Eh? You are saying that the neighbour would be able to tell the judge "Yeah, I know it ain't fixed 'cos we agreed to redo his whole patio and we just haven't got around to it yet!" and the judge would just say 'Cool - go away'? At the very least he would note down the neighb's claim - and that would make it even easier for the claimant to go back later.
DA, your suggestion of mediation is a very sensible suggestion, and it's the common sense approach but the outcome will have no legal standing, is not a facility offered via our legal system and if the neighbour or the builder isn't interested, then it just won't happen
if anyone finds this thread before they allow a neighbour access the law relating to this is the Access to Neighbouring Land Act 1992 (along with the Party Wall Act) and there are standard contracts that can be used to enable; these usually include a nominal fee for access during the works, an agreed end of access date, an agreed and documented statement of reinstatement, and a punitive fee for access beyond the agreed date of agreed access it'll cost about £50 to have one of these set up
This is strange, but a little bit relevant, a friend of mine has just left here, anyhow on Monday this week he was in court suing somebody for the theft of some plant he had hired to them He didn't have any paperwork signed by the guy to say he had hired the stuff, this was due to no one being on site when he delivered it. That night it was stolen!!!!! Well matey boy doesn't want to pay for it stating my mate should be insured against theft, it was pointed out to him that he in fact should have been insured against any theft of stuff he hired. Long story short, but judge found in my mates favour, stating that paperwork/contracts are not needed if it is obvious that the intent was there, so in this case, matey hired the stuff so should have insurance in place to cover theft. Now the relevance the this case is, no builder/person would expect to be able to take up a neighbours patio and not reinstate it to the standard it was before work started, paperwork/contract or not.
What I don't fully understand, Sean, is on what grounds would a judge not accept what is a pretty obvious scenario? What is 'reasonable'. By the time any case arrives at court, the paper trail ( and the obviousness of the situation) will show that the builder caused the mismatched repair and that the claimant isn't happy with it. Ergo - the builder is liable to put right what he did wrong. I'm struggling to see why it isn't that simple. The only 'flaw' would be if the neighbour and/or builder tried to claim that the claimant was actually happy with this poor repair and accepted it all along. You really think the judge would accept that? Any original verbal agreement about this would be 'irrelevant' anyway since the claimant wouldn't have anticipated the builder's cockup. Any earlier verbal agreement would obviously have gone along the lines of "You want to remove these slabs? Ok - but you will put it all back like it was before?"
that implies that the neighbour should be looking to find a couple of x years old, weathered slabs by way of reinstatement - that's apparently what the OP is wanting, that's not unreasonable and that's apparently what's already happened - but do you really think a court is going to get involve in deciding what is essentially a colour match issue ?
Jeepers, Phil - you've said in a couple of lines what I've been trying to say for pages... "it is obvious that the intent was there... Now the relevance the this case is, no builder/person would expect to be able to take up a neighbours patio and not reinstate it to the standard it was before work started, paperwork/contract or not." That's just, just beautiful, man...
Therein lies the crux of this matter I suspect. If the replacement slabs are a clear mismatch - an eye-sore in an otherwise neat garden - then the claimant would have a good case for a new patio. If he's just being a fussy barsteward, then not so much...
If the neighbour does in fact repair the said patio to the standard it was, then there wouldn't be a problem, but in this case that doesn't appear to be happening, so as been said you start a paper trail, up to the point of legal action, if it goes that far.
let's just remember what the facts are the slabs have been reinstated, but they don't colour match this isn't going to court, not even a kangeroo court would allow such a case to proceed
Nonsense. Take it to its logical conclusion - a different sized slab, different colour, different texture, different edge detail... Nonsense - of course they'd have a case.
ermmmm now that really is assumption, based on absolutely nothing what so ever, other than your overly active imagination