Boundary Wall - Neighbour's Laundry Encroaching by 20cm

Li like coffee on 02/02/2021 - 10:49
Last edited 06/02/2021 - 00:13

We purchased our home in Melbourne approximately 2 years ago and we are currently planning to renovate. We paid for a detailed land survey because we are planning to build a garage on the boundary of the property and wanted to ensure the designs are accurate. The survey results informed us that:

  • Our neighbour on the side has a brick wall that is encroaching our property by approximately 20cm x 5m (length) x 10cm
  • The shared front fence is slightly encroaching our neighbours by 5cm

The previous owner appears to have buil a detached laundry that is attached to the brick wall. The wall itself may be older than 15 years old.

The previous owner sold the property approximately 6 months ago (before we knew about the encroachment).

My preference is to correct the misalignment of boundaries during our renovation, so that it is fair for all parties involved. However I realise that this create stress for our neighbours who have recently purchased and may not know that they are encroaching our land.

My reason for this is because:

  • land in inner city Melbourne is very scarce and losing 20cm of width in our future garage would be a noticeable difference.
  • we are planning to build a garage wall on the boundary of the property and the neighbours laundry could be supported by this stronger structure instead of the brick wall
  • our garage boundary wall may result in some cracking of plaster of the neighbours laundry, as the previous owner mentioned the soil of their property is quite volatile and can move throughout the year. So the laundry may need repairing anyway.
  • the neighbours property is comprised of many detached structures and they may plan to renovate sometime in the near future.

My concerns are:

  • Proposing that the encroachment be corrected may result in a bad relationship with neighbours. Some people believe "finders keepers" and others continuously try to increase their land size by stretching fence boundaries.
  • The wall is potentially over 15 years old, which may open the possibility of the neighbours believing they have a right to claim adverse possession. The legal advice I received before purchasing property was that adverse possession is incredibly difficult to claim for partial encroachment of land and very expensive.
  • I estimate the current value of the land to be ~200 smashed avos on toast (based on sale price / land size * encroachment area). The cost of a land surveyor for the neighbours could be $1000-3000, depending on the level of detail they require. The cost to detach the laundry, remove the wall and reattach to our new wall could easily exceed this.
  • Doing nothing and changing our boundary wall to build around this 5m encroachment would create a weird internal bracing that may result in reduced strength of the overall structure. If we shift the entire length of the proposed garage wall we would lose 21m x 20cm = 4-5sqm, which is a lot and increases the value of land lost to ~1000 smashed avos on toast.

I've received very mixed advice from friends/colleagues/family and wanted to ask the advice of the OzBargain community. The survey options are based on the responses I've received but I've tried to include diverse options.

Poll options.

  • The neighbours are encroaching and it's their responsibility to fix the issue. They should pay to either demolish the structure or rebuild their structure on the correct boundary line.
  • We are the party that want the encroachment corrected, we should pay for the cost to correct this.
  • The cost should be shared. We are being generous to allow the neighbour to attach their laundry structure to the proposed new wall of our new garage. They could save money using the same builders.
  • The boundary should be disputed. The wall could be over 15 years old and the neighbours should pay expensive lawyers to attempt to claim adverse possession.
  • Encroachment issues are too complicated. We should forget about the lost land and design our new structure a distance away, even if we lose 5sqm.
  • We should sell this 5sqm of lost land to the neighbour, approximately ~1000 smashed avos on toast.
  • Another option that hasn't been proposed - leave a comment.

UPDATE:
Some users requested an image to understand the scenario. Below is a link to a quick sketch that I uploaded. Hopefully the scenario makes more sense now.
http://imgur.com/a/nYOmNCs

Poll Options

  • 82
    The neighbours are encroaching and it's their responsibility to fix the issue.
  • 6
    We want to fix encroachment - we should pay for the cost to correct this.
  • 67
    Share cost. Allow neighbour to attach laundry to new boundary wall.
  • 2
    Neighbours should attempt to claim adverse possession.
  • 3
    Lose 5sqm - encroachment issues are too complicated.
  • 3
    Sell 5sqm of lost land to the neighbour, approximately $17k.
  • 2
    Another option that hasn't been proposed - leave a comment.
Home & Garden

Comments

  • payless69 on 04/02/2021 - 15:09

    Bikies!!
    There was a story I think on 60 minutes long time ago with the owner losing his land when he was going to renovate the bathroom for his disabillity and the neighbour had enchroached.

  • Logical on 07/02/2021 - 23:38
    -1

    It is just the neighbours illegal laundry extension that most likely had no drawings, no building permission, no survey etc etc…. Give notice to the neighbour to rectify within 30 days or your builder will knock the wall down when clearing your land. The neighbour should have had a conveyance done on the property during the sale and that should have picked up what is approved building work and what is not…. in which case they most likely knew about it during the sale. They can sue their conveyancor if they want to. Proceed with your garage build as per your plans.

    • TheBooleanOne on 08/02/2021 - 07:49

      Wow, going nuclear from the start. I'd hate to be your neighbour.

      • Logical on 08/02/2021 - 12:18
        -1

        Nuclear to you with a 30 days notice? interesting….. I thought quite reasonable as I wouldn't want this to drag on and on… meanwhile OP can't build a garage on his own land?

    • i like coffee on 08/02/2021 - 14:44

      It's worth mentioning that this is a problem that both (new) owners have inherited.

      Shown in the picture in the OP, the laundry is a lean-to that was likely attached to the brick wall 15+ years ago when planning applications weren't required for small structures. My assumption is that the brick wall was from a garage that was on our land, as the bricks used on the side of the laundry are different to the wall, however I need to investigate this more. So I'm unsure who owns the wall.. only that it was left on our land and remains to provide support for the lean-to laundry.

      Conveyancing would have definitely identified which structures are unplanned and people are usually advised to purchase Title Insurance during the process, so I hope that my neighbours aren't in for a shock. However, I'd be annoyed if someone only gave me 30 days notice to fix something like this as it's a problem inherited by both parties.

      I certainly hope that this doesn't go down the path of involving lawyers.. we've all seen the high costs they charge for the little value they actually create. However I'd prefer not to start an argument on this topic.

      As I've said a few times before, I'd like to have an amicable relationship with my neighbours. So I'm going to spend time understanding how this impacts them and work together on the solution.

      • Logical on 08/02/2021 - 19:10
        -1

        Your call at the end of the day and consequences that go with it. Eg squatters rights etc. The longer it drags on the tougher it may get. I would have thought that in your case the land is precious… every M2…. If however you were on an acreage then different story.

        • i like coffee on 08/02/2021 - 20:32

          I would have thought that in your case the land is precious… every M2…

          Correct, land is definitely precious in inner Melbourne. We'd definitely notice loss of 1sqm as our land size isn't that large - definitely not an acreage.

  • MJi on 09/02/2021 - 16:23

    What if keep the wall and leave the laundry alone, and just remove/adjust the fences and then build your new garage around the wall?

    • Logical on 09/02/2021 - 17:53

      Why would one do that when land is scarce?

      • MJi on 09/02/2021 - 18:40

        I mean using the existing wall as part of the garage wall is what I was trying to say. So you don't have to deal with the wall and laundry issue.

        • i like coffee on 09/02/2021 - 20:22

          Trying to combine the existing wall with the wall of the garage structure, rather than building around it (that I described below) is going to result in a very weak structure. The existing wall has a separate foundation and will move over time putting stress on the new wall structure. It's a suboptimal solution and going to cause additional problems down the line.

    • i like coffee on 09/02/2021 - 20:06

      My concern with leaving the wall in place, additional to the loss of scarce land, is that it will weaken the garage structure being built. In order to compensate for this encroaching structure additional bracing would be needed internally that would take up precious space in an already narrow garage.

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