A MAN has revealed that his neighbour keeps coming into his garden without his permission.
Not only this, but when in his garden, his neighbour hacks away at the brambles and has even put up a new fence.
Keen to open up on the situation, the man took to social media to reveal all.
Posting on Reddit, on the r/LegalAdviceUK thread, the man, who writes under the username @Chris-X-, titled his post ‘Our neighbour keeps coming on to our property to do garden work without permission – is he trespassing?’.
He then questioned: “[My] neighbour keeps coming onto our rental property without permission to do gardening on the borders of our properties due to our poor upkeep. Is it trespassing or does he have a right to do that?”
Eager to share some context on the situation, the dad-of-two, who lives in England in a rental house with “quite a large garden” explained that while he and his partner are responsible for the upkeep of of the garden, they have “struggled with this” as they have two young children, both with diagnosed ADHD and mental health struggles.
He shared: “We have recently made some big efforts in the upkeep and have done a lot of work to it, however we have always struggled particularly with the brambles on the border of the property.
“The letting agents did send gardeners around last year but they didn’t do a great job and they grew back again this year and grew over and through the fence which borders onto our neighbour’s property, which is an external garage where he spends a lot of time doing hobbyist DIY type stuff. There’s also a tree which overhangs onto his property.”
The father then recognised that his neighbour had let himself onto his property and into the garden on numerous occasions.
He continued: “Multiple times over the years he has come onto our (landlord’s) property unannounced and without permission and with dangerous power tools such as chainsaws and hedge trimmers etc. to cut parts of the tree and hack away at the brambles.
“A few months ago he had obviously come onto the property again while we were out, and we found most of the brambles cut back with garden waste and other things moved around our garden, and a now very damaged fence.
“It had probably already been damaged by the brambles, but he obviously just went ahead and pulled the brambles out and a load of the fence slats with it.”
Keen to confront the situation, he added: “I knocked on his door and apologised that we hadn’t taken care of it already, but asked that he speak to us first if he was going to do work like that.
“He got very deflective and said he shouldn’t have had to do the work in the first place.
“I agreed but asked that he still ask for permission first and offered my number.
“He wouldn’t take my number but said he wouldn’t do anything again because it was our responsibility and if he needed to speak to us he would knock.”
We don’t particularly want to go down the legal route with this but clearly he isn’t interested in our concerns and feels entitled to keep doing what he’s doing
Reddit poster
But things didn’t end there, as the Reddit poster continued: “Today my partner was alone with the kids and about to go out into the garden only to find him on our property putting up a fence to replace the damaged one.
“I don’t know if the old fence belongs to him or our landlord, but I’m pretty sure it’s on our property.
“I understand his frustration and feel bad we haven’t taken care of things better, but I feel he should be asking first just in principle, especially if he is using dangerous tools when we have young children.
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“On top of that my partner has terrible anxiety especially about dangers involving injury and especially involving the kids, and his coming on to our property unannounced is affecting her mental health and making her feel unsafe.”
Unsure on what to do, he confessed: “We don’t particularly want to go down the legal route with this but clearly he isn’t interested in our concerns and feels entitled to keep doing what he’s doing.”
Keen for advice, the Reddit poster asked: “So is he trespassing or does he have a right to do what he’s doing because our poor upkeep is affecting his property? What legal action, if any, could we take?”
Reddit users were stunned by the man’s post and quickly flocked to the comments, eager to share their thoughts and advice.
One person said: “Your own legal options are very limited as you are a tenant. Your first contact should be the landlord, as they are the property owner.
This sounds very frustrating, and a difficult situation to deal with
Reddit user
“Their first interest would be in maintaining property rights and ensuring your tenancy is not adversely affected.
“The landlord would not appreciate you starting a boundary dispute and you should take the landlord’s lead.”
Another added: “This sounds very frustrating, and a difficult situation to deal with.
“Legally speaking, your neighbour is trespassing, which is a civil issue so the police will not be interested. In theory he might be damaging your property (as he’s working on the brambles etc) but in practice these are weeds – so he’s not damaging anything of value.
“On the other side, you have a legal responsibility regarding the plants in the garden, as if they damage a neighbour’s property, you could be held responsible. But neighbours are also legally able to cut back anything which comes over their property line.”
Meanwhile, someone else advised: “I’d suggest writing a letter and putting it through your neighbour’s door, explaining in a bit more detail why you don’t want him to come into your garden.”
