Our tips for defusing conflicts between neighbours in the face of a dispute, the administrative

Your neighbor has the trowel easy, it encroaches on your land or its trees spread out on your lawn ? In the Face of these situations, the most common sources of quarrels, our advice is to react the right way at the right time.

That said neighbor, said walls and gardens adjoining, trees encroaching on your land, work that could compromise the security of your property, or the simple enjoyment of satisfactory conditions. On these subjects, which concern the right of property, the conflicts turn easily into a shouting match. To avoid any physical confrontation, it's better to know what ought to be done upstream.

1 - The encroachments on your property

It is often when your neighbor is planning to close its property and you will see that there is a risk of biting on your field. Before you go on your high horse, your neighbor has the right to terminate at any time (article 647 of the civil Code), you must consider two solutions.

The first is to achieve an amicable demarcation, carried out by a surveyor-expert, who fixed the boundaries separating the respective properties. You will share the costs, will be asked to sign a single procès-verbal of demarcation and choose together the notary in charge of the advertising of land. If your neighbor refuses, on the other hand, the second solution is to enter the court of the place of location of your land, which diligentera the operation. In both cases, it will be easier to challenge the fence (wall, fence, hedges, shrubs) to your neighbor and get moving.

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A tip : don't do it yourself its destruction or its deterioration. Such an act is punishable by criminal penalties of up to two years in prison and a 30 000 euros fine (article 322-1 of the criminal Code).

If the building does not yet exist, rather than to oppose yourself to your neighbor, offer to build a dividing wall that you will be up to both of them. Each of the co-owners must contribute to expenses of building, maintenance or renovation. But you can be sure, due to the possible intervention of a surveyor, that the definition of each field is respected.

2 - The planting of invasive

The nature is nice and all, but it can be particularly invasive, especially when it comes to the trees of the neighbor, whose branches or roots encroach on your property. The rules, however, are specific and defined by article 671 of the civil Code. The trees and shrubs of a height greater than two metres should be planted at least two metres from the neighbouring property and the plantings of a lower height, to be distant at least fifty centimeters. If these distances are not compliant, you can require the pruning or uprooting of the tree but you don't have the right to perform these tasks.

In certain circumstances, the owner of the trees will be able to oppose it, especially if the tree has exceeded for more than thirty years the height permitted without objection on your part, if it was planted, so that the two plots of land forming a single property or even, in some municipalities, if the object of the dispute has been classified as "noteworthy trees" because of his seniority.

But often, the spaces are respected, and the branches and roots are invading yet your garden or attack your home. You are then entitled to pruning, but not the grubbing-up, the judge speaking in a function of the inconvenience.

In the meantime, if the branches of a fruit tree continue to occupy your garden, you will have food to comfort you. According to the law of property, the fruits that fall down belong to you, and you can pick them up without the owner of the apple tree, pear tree or the walnut tree can claim.

3 - buildings and works add-on crash

Your neighbor has the trowel easy. It raises the height of his house or shade-bearing walls. You have a voice in the chapter. In co-ownership, the work which is likely to compromise the solidity of the building are subject to approval of the general assembly. If your neighbor passes addition, the trustee shall require the surrender in the initial state. For the designs of wet rooms, no authorization is required. But you need to ask the neighbour to establish at its expense a bailiff reports in your apartment before the beginning of its work. This is one use, therefore, it can refuse. The slightest incident (water leaks, cracks), you will engage his liability if he proves easily the link between your damage and the works.

For those who live in a house, the action may take two forms. You can challenge the validity of the permit before the administrative tribunal, demonstrating that he has been issued pursuant to an unlawful procedure, or that the construction is not in accordance with the rules of town planning or to the local documents of town planning. But its cancellation is not guaranteed.

In effect, a permit is not illegal, the mere fact that the new building disrupts your daily life or offends your idea of good taste. Then there must be a civil action before the tribunal de grande instance, only use when the construction of the neighbor violates your rights private (wall of the extension encroaching on your land) or causes of a disorder, abnormal neighbourhood (terrace directly on your bathroom, boiler room noise hell built the length of your wall). In these situations, the judge will give you damages and will require the execution of works (installation of panels, blurring, noise isolation). But if the frame is a comforrme at a legal permit, you don't get the destruction. It will take you to get used to live close to !

4 - The genoa caused by a new building

The buildings made by a neighbor, even if they are authorized by a building permit legally indisputable, can be in three areas a nuisance detrimental to the enjoyment of your property.

- The view. By the sea or to the mountain, a construction that can deprive you of a view called impregnable by the real estate agents. Then there is disorder abnormal neighbourhood. But in an area strongly urbanized subject to a big pressure on real estate, you will not necessarily win the case. The judgments ordering the destruction, or changes are rare (this would be the case of a pigeon-house built by the neighbor just in front of the terrace of the petitioner overlooking the gulf of Saint-Tropez). On the other hand, the obtaining of damages is frequent.

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nuisance

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- The television. If, since the construction of the nearby building, its elevation, or the construction of a wall, you will no longer receive the television, do not despair. The law requires the builder to perform at its expense a facility for receiving or rebroadcasting own to assure you of the conditions of satisfactory reception. Simply speak to the superior Council of audiovisual (CSA) which will remain your neighbour to carry out the work. If he refuses to run, the CSA will bring the case before the tribunal de grande instance, which would oblige under penalty of a fine to do so.

- The sun. As for the view, a building, you may not be partially or fully sun. Again, in dense urban area, you'll be hard-pressed to question the complex or the possible elevation of the house of your neighbors. But damages are almost always awarded to the complainants. An owner has obtained 14 500 eur after the construction near his villa of a six-storey building. But such a sum is not adequate for the loss of value of the property, estimated to be 25 % by the real estate experts.