re screw.
Assuming that it is still ok to screw into his wall
Use findanengineer.com to locate a nearby engineer. Call them, email them the pics. Explain what you need. Once they've finished laughing it will be the easiest £30 email they've ever written. I would want to do the biggest sarcastic stick it up your backside letter to this prune but professional responsibility will mean they will have to be factual. It just needs:
1 unscrew the screws and replace with ones of appropriate length.
2 repair with brick repair mortar.
Or rake out and relace brick locally and then re screw.
Assuming that it is still ok to screw into his wall
It doesn't really look like an engineer is needed I can see why he'd be annoyed, especially if he wasn't asked first. He does seem to be overly paranoid about his liability as a landlord, that's perhaps why he's getting overly officious and demanding various boxes be checked etc...
OPs builder is a numpty though, as I pointed out earlier the neighbour doesn't have to allow the builder access or any right to repair etc.. as some were suggesting earlier in the thread - the neighbour didn't contract him. It would be reasonable for the OP to pay for the costs of another builder replacing the bricks.
Best to ignore him tbh... he'll go off on some irrelevant tangent with stuff like this.
OPs builder is a numpty though, as I pointed out earlier the neighbour doesn't have to allow the builder access or any right to repair etc.. as some were suggesting earlier in the thread - the neighbour didn't contract him. It would be reasonable for the OP to pay for the costs of another builder replacing the bricks.
Best to ignore him tbh... he'll go off on some irrelevant tangent with stuff like this.
Thanks for the detailed message. I emailed him with those details you have provided. That was really helpful.
Today he came in person and said that i haven't taken any action against his complaint. So he is going to take the garden gate down which is attached to his wall.
Can the neighbour do this without my permission as the garage gate is in my property?
Soldato
No he cannot, but he could remove the screws attaching it to his wall. Although without access to your property that would be difficult.
He just like you has a right to access for repairs (to your own property), but equally a duty to not cause damage to anothers.
By far the simplest fix for you for now is to remove the screws, insert a new post inside your gate, right up against, but not connected to his garage. You can then connect the front of the part by the side of the gate (roughly the bit in red on your photo) onto the new post.
The guy who fitted your gate should be able to do this quite easily and I would press him that you just pay for materials due to the issues he caused.
Soldato
We assume its a few, although whilst everyone agrees thats the belt and braces fix (many would simply just make the brick face good), the other guys seems to think the garage is about to fall down having been structurally weakened.
You cant argue with someone that stupid
Couldn’t have put it better. The neighbour sounds a complete fud. I completely agree that the OP should arrange for the gate to be attached to a post preferably by the original builder and then just move onwards with life. Mind and give the neighbour a cheery wave now and again.
Horrendous state of affairs the whole thing...
OP mentions earlier that the police officer has offered to mediate - Why not take up this offer? Whilst it's not a police matter, they have offered to help. Explain that the builder is happy to fix, replace and make good the "damage" and that no structural engineer is willing to even consider looking at the "damage" as it's so slight it's not even worth the time/effort involved.
The neighbour clearly has nothing better to do and until you take ownership/stand up to him with his ridiculous claims, he will continue in this utterly farcical manner.
Put clearly in writing to the neighbour that the builder is happy to fix the issue, clean up and replace the bricks damaged and if he continues to insist on a structural engineer, he must arrange for that himself.
OP mentions earlier that the police officer has offered to mediate - Why not take up this offer? Whilst it's not a police matter, they have offered to help. Explain that the builder is happy to fix, replace and make good the "damage" and that no structural engineer is willing to even consider looking at the "damage" as it's so slight it's not even worth the time/effort involved.
The neighbour clearly has nothing better to do and until you take ownership/stand up to him with his ridiculous claims, he will continue in this utterly farcical manner.
Put clearly in writing to the neighbour that the builder is happy to fix the issue, clean up and replace the bricks damaged and if he continues to insist on a structural engineer, he must arrange for that himself.
No he can not. Do not allow him and call the police if needed.
However use it to your advantage, explain that you will allow him to remove the gate, but in doing so he must not damage your materials and by taking it down he is accepting that is a full and final resolution to the situation. Record it secretly on your phone if you want to make it seem like a genuine off the cuff act of generosity on your behalf (secretly recorded conversations in such matters can be used in court regardless of the common misconceptions).
Then get your builder in who messed it up in the first place to dig you a new post into the ground free of charge and be done with the matter.
Soldato
No he can't. It's your property. I also can't remember from all of these posts but the neighbour's wall could be a party wall which woros in your favour? Maybe I'm wrong if it's not.
Can't believe this is still dragging om and become needlessly complicated.