Our neighbour's architect has sent us a Protection Work Notice and house extension plans which refer to a Protection Screen that will be necessary for the construction of a room that will be built to our jount boundary line.
Unfortunately the Protection Screen is drawn 1m x 6m into our property and we have a mature 3 - 4m high hedge along our side of the current fence. We can't see how they won't have to remove the trees to allow room to do the brick work. We, of course, don't want this as they are over 30 years old. (But not "signficant" in size by council rules.) We don't care if our side of the wall is left unrendered because it would be screened by our trees.
The Time & Duration given is 20 weeks, which seems excessive given the fact that the wall will be about 3m long and the room won't take that long to complete. We are concerned that the builder will use our land for months ferrying materials and equipment to the rear of the property where a major extension is planned.
Another major sticking point is that from this point on until the issue is settled and/or the neighbour's renovations completed we cannot plan to do anything to our garden where the safety fence may be placed.
As adjoining owners what can we reasonably object to? We don't mind the wall on the boundary but we don't want to be held hostage for 20 weeks while our neighbour uses our land, particularly as it is immediately in front of our front entrance, main bedroom window and affects access both to the rear of our property and the turning area for our vehicles in front of our garage. Not to mention our drainage pipes, garden edging and drive pavers.
We may be prepared to negotiate a smaller time window and the replacement of the trees with ones the same size but while we will respond to the Notice with a request for more information we really would like to say no right now just because it seem so unreasonable.
I would be interested to hear people's experiences they've had from both sides of this issue. We would like to help but not to the extent of 5 months of inconvenience, damaged trees and property and the use of our land as a builder's thoroughfare.