My neighbour is causing a problem — what can I require?

The threshold: normal annoyance

This is the court's first question, and it disposes of a good share of files. Living beside someone means accepting a degree of noise, shade, coming and going, and fallen leaves.

Article 976 measures that threshold by the nature or situation of the land and by local custom. The same noise is not assessed the same way on a dense row of houses and on a large rural lot.

What counts is therefore not your irritation, but whether the annoyance is abnormal and usually repeated. Document the frequency: a dated log beats a narrative.

Trees: branches, roots, and a tree that may fall

Article 985 is precise, and more favourable than people expect. Where branches or roots from the neighbouring land extend over yours and seriously interfere with its use, you may ask the neighbour to cut them — and, on refusal, compel them to.

The same article covers the more serious case: if a tree on the neighbouring land is in danger of falling on yours, you may compel the neighbour to fell or straighten it.

Two limits. First, mere inconvenience is not enough: the interference must be serious. Second, you cannot simply cut what overhangs without going through this process — unilateral action rebounds on whoever takes it.

An arborist's report often turns a debatable file into a solid one, particularly on the risk of falling.

The dividing line: determination of boundaries

Where the disagreement is about where the boundary actually runs — an encroaching fence, landscaping that spills over — the remedy is bornage, the determination of boundaries.

Any owner may compel a neighbour to have the boundaries of their contiguous properties determined, to establish markers, restore ones that have gone, or rectify the dividing line (article 978).

The procedure is set out: failing agreement, you must first put the neighbour in default to consent and to agree with you on a land surveyor. The minutes of the boundary determination are then registered in the land register.

A recent certificate of location is the first document to obtain. It often settles the question before it becomes a dispute.

Fences and the party wall

Any owner may fence their land at their own expense. But they may also compel a neighbour to build, on the dividing line, a fence at half or shared cost, taking account of the situation and use of the premises (article 1002).

Mind the presumptions: any fence on the dividing line is presumed common, and a wall with buildings leaning against it on each side is presumed common up to the point where they meet (article 1003).

That presumption changes everything in construction projects against a shared wall. Before agreeing to or refusing a neighbour's work on a party wall, you need to know whether the wall really is common, and what that means for each side's rights.

Access to a neighbour's land

Many people believe a neighbour can refuse access to their land in all circumstances. That is not so.

Every owner must, after receiving verbal or written notice, allow a neighbour access to their land where necessary to make or maintain a construction, work or plantation on the neighbouring land (article 987).

The duty has limits: access must be necessary, and it is exercised reasonably. Anyone who uses it to damage the land answers for that.

When it is damage, not annoyance

Some situations are not neighbourhood law at all but ordinary civil liability: an animal that injures, a branch that falls on a car, infiltration caused by badly done work.

Everyone has a duty not to cause injury to others, and answers for injury caused by their fault — including, in certain cases, by the act of things in their custody (article 1457).

The distinction matters, because the evidence and the remedy differ. A well-framed file begins by naming correctly what happened.

The reflex that resolves the most files

Write. Most neighbour disputes escalate because nothing was ever put in any form other than spoken words, usually in the moment.

A dated letter describing the problem, what you are asking for and the time allowed changes the nature of the exchange — and in several of the cases the Code provides for, a formal notice is the required first step anyway.

The claim also generally prescribes after three years (article 2925).