River Run - A Shed Build Blog

Today we sent off a letter to the estate owner, apologising for not requesting permission for the shed in the first place. Explaining that it will be in no way used for living/sleeping in (!!!), which was one of her worries lol, and explaining (again) that when it is finished it will look loads neater than what was there before.

Basically, we grovelled. We figured we'd rather start out that way and get more heavy-handed later on if we need to. We know we have a fairly good case due there there being lots of other properties with one or more very large sheds (she can't demand we take ours down and let them keep theirs) and the fact that we meet all council planning permissions, meaning that she hasn't been able to give us a solid reason to remove it (which our leasehold agreement says she has to do).

Just to mess with her mind a bit more, we can prove that our shed is actually one of the only LEGAL sheds on the whole site, out of hundreds. This is because of a council regulation that says that a shed has to be made mostly of fire-proof materials if it is more than 1 metre from a property boundary. Every single shed on the estate sits exactly ON the boundary (as there is no where else for them) but they are all made entirely of wood (like your regular shed is). Ours, however, has a wooden frame but the rest of it is Hardiplank material, which is completely fire-resistant.

We also have her on trespassing and intimidation if the gloves REALLY have to come off, as, after a very careful reading of our leasehold agreement clearly says she is not allowed on our property except by prior arrangement unless it's an emergency. Not only did she come on to our property but she brought her assistant with her, who definately had no legal right to be on our property.

We have a few things to throw at her. I don't think she will make it easy for us and she will probably try to drag us to court (she has a history of doing that) but we still think we have a pretty solid case. Fingers crossed.

good luck with it all...

Very very best of luck. How stressful it must be for you, I really hope you get to keep it after all your effort. Like you say, it looks like she has no legal leg to stand on.

oh gosh that sounds complicated!
good luck and hope it gets resolved in your favour (and without going to court) x

Good luck, sounds like a nightmare woman :shock: I hope you manage to sort things out to your satisfaction without needing to go through the courts, some folk just like to be difficult, obviously has nothing better to do with her time!

Good luck, sounds like you are certainly well within your rights and hopefully they will see sense. x

Wow, that's looking amazing! A huge improvement on what was there before, I can't understand why the crazy woman would object. Good luck getting it sorted, I can't see how she could win this xx

Just a small update.

The owner of our estate has been pretty quiet since the letter she sent us in October. We have a lot of support from other residents and the Homeowners Association with our shed. We are also now in the process of buying the freehold for our property (which would mean the estate owner loses any right to ask us to remove the shed). We've been told by the chairman of the Homeowners Association, and by our solicitor, that she probably won't make waves at the moment since she is deeply in debt and is currently trying to re-morgage all of the freeholds that she has so won't want us to push that through while she's in the process of doing that.

We have also sent her letters (with additional copies to the homeowners commitee) stating that we are pursuing the freehold buyout on our property and reminding her that due to all council planning permissions being met that at that point she will have no right to ask us to remove it. We have also written a letter accusing her of trespassing (she came on our property without invitation, which she is only allowed to do in case of dire emergency, according to our leasehold notes) and intimidation (bringing her aggressive PA and son with her). Not had any response to that.

As of today, my OH is carrying on with the shed. Best case scenario is that she leaves us alone. Worst case scenario is that she tries to take us to court. Which takes time, so all going well, we will have the freehold by that point.

So much politics for one bloody shed!! :roll:

great news...

Kripes!!! What a palavar. Well worth it for the awesome new shed though. Sounds very likely that you will get it all sewn up. Good luck.

The shed now has 3 outer walls covered with HardiPlank. It went on nice and quickly. The front will take a little longer though as it has 3 doors and several windows in it so will be a bit more fiddly. Once the outer walls are done then we will do the wall and roof insulation and the interior walls (getting the bunny section done first of course ).

The flooring arrived for the buns part of the shed yesterday. We've decided to go with stable matting rather than lino as it has more grip plus is softer and is just as easy to clean.

The only thing we've decided to change is that the middle portion of the shed is no longer going to be a home bar (for now at least) and is going to be a home office/studio for me instead so I can start my own business. OH isn't too fussed as he still has his big workshop/mancave in the other 3rd of the shed.

we need pics

Sounds like its going to be wonderful.

Another busy weekend

We have almost finished HardiPlanking the outside of the shed now. This pic shows the bunnies section. They have two windows (both double glazed) which will be painted brown to match the outside colour of the shed. They will have a run attached to the end too, with a cat flap for 24/7 access.



Inside the bunnies shed. One internal wall is up so far and the rubber stable matting is down.



We're going with proper housing insulation. Will keep the buns nice and snuggly AND me and the OH when we are in our office/workshop.



The bunnies windows. Both will have mesh over them before they move in. We're also doing some shelves for them, one of which will let them sit and look out of the bigger window.



This is the view of the shed from my mum's house. We've built a rose trellis and arch for her, which will eventually hide the shed from the road (and look VERY pretty in the process!).




I went and bought my Cuprinol this weekend for painting the inside and I can't wait to get started but have to wait til all the inside walls are up!

Yay! Inside walls are all up! I'm going to start painting tomorrow and next weekend we'll start making all their "furniture" (shelves, ramps etc).

Looks like you're making good progress What colour is the inside going? I bet it will make it look a lot more finished once painted

Inside is going to be a mix of white and a bluey-green colour. Going to be a posh bachelor pad for my boys!

Painting uPVC is a pain in the backside: make sure you get the right stuff AND prepare the surface properly, or it'll just peel off in a very unsightly fashion :S

It's looking really good!

keletkezes said:

Painting uPVC is a pain in the backside: make sure you get the right stuff AND prepare the surface properly, or it'll just peel off in a very unsightly fashion :S

Click to expand...

Yeah I've been dreading it! We sanded down the outside of the windows and then sprayed it with uPVC primer so hopefully that will do the trick . . .

Okay. As some of you know, for the last 5 or so months we've been involved in a dispute with the owner of the estate where we live over this shed. We've been carrying on with it, fairly slowly, constantly stressing about whether she will demand we take the whole thing down (and half expecting legal action as well). Finally, last week, she agreed to a meeting (she'd previously refused a meeting as her mind "couldn't be changed") so my OH went off to see her yesterday.

The verdict:

Her main issue is that our shed doesn't look like a shed. It looks like a building you can live in. This is not something we can really argue as my OH has built it really well, it's um, quite large, and it will have running water plus electric lights/heating.

So, we've made a compromise. If we separate it into two separate sheds with a gap in the middle so it no longer looks like a garden/studio annex (which, admitedly, it currently does) and change the roof to cheap shed felting then she will allow us to keep the height, width, external HardiPlank cladding and PVC windows.

For the sake of not having to drag this through the courts, we've agreed. We will now have the 2m x 2m bunny shed and a separate 6m x 2m workshop shed. In between we are now going to have the bunnies 2m x 3m run (which was previously going to be attached to the end).

I can't even begin to explain how relieved we both are to have this finally sorted. The stress has been getting to us over the last few months, with both of us feeling like we were doing something illegal every time we worked on the shed. Now we can just get on with it. The way my OH has built it means that separating it into two will be relatively easy so hopefully it will only be a matter of weeks before the buns can move into their new home.

Here's a rough idea of how the new layout will be: