[Closed] Neighbour Extortion ?

Oohhh, good thread......

Late to the party but I agree that some people are being a bit harsh on the OP. The cracks are on the opposite side of her house and are hairline. I would also be dubious, plenty of people will try to take advantage when they see an opportunity and I don't like paying large sums of money (yes £1300 is a large sum of money) to people when I have no reason to.

Cant offer any advice as the resolution though, sorry.

The rooms shes complaining about don’t even touch our party wall, they are the other side of the house.

Then she is taking the piss IMO, if work on your house was causing structural damage to the adjoining bit of her house, it would be a completely different situation.

Summer heatwave (or something else not you are not responsible for) has caused structural damage to the other side of her house and she's trying to use work done to your home as a way of getting it fixed for free.

IANAL , but this looks like a simple case of telling her to jog on and IMO you were rather silly to say you would even consider covering the damage in the first place without advice from professionals at her expense.

I had a look at said cracks this afternoon when I went round to speak to them – they are all hairline cracks. In my opinion caulk would do the job fine – its only cosmetic plaster cracking not the actual bricks underneath.

Caulk doesn't fill plaster fine... plaster fills plaster... and unless you can see the bricks underneath you aren't certain but it doesn't need to be the bricks themselves, it could just be the mortar.  Quite how caulk is fine escapes me... even as a patch job you want some proper filler not caulk..

As has been said if it was settlement you would expect some new cracking in my house – which there is none – it may be due to vibration I will concede.

You might or might not.... your new parts are new... the plaster is still damp ... the old parts might yet.

Our kitchen does this periodically... (since we moved in) ... for me I just fill the cracks then repaint and in cases re-plaster entire walls and repaint.  Its all at one side more or less.

The thing is I'm both confident and happy re-plastering... but I'm also waiting for the settlement to finish before I completely replaster the most affected walls.

I really want to make good this for them – I just feel that they have gone to an expensive tradesperson – told them they are not paying we are and he has gone to town.

Yep... but then why wouldn't they?  What guarantees are they offering (non)...

Everyperson who has seen the cracking i.e. my builder (not impartial i realise) and building control feel that the price quoted is ridiculous.

Hopefully our tradesperson can come up with a more reasonable quote – if he comes back the same then I guess we have to suck it up.

Well, I'd be getting 3-4 quotes... and let them know that the cheapest reasonable one will be selected but you are still to some extent open indefinitely... (well next few years)...

A different strategy would be to suggest that the current stuff is cosmetically taken care of (but not caulk) and a independent survey then checks in a year or when a surveyor thinks is the right time that sign-off can occur.

If you are right and this is a few cracks in plaster and due to vibrations then no further work will be required...

"Our builder at the time said it was nothing."

Can't get pass this line tbh!

One option might be to tell her that when you thought it would be a very cheap job you were happy to pay without asking questions, but since the work is so substantial you'd like an independent expert opinion to verify the damage was likely to be caused by your work.

Use the high quote to justify more investigation which hopefully will completely let you off the hook in a way that doesn't upset the neighbour.

Not read page two but agree with those saying filling any cracks with caulk is a bodge job. Any decorator worth bothering with will not use caulk on a crack in plaster.

That being said, depending on the size of the crack and if it's as minor as you say any decent decorator should be able to make it look as good as new without the need to replaster and her quote sounds bonkers.

Not sure if it's been said or not but this is down to your builder to cover, or at least his public liability cover.

There's some right pro's on this thread.

Fine cracks are best filled with a fine surface filler then the whole wall will need to be painted and cut in to existing walls to avoid "flashing" which can be caused when just painting a small area. Caulk is not a bodge when used for the right application, fine cracks are not best treated with caulk.

Sudden settlement cracks don't suddenly appear on the opposite side of a house unless they've dropped a royal bollock when installing the rsj.

Sudden settlement cracks don’t suddenly appear on the opposite side of a house unless they’ve dropped a royal bollock when installing the rsj.

If you look at it from the neighbours perspective someone comes along rips half the walls out of the house next door then cracks start to appear in yours.

The two may or may not be connected. If they are the OPs builders/architects insurance should pay out if not the neighbours home insurance will. Either way the nature of the cracks and the cause would need to be established.

Without any knowledge of the house structure, underlying support materials, nature of the work carried out or even location or pictures of the cracks everything is just noise

You might or might not…. your new parts are new… the plaster is still damp … the old parts might yet.

The old parts already had cracks in the places she is complaining about before we moved in, exactly the same places. We haven't replastered the whole house just the bits that have been built and filled in the electrical chases with bonding and aims