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Subsidence affecting a shared rear garden wall

  • 07-02-2013 10:06pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,622 ✭✭✭✭


    Hypothetical scenario involving a shared rear garden wall and potential subsidence.

    House A is next door to House B, there is a shared wall between them though the houses themselves do not adjoin. The houses are built on a hill and House A is about 6 feet above House B so in the back garden of House A the wall between the two houses is about 6 feet tall and the same wall is 12 feet high when viewed from the back garden of House B.

    The householder in House A notices a small crack near the ground in the separating wall, it's not too big a crack and if the two houses were at the same level he'd probably ignore it but taking the drop into House B into account, there's potentially a risk of the wall collapsing given that it's shoring up the six foot difference between the two back gardens i.e. pressure from House A's back garden could potentially knock the wall causing it and a large amount of earth and rubble to fall into the back garden of House B.

    In the event that a civil engineer states that remedial work is required to stop the wall collapsing, can Householder A force Householder B to share the cost of such work?

    If Householder A does nothing and the wall collapses, does Householder A bear any civil liability?


Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,332 ✭✭✭valleyoftheunos


    Rylands v fletcher lives!:D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,632 ✭✭✭NoQuarter


    Rylands v fletcher lives!:D

    More likely nuisance or trespass. Couldnt argue that the wall that fell in was for a non natural use to satisfy the rylands rule.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,345 ✭✭✭NUTLEY BOY


    The first issue to define is actual legal ownership of the wall.
    If it is a boundary wall one party only owns it and carries primary responsibility for it.
    If it is a party wall responsibility is shared.
    "Shared walls" are not always what they might appear to be !


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 78,580 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    Rylands v fletcher lives!:D
    Not so fast. While the person in the upper house can't raise the level of the ground to the detriment of the person in the lower house, neither can the person in the lower house can't raise the level of the ground to the detriment of the person in the upper house. We don't know which is the case.

    More interestingly, it is quite possible that both houses were built about the same time and the builder built the wall. The builder may be liable. However, how long has passed since the builder built the houses? Possibly a long time and he no longer has any responsibility.


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