Rights in case of neighbouring extensions and private walls

Questioner

We have a former residential corner house. We bought that a few years ago. This block consists of 4 houses, all purchased. Now our neighbours think that their terraced house is too small for them and want to extend it at the rear. The residents themselves did not tell us this but had the father of the neighbor pay for a conversation. According to us, this is not right. The father stated that he wanted to attach an extension to our private wall and remove our gutter to build it as close as possible to our private wall and use it as a living room wall for the neighbors. Now we have directly indicated to this father that we absolutely do not want an extension to our private wall and that we do not want drilling and nailing in our wall. And he must keep his hands off the gutter. We have completely renovated our house and we have no cracks or leaks anywhere and we would like to keep it that way. We have also heard that if we give permission it will become a shared wall in which he can put beams. We never, ever give permission for that. What are our rights? and if he builds an extension on his own land how much space should he keep between our private wall and his extension? We will therefore never be able to perform maintenance on this again if a leak or something similar were to ever occur. Please advise.

Lawyer

If your wall is entirely on your own land, the neighbours will not be allowed to drill into it. This is different if the wall is in the middle of the property boundary. In that case, it is common property and the neighbours are allowed to 'beam', drill etc. halfway into the wall. If the neighbours build the extension on their own land, they may build directly against your wall (if it is against the property boundary). However, joint measures will have to be taken to prevent pollution of the cavity that will then occur.

Questioner

Our shed/storage/utility room is a permanent part of our home. All homes have this shed/storage/utility room attached to their house. Every shed/storage/utility room of these former housing estates has that. And each is on its own land, also there is only a 1 brick wall without cavity. so it does not seem desirable if the neighbors start beaming in our shed. The damage alone. The houses are from 1966 and from that time on each have a gutter, so we do too. That was installed before we bought it by the then housing association, first in 1966 and in 1999 when we bought it, the housing association did this again with a beautiful aluminum gutter. We want to keep this gutter so it is on our private wall. Can you give a reaction to that?

Lawyer

The neighbours will then not be allowed to drill/saw/mill into your wall. However, they are allowed to build their own wall against your wall. I don't quite understand the situation with the gutter, you can email me directly with a sketch of the situation, then I can also advise you on this point.