Neighbour’s behaviour “completely illegal”

The continuous manipulation of one neighbour by another resulted in a protection order and the Record investigating the allegations.

A pensioner in Helderkruin, living alone but for her children’s visits, has been complaining about the owner of the property next to hers. As it stands, the ‘neighbour’ she got the protection order against does not live on the property that causes so much grief, ‘due to construction’.

Allegations were made that some of the neighbour’s developments were done without approval by Johannesburg City Council. She also outright stated that the boundary wall was built “without prior notice” to her and that the structures supporting the wall are on her property.

Furthermore, the levelling of his property exceeds the boundary posts between their properties. The woman also is highly upset about the many trees (on her property) that this neighbour has destroyed during his developments, as evidenced by photos in the Record‘s possession.

The Record explained the allegations to a chief building inspector for comment and advice.

“The Johannesburg City Council sees the boundary wall between two properties as a ‘communal’ wall; in order for one neighbour to make any changes to it, he needs consent from the other.

“Of what I understand, his act in restructuring the wall and building supportive walls is completely unlawful, because there was no prior conversation with his neighbour.

“The fact that he extended the house on the property to the border wall is also unlawful.

“Unfortunately, this is then considered a civil case and should be disputed in court by following the normal legal channels.

“I would argue that she has a case of trespassing and defacing of property, should she pursue it.”