Propertys bought with no planning permission and now problem with neighbours

[KK25]

Hi All

We bought a property over 17 years ago, not knowing that the side extension may have not been approved by the council. The extension appears to have been built over 20+ years ago and has been built on the boundary of our neighbours property - who belive the wall is theres?

Currently we have the issue of there children constantly playing with a ball against our wall which can be heard within our house and is very annoying. We have tried speaking to them about this but do not get a pleasant reply.

If the extension has been illegally built, how would this effect us if we had to go down a legal route?

Your advice is apprecaited

Thanks in advance

[Richard Webster]

Unless it is a listed building the extension will be immune from any enforcement under Planning Law on any basis after 10 yaers and mostly after 4 years.

However it may not have complied with the building regulations - a separate thing from Planning - but it is very unlikely theta the Council would actually do anything abut it unless it was very obviously unsafe or dangerous in some way. They would look very silly worrying about a 20 year old extension.