A tale of a recalcitrant neighbour

For over 5 years we have watched as the Sheriff's knocked on our neighbours door with no answer [we knew neighbour was inside watching] then knocked on our door to enquire about neighbour, about 18 months ago his car was repossessed [the 2nd time] and this morning the Sheriffs were again knocking on his door and we know the Mercedes in the garage is about the be repossessed [3rd car].

We knew he was going back to China and he messaged my son a couple of weeks ago and apologised for not saying 'Goodbye' and he was back in Beijing. We dont think he will be coming back for a long time, if at all ...

The problem was the state of the grounds of the house, the grass was knee high, there was rubbish everywhere, tiles missing from the verandah facings and the guttering is beginning to fall away from the roof, but he had had a cleanup and there was a pile of old furniture left on the kerb to be picked up whenever. You get the picture ...

My son and the neighbour on the other side decided to get together and between the two of them they spent the weekend cleaning up, cutting the grass and removing rubbish so the house doesn't look as if it has been deserted.

What worries us and the other neighbour is the house could be a target for squatters or burglars.

So how do we stand trespassing on our neighbors property as the grass will keep growing and need to be cut etc.
BTW he is the owner of the property.

 

My no doubt faulty understanding is that you are only trespassing if you ignore a sign or are asked to leave and don't.

I suspect that his creditors will ultimately get hold of the property and sell it. May be a good time to make a low ball offer if you can track the owner down.

 

Send a complaint to council. May take a while but they should send people to clean it up and send them the bill with a fine.

 

Maybe the pandemic is impacting?

 

Council will only request owner to cleanup, they dont take action - have checked with council.

 

I dont have a spare million ...

 

The process for councils is generally
- first send a letter and ask for it to be cleaned.
- after a couple months send a fine.
- after a couple months send council workers to clean it up and give owner the bill.

Obviously councils can be slack and unless they recieve many complaints it will be pushed aside.

 

In my neck of the woods I regularly cut my neighbours lawn. No complaints yet.

 

Sounds like you have a social media contact channel - so suggest asking if it’s
OK.

Or just keep doing it until someone asks you not to. But don’t break any gates or locks etc...

 

He doesn't reply to any messages - not even when we messaged him the 2nd car had been repossessed.
We dont want any involvement in any of his problems.

 

Is this a euphemism? If so, some complaints may surface later...

 

And so there might be a bit under 12 years before you and your neighbour claim adverse possession.

It seems the property might not need much more effort to rent?

 

No. I’m pro life.

 

If you and your neighbor maintain the property for 10 years - can you claim adverse possession?

 

My current PPOR was in a similar state when I bought it. It had almost collapsed gutters on one side and garden was in complete neglect. Apparently the vendors had moved back to Asia sometimes ago and nobody lived in the house according to neighbors.

I was able to negotiate a substantial discount as general state of neglect put many buyers off. Before we moved in we changed carpets, gave the house a new paint, replaced the gutters and made a few minor repairs. It took me a year to fix the lawn and another six months for hedges and trees to recover from years of neglect.

We still don’t know the exact story but from different accounts from the neighborhood, it appears there was a relationship breakdown and it took them a while to sort the mess as one or both partners moved overseas.

Edit: Our next door neighbor’s kids frequently played in the backyard while nobody lived in the house. They built an extension with a window directly facing our backyard and didn’t repair a collapsed fence for easy access into our backyard. They also used the bins and parked their kids car in our driveway while the house was abandoned by previous owners. When we moved in, they certainly weren’t happy as they had established this house as their territory and it took us quite a while to reclaim the backyard and block their window by fast growing bamboos. They would still sometime park the car in our driveway out of habit.

 

Our neighbor told us he would never sell the house, we are waiting the arrival of sheriff to recover the mercedes, we wont know if he intends to return until such time as a foreclosure on the house. The rubbish on the verge has been removed thank goodness. Our worry has been burglars, squatters etc What a waste of an education at Uni and what could have been a good life in Oz.

 

I am sure it is very frustrating. There are sometimes circumstances that lead people to make certain choices. It’s probably best to invest in a good security system for your own house and just keep an eye on the house. Unfortunately you can only control things that you can and there is very little you could/should do in this situation.

 

Work with @standtall's story - park in their drive so that the house appears inhabited.

 

Is your son old enough that he's thinking of moving out of home? If so, then this could be a cheap rental for him.

 

Rent ?? Nahhhh. Cheap public housing.
Use the R M Williams doorbell.