[ASP007]

Originally Posted by IP_Man

I seek help/advice in following situation.

In my native place, I own one part of twin bungalow (wall common) built by my father. Configuration is as shown in the figure below. My father was living there for last fifty years. He expired three years back.

One month back, my old neighbour sold his part to a local person. As per the agreement he is free to sell his part without my consent. My new neighbour hid his actual intent during the purchase time and very smartly took my signature on NOC for the new construction and then he demolished his part for the brand new construction.

Few days back, we came to know from the authentic sources that intention of my new neighbour is to built new building not for residential purpose. His real intent is to start a commercial activity like study library.

As shown in below configuration, there is ten feet wide common passage kept for accessing public road for bungalow one and two. [b]If he starts commercial activity, there will be lot of traffic from the common passage that will disturb me and my privacy will be jeopardised.

After reading the post and the update, I infer this neighbour as a cunning business guy. Like others pointed out, it'll definitely not a study library going to come up there. Since you're an occasional visitor to the place & do not want to sell it, following is my suggestion.

1. As @aargee suggested, make plans for a boundary wall starting from the common wall of 2 bungalows till the main road; leaving the passage exclusively to the neighbour. You may shift your existing gate facing to the main road, and make the necessary changes.
   
2. Once you finalize the above point, talk to the neighbour. Ask him to bear the cost for this conversion in exchange of the common passage to him. Do inform him that you'll go legal route, in case your expectations are not met.
   
3. After points 1& 2 are done, you may install CCTV cameras inside the property to keep an eye on it remotely.

Hope this will be resolved amicably to your satisfaction.

[mac187]

As most Bhpian's have suggested, there is very little you can do legally here. Only way you can stall/ delay the process is get some influential people involved, but know this that it may come back to haunt you too.

Also, since you are away from India you may be overthinking things here, even if its going to cause a problem, you won't be living in the house anyway!! Do not spoil your sleep over things. As you have mentioned that you would like to retain the property for sentimental reasons, look for a trusted friend or a relative who can move-in and maintain the property for you. As someone mentioned earlier, if the house in abandoned it will surely cause alot of issues. Then you will be in a worse situation, as you can't do anything yet will be losing sleep over imagining what is going on back in India.

Lastly, there is no way someone is building a study library on a private land!! Its definitely a commercial complex, assume the worse and device a long term plan for this.

Best of luck.

Completely OT, sharing my personal experience in property dispute.

My father had applied for govt. land development scheme in the 80's and was allocated a residential plot far away from the city. Since he was in a transferable job, we moved around cities and lived in rented houses until I started working. Cut to 2012, this locality had fully developed and post my fathers’ retirement we wanted to build house with his lifetime savings and rest as loan which I was eligible for back then. Does the story sound familiar? Khosla ka ghosla, anyone. This is the south Indian version of it.

When the plot was allotted the lane was largely empty with few houses in-between. End to End the lane would have approximately 20~25 houses. Over ~30 years all the plots where built up except three. Our plot being the one in-between the other two owned by 2 different people. My father used to visit the plot once a month after watching Khosla ka ghosla movie, he was worried we will lose our plot too, thanks to that he made acquaintances of the neighbors in the locality. When the owner of the plot next to us decided to build a house he called my father to take some advice and invited him over when his architect was coming in for the recce and measurements. Fortunately my father visited the area and the first thing the architect mentioned was that if we total these plots they look smaller than actual. It was a passing comment and to prove himself right, he measured the three plots. Lo behold, it was short by 10 feet in width.



Now where did the 10 feet go was the question. He measured few of the immediate neighbors and found most of the house measure more than 30 feet i.e. 30.3, 30.5 and rarely 31 feet too. End result was we were short of 10 feet put together. This lead to a typically discussion over tea and biscuits at the “senior” member of the area’s house. No one was aware who the owner of the third plot was and the only possible solution was for the three remaining plots to take the hit equally. While my father and the one neighbor were ok with this, we needed the third person to also agree to this. No one knew who he was and when we found out who he was, as luck would have it, he turned out to be a property dealer who had bought this land few years ago with a sole intention of reselling it for profit. No prize for guessing, he out rightly rejected the idea and asked us to take a hit of 5 feet each and not dare encroach on his land. It went on for about a month or so. Luckily for us my father’s close friends include lawyers, judges and local MP’s. One message from them solved the issue for us else there was no way we could have resolved the issue.

We built the house within the next 2 years to avoid an future issues and my parents have been living there since then.

THE END

[IP_Man]

Originally Posted by audioholic

Another aspect to consider is the ownership of this passage. Is it jointly registered to both property owners?

Yes. And it is mentioned in the original agreement.

Originally Posted by Tucker48

Is the passage a public place or private place. Does the passage appears in the govt documents as well and if yes, what it's designated as? Looking at the drawing, I feel there's no way that plot was meant to be divided in two. Even in such cases(division of plot), each owner should get equal fronts, which is not the case here.

It is for private use for both the bungalows to access exit i.e. public road.

Originally Posted by charanreddy

2. Engage a lawyer and sent a couple of legal notices. One to your neighbor and second to your town planning authority through registered post. No govt authority wants to ruffle up a neighbourhood in favor of a single person unless the person has bribed them heavily or has a lot of influence.

Thanks. That's most logical step now. Keeping mum will imply our permission for whatever he is planning to do.

Originally Posted by MiJo

If you have full access from the main road, you can consider giving up your rights to the 10ft access road for a good price. You can utilise the funds to raise a boundary wall, masonry or otherwise. I agree with one of the comments above that if your house is mostly unoccupied, it is going to be a target of unwanted attention. More so, if the neighbour's property is commercialised.

Yes. That is last option it things go ugly. Right now, I'm enjoying big frontage and airy feel due to bigger space. Thanks to common passage.

Originally Posted by superbad

What was the wording in the NOC which you signed? Did it explicitly mention usage for residential purpose only or was there a loophole there which allowed him to commercialise? That document carries a lot of weight.

Wording in the NOC is mainly for the permission for the construction. No where word 'commercial' is used but no mention of 'residential' either. Also my brother and sister, who are joint owner hasn't given permission yet.

Originally Posted by spd_tkt

I am not familiar with which place this is but in my hometown in Kerala if a neighbor wants to start certain businesses, one of the requirements for application is a signed NOC from all neighboring plots/ residents. We signed this NOC to help our neighbor start a chicken farm, the smell is tiring at times but it is still their livelihood and I can live with that for now. Not sure, but it may also depend on the nature of business.

I wish this rule is everywhere in India

Originally Posted by mac187

Lastly, there is no way someone is building a study library on a private land!! Its definitely a commercial complex, assume the worse and device a long term plan for this.

That's my worst fear.

[Rajeevraj]

Is the place empty and locked up apart from the rare occasions you visit? If so then more then what your neighbour would be building and the nuisance due to that, the bigger concern will be the fact that more people will start noticing the empty rarely used bungalow in front and then you might have the issue of people illegally using your property. Even the neighbour guy might be looking to buy it from you at some point.

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by IP_Man

Already my property is dormant and I don't want to invest in his property unless I have plan to settle permanently there.

The practical option you have is to sell the property and move on. Dormant properties are a pain, that even if you live few kms away are subjected to a variety of abuses.

If you are settled halfway across the world and have no near-term plans to occupy the property, its simply not worth the hassle.

[CliffHanger]

As said by many, the chances are thin somebody is thinking of building a study library in 2021 after investing so much in buying and demolishing a bungalow.

I would suggest document and collect every form of evidence if you plan to go legal. Remember, judgements are mostly fair but justice may not be always.