When Building An Extension

[phleb]

How much gap are you legally required to leave between your extension and the neighbours house? i.e neighbour is doing a dormitory attic, and he has only left 20cm gap between my house and the dormitory, my question is what if i want a attic done in the future, i would have no space to work, would i?. thanks

[Old_Geezer]

One can have a party wall is it passes the planning dept.

Sore point for me. I had a replacement single story extension built at my old place, and I was told I could NOT have it on the boundary for various reasons: I seem to recall needing to maintain it being one. Then years later a neighbour put in plans to have theirs up to the boundary, which was passed. Sauce for the goose was not sauce for the gander !

Beware also. A sibling was left a house by a relative, and the relative had not complained when some of their back garden, just over the boundary was utilised by some temporary thing of their neighbours. (I don't recall the details.) A while after my sibling had become the owner, the house next door was sold to a builder who had the $£^%^"$^ cheek to extend their kitchen out onto my siblings property. They complained only to find the law didn't give a damn that there was an theft/intrusion. The dead relative's good neighbourliness not to cause a fuss (they were probably too unwell to bother) meant that the builder could now ignore the theft of my sibling's patio, and my sibling has to just lump it; and agree and pay for a new agreement to be set up stating that the neighbour can have her land and she can't do anything about it. It's clearly hers, the neighbours' kitchen extension overlaps the edge of her kitchen (the houses' party wall) markedly. So beware and do whatever protest you need to do ASAP before the authority scum sides with the bad guy.

[Dogsbody2]

The short answer is that the neighbour can build up the centre line between the two houses (probably - but see caveats below).

I assume this is semi- or terraced house and the neighbour is building front/back dormers into the existing sloping roof that extend to the full width of his property?

If that is the case, then he can do what he likes, provided he does not build on top of the party wall - that is the one or two brick width structure that runs up the whole height of the structure and that forms the link between your house and his. Since you say he is building 20cm short of the centre line, it seems he is not building on top of the existing party wall. Furthermore, 20cm probably gives him enough width to put guttering on the sides of the new dormers - if the dormer roofs slope that way (side to side). The guttering should not extend over the centre line, but it can be over the top of where the party wall lies - because the guttering is not attached to the party wall.

Yes it is true that you would then have no space to work (if you wanted to build a similar structure later), so you would be move your dormer back to give you necessary room to build. Yes it is also true that he cannot probably build his structure without impinging into the air space above your roof - which technically he isn't permitted to do without formal permission (using a court order under the Access to Neighbouring Land Act 1992). But it is going to be pretty difficult to catch his builders informally doing it and stopping him.