Owning your own home

The tower has been privately owned since 2005 and was reportedly sold to a new owner in 2014 for £400,000.

Lockdown fever adds the additional £1,600,000 presumably

The description;

The property is of course in need of complete renovation but could be transformed into almost anything (STPP) - a private residence, an off shore hotel, a houseboat community, outdoor pursuit center, film location, nightclub, casino to name a few!

After some advice.

We own the wall on our north boundary. The adjacent land is higher by at least 1m at the front tapering off slightly.

The first section of the wall is single course brick + concrete posts then there is a section where it's got a ropey wood fence, then a gap, then the line of concrete posts starts again with panel fencing in between.

Our neighbours have put in a concrete base for an outdoor storage unit at some point (no idea when). The base butts up against our outhouse. There looks to be some sort of DCM where it touches the outhouse, but combined with the soil build up from the garden on their side means that damp comes straight through.

The attached rough diagram isn't perfectly to scale, but gives a fair idea of how the wall runs.

Ideally I'd like to clear out the ground around the outhouse on their side, put some sort of drainage down plus a small wall to stop water running off the garden up against the outhouse. This would almost definitely mean their concrete base being cut up, plus I'd need access from their garden.

At some point we're going to have the wood fence replaced with a matching brick wall, so that would be the time to do anything.

My questions are these

1. Without getting overly territorial about it, are there any issues with waiting till then? And could they effectively annex the land?
   
2. Do we have the right to access their garden to carry out works?
   
3. What happens if damage is caused to things like their concrete base, plants, or their patio as a result of removing the fence which is holding up all of the hardcore underneath? Thinking especially of things like the base that straddles onto what I believe is our land.
   
4. Any general suggestions on how to handle it?
   
   

Cheers.

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You'll get it for 1.5 i reckon

Have you used them? Quote for me is coming out at £2.9k

Ha, I cut a film that was shot in that. I reckon you'd be lucky to get much change out of that 86 mil.

And could they effectively annex the land?

By building on it, they kinda have done. Cheeky fuckers! If you want it gone, I guess the first call is the document that describes the location of the boundary.

Twice.

And I found them to be diligent, pedantic, and with a great process I could follow easily.

They weren't without hiccups, but I appreciate any insight as to what the hell they're doing (you get a website with every doc you need), and like that because it's a team that nothing slowed when people went on vacation (it just gets handed over temporarily to someone else who knows exactly what is happening because the system is unified)

And you get 1 photo of a £2m property.

It bet viewings are a right pain in the arse for the agents.

I'll have a look, but from memory it's a bit vague and shit quality. The annoying thing is idk if it was done when they had their extension done when we first moved in, or while we were living in the States.

If you look at the line of the fence it's really clear imo. Also on the first brick section they still have a fence on their side where their entrance gate is.

We're your documents all scanned in or something? Original lease paperwork and the like?

Our place is now officially listed.

They provided everything as scans or original digital documents... the entire thing was digital and easy to track.

Also made it very easy to just store everything in Google Docs, so later I'll have the same docs to answer a lot of future enquiries at time of sale, etc.

So all the originals I hold for the place we're selli g would need to be scanned in by me or could I send it across to them as a pack, do you think?

I'll just email them, and stop doing a Dammit

I still hold the hard copy documents for the place I sold.

I sent scans over to my solicitor who sent them on to the buyer and no one asked for anything more.

the document that describes the location of the boundary.

As I remembered, not overly clear. The North and NW boundaries are our responsibility. I guess the numbers show the width just behind the house as 27ft 6"? Which means measuring it should confirm if I'm right?

Their old outhouse has obviously been removed at some point to make room for their extension.

Interestingly where it would have been would have blocked them looking into our kitchen when standing in their garden, which they can now do.

Looking at the docs reminded me that the sellers bought our house from the council for £12,600.

As I remembered, not overly clear.

Christ, if you think that's bad you should see some of the conveyances I've had to advise on or argue over. You have measurements! Actual legible measurements!

These are ours, the measurements are in the deeds but don't describe the cut out on the south east corner. We asked our lawyer about this and she basically said it's been like this since 1919 so I wouldn't bother arguing with your neighbours.

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The diagrams from the council bought RTB stuff is probably going to be quite good as they are typically 'modern'.

I guess in your situation I would tell them that you are going to reinstate the wall along the boundary then I would gather the evidence I would think I need to convince them that it will mean changes on their side because they've crossed the boundary.

It's going to be a bloody awkward conversation, but probably not as awkward should it be left until you go to sell the house only to find surveyors and solicitors flagging it up as a dispute in waiting.

Reckon there are some people in London who would just re-instate the wall without even consulting, taking up and destroying whatever they deemed to have been on their boundary.

Thank you! We really like the area, buying on Kemble Rd

Any forum recommendations for a surveyor for Surbiton? Looking for a level 2 RICS homebuyer report...

Ours is delightfully abstract.

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I've found the description. Written in 1866, our house backs on to 'his workshop' which has long since gone and is now a housing association building from the 60s I guess.

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Has anyone ever had a removals company go in and box up the contents of your house, while you weren’t there?

Assuming everything keeps going as it is, we’ll need to empty the remaining contents of our house (already put the more expensive stuff in storage), and as I’m currently in Ireland I’d rather not have to travel if I don’t absolutely need to.