Illegally placed fosse

[emmuvva]

Hi, I am hoping someone can give me some advice on my neighbour's fosse, which was built mistakenly on the land just outside the back of the house. The neighbours (English) disputed our ownership of it until their own architect showed them the plan cadastral and told them we did indeed own it. Then they insisted we had a bornage - which cost us 700 euros - to establish exactly how much we owned. The foss is indisputably on our property, but they are still refusing to move it. The bornage was over a year ago, and I have now given them a deadline of six months to shift it.

My problem is that we've got so fed up we've bought another property up the road and now want to sell this one. Obviously no one will want to buy the house with this going on. What does anyone suggest we do? We have had a meeting with the maire and the chap from from the Department D'Assainisement and they both agree it has to be moved, but seemed to consider enforcement to be our problem.

Is it very expensive to go before a juge, and would they pay the costs if we lose? Or do we have the right to simple remove any portion on our land?

Any advice most appreciated!

[audio]

If it’s on your land surely you can do what you like, rent it, block it or destroy it.

Have a word with your notaire, this should be free of charge.

Good luck.

[woolybanana]

You could certainly warn the owners of the fosse that you are going to block it, which should get some action. And send them the bill for the bornage too

On the other hand, you could sell them the piece of land at a price to suit yourselves[6]

[idun]

Well as you will be seeing your notaire about the new property I would discuss this with the notaire too.

Had put, 'see the Mairie', but you are.

If it were anything else but a fosse and a possible health/pollution hazard, I would say just reclaim your own land and destroy what so ever your neighbour had on your land. But best to check up in this case as to what you can do.

Now, if you can do what you want then........my feeling would be to have the fosse emptied, and the pipework on the boundary blocked. They sure would have 'blocked' loos pretty soon and would have to do something about getting a new fosse on their own land.

My OH found our neighbours fosse pipework using devining rods. They had a blocked pipe and needed to find it.

[emmuvva]

Thanks everyone. Already discussed it with the maire. She agrees it needs to be moved but had nothing to suggest except we contact our insurance.

I am very inclined just to block it up or dig it out. The problem is that it is only partially over our land - they told us it was the degreaser bit but the d'assainisement bloke said it was the actual tank. A bit tricky to dig up! What may be an option is to block any pipework that runs over our property instead, but I need to make sure we're not going to find ourselves in court for vandalism or something!

[idun]

So check if you can do that, you don't need any further problems with the gendarmes coming round and good luck.[:)]

 

[cooperlola]

Contacting the insurance company is a good idea as you might well find that they can recover any costs involved from your neighbours' company.  Their public liability insuarance (mandatory) might well cover just this kind of eventuality, especially if they had poor advice in the siting of the fosse in the first place.  It could also be far less acrimonious for you.