Please can anyone help with this tricky problem? I can't afford solicitor
A brick wall of our property divides us from our neighbours yard. It is not a party wall as it is the side of our building. Unknown to me, but known to my husband because he asked for access to their yard a couple of years ago, they have put up a large porch come covered way coming from their door and extending about one third the way along our wall. It consists of wooden posts, some of which abutt our wall with a plastic roof, which overlaps into the plastic gutter along the edge of our roof so that water drains off their porch into our gutter.
We recently decided to replace our roof and this coincides with them renewing their porch by chance. We have realised that their porch severely restricts access to our roof and all the objects they store under the porch restrict access to our wall. Once their plastic roof is back on it will be impossible to put scaffold up where porch is. They have threatened us that any damage to their structure if we replace our roof they will sue for.
They have refused to wait to replace the plastic roof until we do our work. We would like to know if we have any legal right to insist some access space is left between our wall and this porch to get a ladder up and if we could say no to them overhanging their plastic into our gutter even though it is not attached. This is all given that this porch /covered way structure must have been put up many years ago without us realising what they were doing as they also put up high gates
A brick wall of our property divides us from our neighbours yard. It is not a party wall as it is the side of our building. Unknown to me, but known to my husband because he asked for access to their yard a couple of years ago, they have put up a large porch come covered way coming from their door and extending about one third the way along our wall. It consists of wooden posts, some of which abutt our wall with a plastic roof, which overlaps into the plastic gutter along the edge of our roof so that water drains off their porch into our gutter.
We recently decided to replace our roof and this coincides with them renewing their porch by chance. We have realised that their porch severely restricts access to our roof and all the objects they store under the porch restrict access to our wall. Once their plastic roof is back on it will be impossible to put scaffold up where porch is. They have threatened us that any damage to their structure if we replace our roof they will sue for.
They have refused to wait to replace the plastic roof until we do our work. We would like to know if we have any legal right to insist some access space is left between our wall and this porch to get a ladder up and if we could say no to them overhanging their plastic into our gutter even though it is not attached. This is all given that this porch /covered way structure must have been put up many years ago without us realising what they were doing as they also put up high gates