Legal Assistance with Neighbour Disputes | Legal Aid Centre

Questioner

I would like to draw your attention to the following: Since July 2016, next to our house on the vacant lot, the future neighbor is busy building a house (a house with 10 apartments + annex as a garage). This house is in line with our house at a distance of approximately 3.5 meters with 5 apartments (ground floor) with French doors and side windows and with 5 apartments on the 1st and 2nd floor with a number of windows, what is noticeable is that the foundation is quite high! This is compared to our side door threshold approximately 25…cm higher. The existing property boundary of approximately 1.80 m high is therefore not sufficient to guarantee our privacy. And to completely raise our side with soil is not possible because our windows reach the height of the door threshold. - Ask what can we do to ensure our privacy? - Do we have to raise our garden at our own expense because of this difference? - Who is responsible for the costs of any adjustments to the property boundary? Our garden slopes down a bit behind the house, now the neighbor is building garages in line with our garden and has raised the ground so much (110 cm) that he indicates it is level with the house. Now the yard boundary from our garden is about 1.80 meters high (heras fence with beech hedge in front). As we can see, the garages do have their own rainwater drain and planks have been placed against his side of our yard boundary so that when making the foundation, not all the sand and concrete would end up in our garden. This foundation is now so high that when people walk on it, the top of the yard boundary comes to their waist because of the height of the foundation. When these garages are finished, we will look out of our garden at a wall that is more than 3.5 meters high! The rest of the garden (shared garden for the future residents) will also be raised to the height of the foundation as soon as construction is finished. In addition, I am worried about all the rainwater from the neighbor's garden, even though the garage has its own drain. The neighbor also indicated that there is now a considerable difference in the height of the gardens and indicated that we should raise the garden. I do not believe that this can be the intention. We are not against raising our garden, but certainly not at our expense, our garden has been adapted to the current height of paving, etc. - Ask what can we do to ensure our privacy? - Do we have to raise the garden at our own expense or can the municipality do something about this? - Isn't the height of the outbuilding (the garage) much too high from our garden?

Lawyer

I assume that no objection/appeal is possible against the environmental permit(s) that your neighbour must have obtained for his activities, so my answer to your questions focuses on the aspect of neighbour law. On the basis of the provisions of Article 5:49 of the Civil Code, you can require your neighbour to cooperate and pay for a 2-metre high dividing wall. Furthermore, your neighbor may not have windows, wall openings or balconies with a direct view of your property within 2 meters of the property boundary, see article 5:50 of the Civil Code. Your neighbour must ensure that the natural drainage does not cause any nuisance to you (5:39 BW) and that the drainage of the buildings runs entirely via his plot (5:52 BW).

Questioner

Ir/Madam, Now it appears that the neighbor built the house and garage too high after measurements by the municipality (so not according to the building permit). What can we do now?

Lawyer

You can request the municipality to enforce. This means that the municipality will then write to your neighbour to bring the height of the building into line with the building permit granted. In principle, the municipality is obliged to do this and, if necessary, to force the neighbours to do so by imposing penalty payments. Please note that the neighbour may attempt to 'legalise' the violation by applying for a new building permit for the building as it was actually constructed. If the building as it stands now does not conflict with the regulations of the zoning plan, the municipality must grant that permit and your chances of any objection you may have to the permit being successful are slim.