Do I need a Structural Engineer ?

[Mano]

Get 3 quotes from somewhere like trustatrader or ratedpeople from 3 builders/bricklayers. Also ask them to confirm if a structural engineer would be needed. (it wont)

Id reply something like this

Morning All,
I received an email reply for the above message

"It’s very childish to blame us for not saving the broken pieces of the bricks also to claim which can be used to put together/repair the brick. It appears like giving unreasonable reasons to delay forever.

We have given enough time already however we give final notice with further 14 days from today(ie.9/11/2021) to repair damages caused by them as last opportunity to settle things with out dispute. We have tried our level best to avoid a dispute and settle things amicably but seems like the other party has no intention to conclude this matter."

I still don't understand, Did he went through my email or not!.I did clearly mention that as per the quotes attached. I would be offering average of the quotes which would be £120 in full and final settlement of this issue.But he is still giving final notice for settling things.

 

[kindai]

Morning All,
I received an email reply for the above message

"It’s very childish to blame us for not saving the broken pieces of the bricks also to claim which can be used to put together/repair the brick. It appears like giving unreasonable reasons to delay forever.

We have given enough time already however we give final notice with further 14 days from today(ie.9/11/2021) to repair damages caused by them as last opportunity to settle things with out dispute. We have tried our level best to avoid a dispute and settle things amicably but seems like the other party has no intention to conclude this matter."

I still don't understand, Did he went through my email or not!.I did clearly mention that as per the quotes attached. I would be offering average of the quotes which would be £120 in full and final settlement of this issue.But he is still giving final notice for settling things.

Looks like at this point your neighbor is just trying to make things more difficult and expensive than they need to be.

Wait for the court paperwork to show up. Make sure you have records of all correspondence and proof you acted reasonably and offered to rectify / compensate for the damage and the judge will take a very dim view on him and may even dismiss his case.

 

[rodders]

Wow....this is still going on!

 

[Semple]

Looks like at this point your neighbor is just trying to make things more difficult and expensive than they need to be.

Wait for the court paperwork to show up. Make sure you have records of all correspondence and proof you acted reasonably and offered to rectify / compensate for the damage and the judge will take a very dim view on him and may even dismiss his case.

My thoughts too.

He's clearly bitter about you declining his request to get a structural engineer involved.

He's obviously read through your email and is just sore on that point.

 

[Jez]

I am not sure if this has been asked, but I am struggling to understand why you are even getting involved in this silly dispute?

Your contractor caused this damage, surely any correspondence from the neighbour should have been redirected straight to him - for him to rectify and use his liability insurance if required?

 

[SquirrelMadness]

Not sure why no one's said this yet but OP get a bloody screwdriver and pull those screws out. If neighbour has kids or a dog they can injure themselves badly on them.

 

[Mano]

I am not sure if this has been asked, but I am struggling to understand why you are even getting involved in this silly dispute?

Your contractor caused this damage, surely any correspondence from the neighbour should have been redirected straight to him - for him to rectify and use his liability insurance if required?

since police came to my property and investigated i was involved and then police said this is a civil case and I am happy to act as a mediator to solve this issue.
Regarding my contractor I spoke to him and he is ready to bear the expenses. As my neighbour is not allowing access to my contractor he is not able to proceed with the repair also he is terming the contractor as "cow boy" builder.

so i offered him to pay the expenses as the per the 3 different builders quote.

 

[Jez]

Still don’t understand why, this was never your fight nor your problem. Any correspondence should have gone straight to the contractor for him to answer to and deal with in its entirety. The only conversation between yourself and the neighbour should be to pass his details on, and to be neighbourly, just offer your apologies that he did a bad job.

The whole thing makes no sense to me! You paid a professional, things like this being sorted without any input from you, and insured against by the professional, is what you paid for.

if you had put this up yourself and damaged his wall then absolutely, it’s your fight, but you didn’t…

 

[Delvis]

Still don’t understand why, this was never your fight nor your problem. Any correspondence should have gone straight to the contractor for him to answer to and deal with in its entirety. The only conversation between yourself and the neighbour should be to pass his details on, and to be neighbourly, just offer your apologies that he did a bad job.

The whole thing makes no sense to me! You paid a professional, things like this being sorted without any input from you, and insured against by the professional, is what you paid for.

if you had put this up yourself and damaged his wall then absolutely, it’s your fight, but you didn’t…

Neighbour clearly doesn't get that.

Maybe the OP can pass on said details, I'm just not sure what they could quite to essentially say what you've said but more officially

 

[Angilion]

Looks like at this point your neighbor is just trying to make things more difficult and expensive than they need to be.

I'm now curious as to the neighbour's motive. My guess is tunnel vision - they've locked onto a course of action and will not consider anything other than making the OP comply to their demands.

However, I wouldn't rule out a scam. The neighbour is very insistent on preventing the OP from doing anything other than paying the neighbour for the alleged services of a person of the neighbour's choosing. Maybe a genuine structural engineer who will charge the neighbour maybe £250 for a very brief visit to state "that damage is not structural" and the neighbour then charges the OP £500 and pockets £250 themself. Or maybe an acquaintance of the neighbour who is in on the scam (and who might or might not be a structural engineer) and who will present an inflated bill.

Wait for the court paperwork to show up. Make sure you have records of all correspondence and proof you acted reasonably and offered to rectify / compensate for the damage and the judge will take a very dim view on him and may even dismiss his case.

If it goes to court at all. IIRC, the neighbour's initial deadline for compliance with their demands has already expired. It might just be an empty threat. But even if it isn't an empty threat it shouldn't be a serious threat. The OP didn't cause the damage and despite that they have gone out of their way to act reasonably and have even offered to have the damage rectified at their own expense by a person of the neighbour's choosing at an approximately average price for the job (average of 3 quotes - a common standard).

since police came to my property and investigated i was involved and then police said this is a civil case and I am happy to act as a mediator to solve this issue. [..]

Mediation requires both parties to be willing to engage with the mediation. Your neighbour isn't. So mediation is impossible and your involvement is over. It's between your neighbour and the contractor who caused the damage. It always was. You volunteered to mediate. Your neighbour refused that offer of mediation. Their choice. It shouldn't be your problem.

 

[dowie]

Still don’t understand why, this was never your fight nor your problem. Any correspondence should have gone straight to the contractor for him to answer to and deal with in its entirety. The only conversation between yourself and the neighbour should be to pass his details on, and to be neighbourly, just offer your apologies that he did a bad job.

No, the neighbour didn't hire the contractor the OP did. The neighbour might well want nothing to do with the contractor and certainly doesn't have to allow the contractor to repair anything or do any further work on his property if permission was never given in the first place, nor does he need to start chasing a potential cowboy builder for costs etc. OP can do that.

OP probably should have removed the screws by now, he's also not being too clear with the updates either - the e-mail at the top of this thread mentioning stuff about broken brick fragments or something out of nowhere etc..???

The structural engineer thing is OTT, seems the neighbour was being overly paranoid as a landlord, but I'd be miffed if it happened to me and I was out of pocket over this - OP ought to pay the full cost of repairing the damage.

Both the neighbour and the OP seem to be overly paranoid and are making a huge issue out of something that ought to have been fairly simple to deal with!

Neighbour is miffed at OP's builder so just get a different builder round to fix it, OP gets cheque book out and pays full cost (and he can deal with trying to recover that cost from the dodgy builder he hired).

 

[Mano]

OP probably should have removed the screws by now, he's also not being too clear with the updates either - the e-mail at the top of this thread mentioning stuff about broken brick fragments or something out of nowhere etc..???

Police who is acting as a mediator mentioned not to do anything until we both come to and agreement.So i haven't removed the screws yet.Waiting for us to come to an agreement and then take the screws off and put a gate post on to the ground that's the plan.

 

[Angilion]

No, the neighbour didn't hire the contractor the OP did. The neighbour might well want nothing to do with the contractor and certainly doesn't have to allow the contractor to repair anything or do any further work on his property if permission was never given in the first place, nor does he need to start chasing a potential cowboy builder for costs etc. OP can do that.

The OP didn't cause the damage, so why would they be legally liable for the damage they didn't cause?

OP probably should have removed the screws by now, he's also not being too clear with the updates either - the e-mail at the top of this thread mentioning stuff about broken brick fragments or something out of nowhere etc..???

It didn't come out of nowhere. It was a response to a message the OP sent on advice here. More accurately, a response to a few words cherry-picked from that message.

Removing the screws would be a bad idea, given that everything is in dispute. The OP shouldn't touch anything to do with it.

The structural engineer thing is OTT, seems the neighbour was being overly paranoid as a landlord, but I'd be miffed if it happened to me and I was out of pocket over this - OP ought to pay the full cost of repairing the damage.

The OP has already offered to do so.

Both the neighbour and the OP seem to be overly paranoid and are making a huge issue out of something that ought to have been fairly simple to deal with!

Neighbour is miffed at OP's builder so just get a different builder round to fix it, OP gets cheque book out and pays full cost (and he can deal with trying to recover that cost from the dodgy builder he hired).

The OP has already offered to do so and the builder who did the damage has already agreed to reimburse the OP for the cost of hiring another builder to repair the damage.

It doesn't seem to the the OP who is making a huge issue out of something that ought to have been fairly simple to deal with.

 

[dowie]

The OP didn't cause the damage, so why would they be legally liable for the damage they didn't cause?

It's their contractor, the neighbour didn't hire them.

For example, supposing the builder wasn't contactable - should that be the neighbour's problem? Nope - it's the OP's job to compensate the neighbour, the OP can chase the builder. Of course, if the neighbour wants to work with the builder or collect the costs directly from him then that makes things easier but they're not obliged to.

It didn't come out of nowhere. It was a response to a message the OP sent on advice here. More accurately, a response to a few words cherry-picked from that message.

I might have missed it but where was the bit about saving bits of broken brick etc.. What was that all about?

The OP has already offered to do so.

Sort of, albeit with some stuff about an average price, which is potentially even more faff if you then have to get three different contractors to look at it, so long as the price is reasonable the neighbour/landlord ought to just get it repaired and OP/OP's contractor just need to pay for it - it's been a bit of a faff getting to that point. (Obviously, the requests for a structural engineer are not reasonable).

 

[Angilion]

[..] I might have missed it but where was the bit about saving bits of broken brick etc.. What was that all about?

The OP was following the advice in this post:

Do I need a Structural Engineer ?

 

[kindai]

I might have missed it but where was the bit about saving bits of broken brick etc.. What was that all about?

A blowout as pictured would have come off in big chunks and could easily of been "stuck back in place" with some epoxy. Replacement of the bricks at this point is purely cosmetic to appease the neighbor and arguably will look worse as they wont be a perfect color match.

 

[Angilion]

A blowout as pictured would have come off in big chunks and could easily of been "stuck back in place" with some epoxy. Replacement of the bricks at this point is purely cosmetic to appease the neighbor and arguably will look worse as they wont be a perfect color match.

If the neighbour sees that, maybe they'll demand that the entire wall be demolished and rebuilt at the OP's expense in order to ensure a perfect colour match.

 

[dowie]

The OP was following the advice in this post:

Do I need a Structural Engineer ?

Yeah but there is some correspondence missing here, we're only seeing one side of this stuff - mention of a reason to delay etc..

""It’s very childish to blame us for not saving the broken pieces of the bricks also to claim which can be used to put together/repair the brick. It appears like giving unreasonable reasons to delay forever."

That doesn't seem to just be a result of a suggestion to stick the chunks of brickwork back on.

 

[booyaka]

The fact is un-willing to allow your contractor on his property to repair/fix is the issue here.

I would write a final response to him (not email - recorded letter)

He either takes option A - Your contractor fixes the issues but must be allowed access at a time that is suitable to your neighbour.
OR
Option B - the average of the 3 quotes is paid to him (think you mention £120) and fixes it himself.

He has 14 days to decide and advise you which option he wishes to take. Both of these options are more than fair.

Which ever option he takes - that will be the end of the matter and no further correspondence will be entered into.

Should he wish to continue with his "dispute" - any further emails/letter will simply be forward to your legal adviser (don't need one just threaten it) - you will not respond again.

 

[Mr Badger]

A blowout as pictured would have come off in big chunks and could easily of been "stuck back in place" with some epoxy. Replacement of the bricks at this point is purely cosmetic to appease the neighbor and arguably will look worse as they wont be a perfect color match.

If the neighbour sees that, maybe they'll demand that the entire wall be demolished and rebuilt at the OP's expense in order to ensure a perfect colour match.

I think you have uncovered the neighbour's big plan here. Once the wall is completely rebuilt he will decide that it no longer matches the house, which will also need to be replaced at the OP's expense...

Incredible that this is still dragging on. If we are getting the straight story, then the neighbour seems to be completely unreasonable and/or on the make.