Oakesy2001uk said:
surely he has no right whatsoever to be in your garden without your permission. Fleece them!
Not so. There are a number of circumstances under which you CAN be forced to permit access. But they are limited in scope, and purpose.
Porkrind, the basic situation is this :-
1) There is no automatic right of access to your land
2) There may be a covenant in your deeds that cover "reasonable access". Check the deeds.
3) Party Wall etc. Act 1996 provides situations where access is defined by statute. See later in this post.
4) Access to Neighbouring Land Act 1992 provides for limited statutory right of acccess under certain conditions, but requires a County Court order.
So, you have the situation where he MIGHT be able to force access whether yiou want it or not, depending on exactly what he wants to do, why he wants to do it and the layout of the property.
Consider this, too. There are usually various ways of achieving a given objective. Some will be easy, others hard .... and therefore more expensive. So, if you follow the path advocated by Oaksey to "fleece 'em", you could find that they either go for Party Wall Act access, or even Neighbouring Land Act access, and accept that they have to pay some additional legal costs. Or, it could just mean that they have to do the work in a way that is more awkward, and expensive, but not as expensive as paying Oaksey's idea of a fleece payment.
Were I in your shoes, I would attempt to do this amicably. I would expect :-
1) Any costs to be reimbursed
2) The Any damage to be rectified at their expense .... including to plants, lawns, fences, etc
3) The time you will suffer the inconvenience to be defined
4) Compensation for loss of the facility of quiet enjoyment of your garden for the duration of the scaffolding being in place
5) Additional compensation for the schedule in 3) not being met.
Against that, you could consider if you need any jobs doing. It may be that a developer would rather fit some work in for you, than pay cash. That would certainly come into any calculations for an Award under the Party Walls Act, if that applies.
Oh, and IF the PWA applies, the other party is REQUIRED to serve you notice of intended work, and either get you consent or get arbitrating suryevors to go through a dispute resolution process. So, don't be surprised if an intimidating-looking letter going on about the PWA drops through your letter box. Even if they have your permission, in writing, they MUST comply with the dictats of that Act, if it applies. Whether it applies depends, as I said earlier, on what they're doing, and how far it is from your property, etc.
Nobody on this forum can tell you what you'll get. There's no agreed fee schedule for compensation, and so much depends on factors you can't know .... like what alternatives the developer has, and what the cost implications of them are. Developers will not throw away large sums, and there will almost certainly be alternative methods to paying you a large sum. And, should they opt for any of the legal routes, any attempt to gouge large sums from them won't enhance your case.
But, most developers would MUCH rather do things amicably, and will pay a premium to keep neighbours friendly and on-side, because they risk increased cost and, far worse than that, delays, if they don't.
My advice .... find out exactly what they're proposing, and get it in writing, especially in terms of start and stop date. Also, get the terms agreed in writing, as well as a provision for additional compensation them not meeting their dates .... such as putting the whole thing on a weekly (or part thereof) basis. I would also go after getting your compensation up-front, before work starts. You're in a much stronger position to be awkward
before the job than you are in chasing money after it's finished. But, while you can expect compensation for loss of facilities, any damages, inconvenience, etc, keep it
reasonable.
we become more like the yanks every day because of this attitude. 
