Unusual boundary wall issue

A

aquila

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I live in rural Ireland and am in the unusual position of having a garden boundary wall that partly consists of the skeleton of an old cottage. It looks very like the ruins of a famine cottage but was built as a farm outhouse by my grandfather over a century ago and is now owned by my neighbour. It has been in ruins for at least 60 years. Three walls of this are in my neighbour's garden, but a window and partially blocked up door frame face on to mine. (There are no actual windows or doors, just spaces where they used to be.) I usually plant a few flowers in these spaces as well as in cracks in the wall (on my side of course) and this forms an attractive feature in my garden.


My neighbour has informed me that he wants to rebuild the cottage for use as a granny flat. I am not at all pleased with the prospect of this. Not only would I lose my rather quaint garden feature but possibly a lot of light from my garden. In fairness, he has offered to show me the plans and see if we can reach a compromise, but I am still very uneasy about the idea. Could anyone could tell me if he has the right to turn what is in effect a boundary wall into the wall of a house that would literally be in my garden-and less than ten feet away from my house?
 
AFAIK,
as the wall is a boundary wall you both effectively own half of it, so he would need your permission.
He would also most likely need planning permission to build the granny flat.
 
Does it have a roof. I think that if it does that he will be entitled to planning permission and maybe the best compromise that you could get is to have the window and door on your side removed.
It will not harm to have a look at the plans and see if he is extending and if he intends to close the door and window on your side.
 
Call in a good engineer it will be money well spend in the long run
 
gordongekko said:
Call in a good engineer it will be money well spend in the long run
Click to expand...

I would imagine a planning consultant or an architect may be more useful in this instance.
 
Thanks everyone. The cottage doesn't have a roof, or even the remnants of a roof, just one gable wall. The other has half fallen down. The space inside the walls has long returned to nature. It is full of rockets in May and there's a beautiful 6ft tall 10 ft wide flowering hebe shrub that grew from a cutting my grandmother literally flung in there, when we had use of the cottage half a century ago. This is now trailing out the 'door' into my garden and I though I know I've no rights to it, I'd be sad to see it go.

My neighbour is currently using the property has a holiday home, so I probably won't see him again until the summer, but he has said he will send a copy of the plans to me. As I'm a carer I doubt if I could afford engineers or consultants fees, but I'll contact the planning department and see what they say.
 
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