Contractors breaking our driveway

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xpd

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#102529 16-May-2012 13:26

Neighbours have built a new house next door, and during that time , their driveway got absolutely rooted by the heavy trucks etc. Now a new drive way is being laid but the guys doing the concreting etc are parking their heavy truck and digger on our driveway (no fence between – and our drive is a shared drive to the house behind) and making our driveway sag and potentially crack.

Now our driveway wasn’t in the best shape to start with, but where do we stand legally in getting it sorted from these muppets making it worse ??

We have no “before” photos (not detailing the drive anyway), only our word vs the contractors….

I can’t blame the neighbour as such, not her fault she got muppets to do the work, but I feel it is her responsibility to chase them up for repair/compensation.

Repairing a drive is the last *#@!(&#ing thing we need right now and would literally ruin us if we had to do it now and I’m sure the owners behind us won’t be impressed having to shell out for a drive repair….

I’ll be calling CAB to see what they say as well….

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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#626118 16-May-2012 13:35

We had the same thing happen on our property (no fence just small grass strip between driveways)
As soon as I saw this happen I approached the contractors and advised that I didnt give them permission to use my driveway and to not use it in the future. End of.

They are tresspassing, so best to hit them up if they are still doing it.

As for the damage they have caused, I wouldnt be sure how to approach this :(

SandyJ

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#626126 16-May-2012 13:38

First step.. ring your local council and 'ask' their advice. Make sure you talk to the right dept though. Im dealing with the same problems.. except its my neighbour thats doing the damage.

stevenz

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#626127 16-May-2012 13:38

Might pay to point it out to the neighbours as well so they're aware of the issue early on just in case.

Hopefully you didn't muck around waiting for an opinion on here and told them to bugger off already though.

@KnightNZ

jim.cox

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#626140 16-May-2012 13:47

SandyJ: First step.. ring your local council and 'ask' their advice. Make sure you talk to the right dept though. Im dealing with the same problems.. except its my neighbour thats doing the damage.

Local council are just going to piss you around. Dont waste your time

Call your lawyer - You need to discuss 'Tresspass'

Do it now, while they are still on site.

Contractors carry insurance for just such events

You probably also have a claim against your neighbour's

=mjc=
.

KevinL

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#626142 16-May-2012 13:52

Is there a clear shot of the driveway on Google Maps/Street View? Might be a good baseline, even if a couple years old.

xpd

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#626171 16-May-2012 14:25

Theyve gone now apparently, and the drive has sagged visibly on part of it... wife had a go at the contractors who just shrugged and pretty much said not their problem. Shes taken photos of the truck on the drive etc....

Spoke with CAB who pretty much said the same as above, trespass them, and if they refuse to leave, ring the police.

Think theyll be back tomorrow to finish the job and if they park on the drive again, theyll be getting a really p'ed off wife after them...or will get her to park the car at the top of the drive blocking their access onto our driveway.

If just really p**** me off when we worked hard to get our house etc, just to have some muppets come along and ruin it, and they get to dump all responsibility of it on someone else. We like our neighbour and dont want to cause any strife but yeah...

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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surfisup1000

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#626173 16-May-2012 14:28

xpd: Neighbours have built a new house next door, and during that time , their driveway got absolutely rooted by the heavy trucks etc. Now a new drive way is being laid but the guys doing the concreting etc are parking their heavy truck and digger on our driveway (no fence between – and our drive is a shared drive to the house behind) and making our driveway sag and potentially crack.

Now our driveway wasn’t in the best shape to start with, but where do we stand legally in getting it sorted from these muppets making it worse ??

We have no “before” photos (not detailing the drive anyway), only our word vs the contractors….

I can’t blame the neighbour as such, not her fault she got muppets to do the work, but I feel it is her responsibility to chase them up for repair/compensation.

Repairing a drive is the last *#@!(&#ing thing we need right now and would literally ruin us if we had to do it now and I’m sure the owners behind us won’t be impressed having to shell out for a drive repair….

I’ll be calling CAB to see what they say as well….

I had a house built, and a truck damaged a neighbours driveway --- i had to pay for the damages.

Complain to the project manager, he'll sort it out.

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SandyJ

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#626213 16-May-2012 15:09

jim.cox: Local council are just going to piss you around. Dont waste your time

Guess it just depends on the council. I was righteously indignant (and luckily so were they). End result is they will be here tomorrow morning. They recently repaired a section of the road outside my property and this neighbour has chewed it and my driveway up with what he's doing.. so they will be out to fix it AND my driveway..and bill his a$$.

Toastiewarm

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#626221 16-May-2012 15:15

As noted above, talk with the supervisor/foreman/project manager for the job, not sure how it is being built, privately, or with a construction company involved, hard to say..

It definitely should be covered by them not the client (in this case your neighbour).

Working in the civil industry myself we always repair any damage we have done to anything anywhere, including driveways etc, if you can prove that it was damaged by them they really don't have a leg to stand on.

So I would chase them up.

MikeSkyrme

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#626270 16-May-2012 16:33

Ask 'Target' to film the contractors and show them on TV.....

Seriously, phone the Council, as useless as they are, if the job is a 'consented' activity, there will be guidelines within the consent pack regarding damage to other property, private and public.

Michael Skyrme - Instrumentation & Controls

xpd

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#626655 17-May-2012 08:48

Owner of the property being built has been informed and will pop over to see us next few days.... she hasnt been impressed with how things have been going with these contractors by sounds of it....

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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#626667 17-May-2012 09:10

What is your driveway made of? I'm curious in that it can sag without cracking.

xpd

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#626680 17-May-2012 09:29

Its cracked as well, but thats an existing crack.

our complaint is that theyve driven a who-knows-how-many-ton truck on our driveway making it worse - the drive was not designed to have heavy trucks on it along with a digger dumping earth into the truck.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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martyyn

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#626791 17-May-2012 13:29

Good luck with whatever you try because you are going to need it.

Weve recently been through the same and it was a six month nightmare. The contractors were an absolute bunch of *&$#'s and there is nothing I wouldnt wish on them for the way they treated my wife.

The council were poor, the neighbours said they would pay for the repairs and then refused and in the end its cost us $$$s and we are left with a half-arsed repair to our driveway which they had no right to use in the first place.

They even wheeled concrete through our property and claimed it hadnt happened when we questioned them on it ! Not once did they ask our permission to use the drive and at no time did they care because they did the concrete trick again and continued to use the drive whenever we werent here.

After having had a decent relationship with the neighbours in the past I now wouldnt want anything to do with them if we were the last people on earth.

grant_k

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#626801 17-May-2012 13:45

When we were doing renovations to our house in Auckland a few years ago, we had to pay a $500 "road damage bond". This covered any damage done by our contractors to the roadway or berm, driveways etc which wasn't reinstated to original condition. Luckily our contractors were careful and didn't do any damage, so we got the $500 back. This was 10 years ago, so I would expect it's more than $500 now.

I would check with the building consents department of your local council to see what the policy is in your area. If the council are holding a bond, your neighbours should be forced to make good the damage, or risk losing their bond. The bond is not refunded until after the final building inspection when everything is signed off.

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