Neighbor intentionally evading attempts to get access agreement
Can anyone share their experience/suggestions for dealing with difficult neighbors stonewalling your construction project? We’re gut renovating a townhouse and have made very little progress in attempting to get an access agreement with one of our neighbors (we need to protect their roof and do some minor water proofing on a shared wall that they insist they own entirely). Months of emails have been met with cycles of silence, aggressive outbursts, and at best snail-paced progress.
We’re reaching the point where we’re need to start going to court to keep the project on schedule, but even then I’m concerned they could just choose to ignore a court-decided access agreement.
rarara
in General Discussion 5 years ago
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12 replies
workisfun | 4 years and 11 months ago
Our front wall is 2/3 brown and 1/3 raw cement, thanks to them. And on top of all the $ they owe us, they owe our lawyer about $8k. Our contract stipulated that if they breach the contract, they are on the hook for our legal fees incurred to call them on the breach.
burpgun | 4 years and 11 months ago
What you want to do appears fairly modest and suing to get it done might not be financially practical. Perhaps you can start by making it clear you’ll pay for the access, and clearly state your plans before even getting lawyers involved. Compensating them for their disruption and making sure they’re confident they won’t get screwed over could go a long way in achieving you goals.
rarara | 4 years and 11 months ago
I certainly 1000% sympathize with how dreadful it is to have to live next to construction. But they did this years ago to their neighbors, and now we’re doing it. It’s how the wheel turns. One day I’m sure we’ll be disgruntled with their successors’ construction. But we have a right to build, and I’m not sure what they have to gain by being obstructionist. They’ve even brought up they will need access to our house every year for maintenance. Why would we be receptive to that after they’ve acted this way?
We’ve been exceedingly polite from the very beginning. Still are, in fact, despite their repeated threats to sue us for… existing? It seems like whichever end you’re on, the ruder party wins.
burpgun | 4 years and 11 months ago
To keep from getting screwed over, I believe our neighbors were required to put much of the money they planned to pay us in escrow, but they tried a few hard ball things to get out of paying for stuff, which required us to twist the screws back on them. So much nastier than it needed to be. In the end, they never did pay the required landscaping fee for trashing our garden, but the “good” project manager made some stuff right that he wasn’t required to do, so there was that. By the end of it, our lawyer was most angry at them, if you can believe that.
workisfun | 4 years and 11 months ago
I was also on the imposed side of things. Neighbor turned a 3 fam house into an 8 unit apt. Just trust us they kept saying. Whatever, we had our lawyer hammer out an agreement with theirs. They had to erect scaffolding in our side yard – our only access to our backyard, laundry, and garage, other than the street gate at the end of the block. My partner was about eight months pregnant. We included a per diem penalty if the they ran over the projected 90 days. After about 210 days, including damage to our roof and a cement spill into our storm water drain, they finally took away the scaffolding. And stiffed us. With a toddler and infant, we were cut off from our own garage, yard, laundry, etc., and they just dared us to sue. After both lawyers wrote the contract, they stiffed us. Our lawyer was not surprised.
As owners trying to gain access to your neighbor, be as reassuring and cooperative as possible. We have no recourse and I’m not totally sure how to prevent it next time.
burpgun | 4 years and 11 months ago
I’ve been on the other side of this and it was very unpleasant. Building next to mine got gutted and expanded both up and out. It took them more than a year to finish.They started work without permits, had random folks jumping on our roof, dropped bricks through our glass skylight several times, caved our back fence in digging out their back yard. They needed access, we understood the law and their ability to have it as long as we got compensated. We got a lawyer and engaged them quickly at every step, and they still threatened to sue if their constantly changing demands weren’t met within hours, and the workers were completely careless anyway. It was only after they got two full stop work orders and a new manager came on that things improved, but those guys tried to cheat at whatever they could cheat at. By any measure we were acting responsively on our end! I suppose the general lesson I offer here is that if you are the one seeking access, be as polite as you can, and be prepared to pay, and make it clear you will do that. That might help move things along.
yudashasom | 4 years and 11 months ago
Bed Stuy or Crown Heights? Money talks.
BKALLDAY | 4 years and 11 months ago
My mom is going through the same thing. Her neighbor who is a realtor told her they cannot block her from doing her work especially since she is trying to safeguard their property by putting up some splatter drapes. She is going to have to get the DoB to step in and once the permits are issued I don’t think the neighbors can do much but become more bitter.
GreenThinker | 5 years ago
I worked on a site with a similar situation. In regards to the roof protection, they cantilevered a 5 foot deck at a 45 degree angle from their property. You just need to have an engineer draw up the plans for it, and change the site safety plan to note it. And as for the waterproofing, if you can do from your property without stepping onto there’s, then it’s not a issue either. Lots of contractors in these situations just continue on with work and hope for the best. They also get alerts if anyone phones into the dob, which gives them time to clean everything up by the time the inspector shows up.
Guest User | 5 years ago
Rarara with you 100%. Polite conversation works only with reasonable people. I had the same issue where they would act co-operative and then do a complete about face later. I am going to suggest mediation since you already have a lawyer. Sometimes a different lawyer might also might make a difference. Mine did not help the situation with my neighbors…
rarara | 5 years ago
Oh we’ve tried the polite in-person discussion route, keeping in mind that fact that we’ll be living next to each other. They’ll usually act cooperative to us in person, and will turn around that same night and send our architect/lawyer nasty, occasionally incoherent emails.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 5 years ago
Might not a polite, non-confrontational, in-person discussion work better than emails? If not, I guess you’d have to resort to a lawyer’s letter (via snail mail) and the courts if that fails. Do remember that you’re going to be living next to these people.