Building regulations: how close can my neighbour go?

richieboy

richieboy

richieboy

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My neighbour kindly informed me today that they would like to build over their garage to extend their house over the second floor. At the moment they are in the "thinking about it" stage and have not submitted any plans etc, but i wanted to know where i stand with regard to how close he can build to our windows. He is a diagram of our layout:

houset.jpg


My question is - how close can he build to my house, considering i have two windows that would be completely blocked if he built over the entire top of his garage?

I'm not trying to be a pain as they are nice people, but i really don't want to have a brick wall when i open my window and no light coming in either the up or downstairs windows? Also, most of the houses on our estate are like this and nobody else has built over their garage like this in the 40 odd years the estate has existed as it would not even leave a metre between houses?

Any help much appreciated...
 
They're both toilet windows - therefore frosted no?

How much do you open them and look out. All that will happen is the wall you see currently will be closer.

You could employ a rights to light surveyor (he might have to pay for that) and see what's what!
 
So there isn't a standard "you can't build a propery within 1 metre of a window" line?

Fair enough, i'll call my local planning department. They're website is poop but luckily i can use a phone.
 
Privacy and light generally isn't reason to have planning permission denied. (neither is fall in property value).

Best you can try for is fire / health and safety.
 
I'm guessing if he submits plans he will have to notify you under the party wall act, with this you can ask him to employ a surveyor on your behalf to address any issues

i'd have a good read up on yours and his rights
 
As others have said, a) building regs will have no bearing on how close he can build, and b) he can build up to his boundary line as long as he gets planning permission for it.

If he is going to go ahead with it, then make sure he understands your concerns and see if you can persuade him to build in a way that reduces the impact on you. For example, instead of building full heigh right upto the boundary with a flat roof, perhaps he can have a pitched roof on there with cuts off the corner of the room over the garage, but allows a little more light into your bathroom.

If i were you i would raise your concerns with him early on rather than after he has already gone to the effort and expense of getting plans drawn up!
 
SherberT* said:
As far as I can see you have a fence and a brick wall to look at anyways?

So whats going to change...
Click to expand...

Diagram is a little misleading, as that black line was the boundary line (not a fence), as his garage wall is on the boundary line.

At the moment i have a nice view from upstairs over the street, rear gardens, and the side of his house (which is a good 7 metres or so away, the garage roof can be seen but not the wall). What's going to change is that the wall would be directly outside the window and so remove the view completely and reduce light, downstairs it would get hardly any light at all rather than a bit at the moment that comes over the garage roof.
 
dodgem said:
If i were you i would raise your concerns with him early on rather than after he has already gone to the effort and expense of getting plans drawn up!
Click to expand...

Cheers for that, and yup am going to speak to him tommorrow he's a good bloke and i'm not trying to mess him around, i just don't want to loose a nice view, light, and money off the value of the property.
 
Ref. the party wall act. It may not actually apply in this situation. If his garage wall is wholly on his property, then it is not a party wall, and neither is a wall built upwards from it. A party wall has to be either astride the boundary line, or separate the properties.

(As far as i understand it anyway, i'm no expert but i am building an extension on my terraced house at the moment)

As you are intending to do anyway though, the absolute best way to handle this is to talk about it and come to an agreement that you are both happy with!

edit: Post 1111 :D
 
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