Overhanging Extension

RhinoG

Hi all.

First of all my apologies if I seem a bit unsure of myself. This is my first posting. 2 years ago we were looking for a property to buy.(Height of the Celtic tiger, booming house proces etc) We were invited to look at 3 bed semi and to see if we were interested. The house was lovely, immaculate and in a lovely neighbourhood. The owners of the house also owned the other 3 bed semi beside ours. They told us they were building an extension and a wall alongside. We agreed a price and we paid our 10% percent deposit to the Solicitor. However it came to our attention that the extension they built overhung into our property and that the extension was now part of the boundary wall. Our Solicitor told us that we would lose our deposit if we pulled out the sale. We said we culdn't afford to lose our deposit so we agreed to stay in the sale and we did really love the house anyway.
However, we now wish to extend our property. We have only half of a boundary wall and an overhanging roof to deal with.

What are our options. ? ..Can we ask for the roof to be removed ?..Can we ask for the extension to be knocked and re-built inside a newly constructed complete boundary wall ? Can we use the extension as our boundary wall and as a wall for our planned extension ?...Have we any options exept just to accept the situation ?..Can we ask for financial compensation ?

Thanks for all your help

smashey

You should start by speaking to your neighbours.

Maybe tie in to their roof with a valley gutter and use their existing wall as one of yours.

Mellor

There are other "passive" options that will allow you to bult this without affecting them. Such as rebuilding the roof, a parapet, steping back 300mm etc
Speak to them first

sydthebeat

as the others have said, maybe get the extension designed to tie into the existing wall and roof... therefore you will not loose valuable floor area in building a separate external wall.... engage a good architect!!

turn what appears to be a problem into a positive.

RhinoG

I'm sorry if I gave the impression I was looking for a more aggressive kind of answer. That wasn't my intention at all. As I said I'm a virgin poster to these threads and I'll need to be a bit more careful in wording my future postings. I will of course look for the path of least difficulty but I was just trying to get a feel for all of my options.

Again thanks for all your help

muffler

RhinoG wrote: »

I will of course look for the path of least difficulty but I was just trying to get a feel for all of my options.

That is indeed your best approach to start with anyhow.

Just a reminder that we wont be able to help with any of th legalities of the situation should it arise. Any mention of that will lead to the thread being locked.

Keep us posted as to how you get on with it.

ircoha

OP: follow the good advice given above and go softly softly if at all possible.

It would be useful if u could post a few pics of what the overhang etc looks like and how it ties into the boubndary wall.

For example, iff, they replaced the boundary wall with the extension wall, then you can build right up to it as it is yours.
The pics will also help with where they built their foundations.

while not tempting to exhaust Muffler's patience re 'legal' type comments, it is my opinion, based on a case I recently was involved in, that they MAY have a problem in so far as they MAY need your consent to sell their house as their extension overhangs your property, UNLESS as being the previous owners they altered the site map to take enough of your garden to include the extension. You may want to check the site map as attached to your title deeds.
I am not giving any advice here, just expressing an opinion, if the discussions go pear shaped, you may want to get advice on the overhang.