Japanese knotweed

[Roundtuit]

Proffesional products are not illegal for domestic use, but you should be qualified to use it.

 

CRD website: "Professional products should never be used by the untrained amateur gardener". Seems fairly clear.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/pesticides/user-areas/garden-home.htm

Edited October 14, 2021 by Roundtuit
for clarity

[James94]

Hi,

Just an update on the jk,neighbour came round while I was planting laurel hedge.she has spoken to her solicitor and someone she knows and there saying it’s a shared boundary.
She’s had a quote from a specialist  and it’s about £2000 inc vat and she wants me to share the cost,I’ve told her I don’t have £1000 spare and I did suggest I’d sort it out with the help of you people on the forum, but after speaking to some work colleagues I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to start treating it and feel like it’s then my responsibility.
Any advice on what might be the best path to follow, would be much appreciated.
Regards. James

[joe90]

I had a some JK and treated it with Gallup 360 over several seasons to good effect, still get a small amount in the spring but mostly gone now.

[markc]

Her solicitor and someone she knows who said it’s a shared boundary …. Sounds like a line from Judge Judy.

shared boundary is fine for fence repair but I don’t see how it can relate to JKW

Edited November 18, 2021 by markc

[Makeitstop]

24 minutes ago, joe90 said:

I had a some JK and treated it with Gallup 360 over several seasons to good effect, still get a small amount in the spring but mostly gone now.

 

Yes, exactly. What joe said

 

It's fairly easily treated yourself. As long as you hit it at the right time of year, with decent product and keep that up for a few years, there's no need to engage "specialists" that'll charge you crazy money.

 

Furthermore, if it's not within a few metres of actual buildings, then the threat is minimal anyhow, so you have plenty of time to sort it.

 

Honestly, it's not difficult to eradicate yourself.

 

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by Makeitstop

[SteamyTea]

39 minutes ago, joe90 said:

I had a some JK and treated it with Gallup 360 over several seasons to good effect, still get a small amount in the spring but mostly gone now.

Always worth keeping a bit alive, you may want to transplant a bit into a neighbours garden to reduce the value of their property.

[jack]

  

1 hour ago, James94 said:

Just an update on the jk,neighbour came round while I was planting laurel hedge.she has spoken to her solicitor and someone she knows and there saying it’s a shared boundary.

 

All boundaries are shared, otherwise they wouldn't be boundaries!

 

If she's saying it's a shared fence, that's possible, albeit unlikely in the absence of specific evidence, but it's a complete red herring in any event. The boundary is a line. The plant is clearly on her side of that line (assuming the fence is in the right place), hence it's solely her responsibility to get rid of it.

 

If she's spoken to a professional about this then presumably she knows this has to be (literally) nipped in the bud. If you won't contribute - and you shouldn't - then she'll need to handle it herself.

 

She's already shown her hand with allegations about your distant topsoil being the potential source of the knotweed, and now trying to get you to pay for removing a noxious weed that's clearly not on your property. Given her behaviour so far, you shouldn't be helping her to treat it, other than perhaps advising her that she can do it herself for a lot less than the quote she's had.

 

If she pushes back, I'd be tempted to say that if she doesn't take care of it and it moves to your side of the fence, you'll sue her for the cost of getting rid of it.

[Adsibob]

5 hours ago, jack said:

The boundary is a line. The plant is clearly on her side of that line (assuming the fence is in the right place), hence it's solely her responsibility to get rid of it.

+1

i suggest you refer your neighbour (and her so called lawyer)  to the Court of Appeal’s judgment in the Network Rail case, summarised here: https://www.walkermorris.co.uk/publications/knotweed-nuisance-court-of-appeal-confirms-liability-for-landowners/

 

whoever owns the land from which the knotweed emanated is liable for nuisance it causes to neighbouring properties. The legal analysis is simple. Of course, proving the facts is not always simple. Have you got a time stamped log of photos, correspondence, emails etc.? By time stamped, i mean meta data dating the photos, which hopefully show the knotweed developing over time and staying in your neighbour’s property.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Adsibob

[Andehh]

Left field suggestion, but maybe offer her £500 and treat it as an investment into stress reduced living? 

[SteamyTea]

51 minutes ago, Andehh said:

Left field suggestion, but maybe offer her £500 and treat it as an investment into stress reduced living? 

500 quid buys a lot of booze.

Edited November 18, 2021 by SteamyTea

[Makeitstop]

1 hour ago, Andehh said:

Left field suggestion, but maybe offer her £500 and treat it as an investment into stress reduced 

 

£500?....... I'd not offer a tenner. No need at all to be making any cash offers, as that only looks like admission of liability.

 

Get it treated as above as a goodwill gesture at the very most.

 

 

[Adsibob]

1 hour ago, Andehh said:

Left field suggestion, but maybe offer her £500 and treat it as an investment into stress reduced living? 

Be careful. I once made a gesture to my neighbour and offered “to contribute” to the costs of removing some ivy that was entirely on his land but growing onto ours. He had a gardener and a couple of labourer working on it for a couple of days, though they were a pretty lazy bunch and the labourers were barely over 16. I recon it was no more than 25 man hours (or boy hours) in total.
Little did I know that my neighbour was so gullible he had agreed to spend £2700 on this job and expected me to pay at least £900 of it! It led to a great deal of awkwardness. I honestly thought at most it would cost £400 and he would be happy with a £100 token contribution. I was so naïve.

[Gus Potter]

On 18/11/2021 at 12:07, James94 said:

Hi,

Just an update on the jk,neighbour came round while I was planting laurel hedge.she has spoken to her solicitor and someone she knows and there saying it’s a shared boundary.
She’s had a quote from a specialist  and it’s about £2000 inc vat and she wants me to share the cost,I’ve told her I don’t have £1000 spare and I did suggest I’d sort it out with the help of you people on the forum, but after speaking to some work colleagues I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to start treating it and feel like it’s then my responsibility.
Any advice on what might be the best path to follow, would be much appreciated.
Regards. James

Hello James.

 

Hope this helps.. it's a bit of a ramble but hopefully you can pick out bits that suits your predicament. saying that it seems you are offering an olive branch which is the right thing to do... morally and legally. Legally is the nuclear option.

 

Although hard to do take a step back and ask yourself.. why has your neighbour felt the need to take legal advice.. it may of course not be formal advice she has sought and paid for! For example you could be a member of the NFU (Farmers Insurance) who offer a free preliminary legal advice service. Look back and think.. is this reaction from the neighbour a symptom of some thing else.. this is the key to resolving disputes like this in an amicable way. You need to look at your own behavoir.. make sure you are / have been acting reasonably while you have been living next door.. tough but..that's what you need to do. Do this and you'll then have a sound footing to progress as you'll know you are not acting unreasonably.

 

To expand..take a step back and think.. what may we have done that has precipitated her action. After many years in the construction industry I have learnt that the best way to go forward is to take several steps back. It may well be that you are having this issue due to something that is unrelated.. that is neighbours for you but it's often the key to defusing a situation. Try and unlock this. You may need to eat some humble pie.. but in the long run that can save you a lot of stress and reduce your financial risk.

 

In terms of you taking proactive measures to treat on your side of the fence.

 

1/ Question one is.. are you absolutely sure it's not dog wood? I have seen some surveys that have declared knot weed.. but it was dog wood.

 

2/ It's not clear who may be responsible for the source, you with your imported soil or the neighbour. I may be that you / neighbour have a bird feeder and a mallard duck has just dropped by for a free meal and had a bit of the rhizome root stuck to their feet which has come off and grown where it can.

 

3/ In terms of you treating it. When it come to litigation on stuff like this a court will often look at who was most proactive in attempting to resolve a situation. If you are a domestic home owner the courts cut you a lot more slack than say if you are a hard nosed developer. If you can show you have made a reasonable attempt to mitigate the intrusion then this falls in your favour.

 

I would suggest that you write / talk to your neighbour and explain that in the best interests of both parties you are going to say spray with the weed killers that are avialable from B&Q in order to prevent the situation getting any worse. Invite her to suggest alternative measures. Acknowleged that your relationship has broken down to some extent but that in the long term you wish to live comfortably side by side in a harmoneous way. Explain that while you disagree on who is responsble it is prudent for both of you to mitigate the risk.

 

Now it may be that your neighbour is also lurking on BH. If so the same rules apply to you! Fail to engage with James94 and you are on shaky ground!

[dangti6]

On 14/10/2021 at 10:59, James94 said:

@zoothorn,

...they had someone come from Manchester and we had a quick chat, he didn’t seem to be worried by the small amount that was there and it doesn’t seem to have spread elsewhere (yet) . The neighbours are now waiting for his report to come back and we can see what they are going to be doing about it, I’ll keep you informed of any progress.

Regards James

 

 

Did you ever see the report?

[Makeitstop]

I have to admit, I admire the ethos and consideration behind Gus Potters post above and don't disagree with it entirely. I do think that finding an amicable solution is the best way ahead, and, that if that means adopting an "excessively" generous attitude, then so be it. It would be smart to "try" to find the path of least resistance on this I think. Having said that, sometimes the path of least resistance may mean making the wrong choice, perhaps in order to appease others or shortcut your way to resolution. By that token, it can be a tricky path to tread.

 

It's impossible for us to know exactly what the reality of the situation is, but for me, there's little point in trying to second guess or psycho analyse your neighbours thinking on this. You just have to take it as you see it and deal with that. For all you know, they could be the kind of person that jumps to "legal advice" at the slightest provocation, or, they may have a valid point and feel genuinely aggrieved at what has appeared on ground that was clear prior to your arrival.

 

No matter what, the simple answer is to treat it as above. It will deal with it.

 

And yes, it is 100% Japanese knotweed.

 

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Makeitstop

[saveasteading]

If you go back to basics.....You do not have to remove Japanese knotweed from your land, but you could be prosecuted or given a community protection notice for causing a nuisance if you allow it to spread onto anyone else’s property.

 

So it is quite  simple: do what you can to keep it in check.

In my book that means that you spray your side, the neighbour sprays (or whatever) theirs.

 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/prevent-japanese-knotweed-from-spreading

[James94]

I’d like to thank you all for the time and effort you’ve spent giving us this very helpful information, me and the wife are still discussing our options at the moment. If we go back to her and tell her we have changed our minds and are not prepared to treat it(maybe say it’s like accepting responsibility and not treated by professionals To receive certificate) As most of you have said it’s clearly on there side of the fence and I’m sure if the shoe was on the other foot they’d have nothing to do with us with no help whatsoever. Regards falling out which we probably will if we go down this route, we have never really spoke and they did all they could at planning stage to stop the build going on with a 3 page complaint.
We never did see the copy of the report, she said she never her phone on her. I was probably a little slow and should of demanded a copy, she probably won’t let us see it now
Regards. James