Hughes Krupica: Everybody loves good neighbours

I grew up as a teenager watching an Australian TV show featuring Kylie Minogue – Neighbours. It was a massively popular soap in the UK and simply dramatised very effectively the relationships between neighbours in
a fictional suburb of Melbourne.

When I was a trainee lawyer in the UK, I remember one visit to the law library of a very large law firm in which I was asked to research ‘neighbour disputes’. Amazingly for me, there was an entire section of that library devoted to a seemingly never-ending supply of disputes between neighbours.

Since then, looking at the world and global peace issues, it is apparent that neighbouring countries, north-south divides within countries, islands located in between Japan, Vietnam, China and the Philippines, temples considered by countries to belong to them and not the other neighbouring country all signify that neighbourly disputes are an issue in almost every aspect of many people’s lives.

In Phuket, neighbour disputes also pop up regularly. Some are created at the fault of one neighbour, some by multiple parties and some by developers who become neighbours to the buyers of real estate from them. There are cultural issues when families of different nationalities, religions and income brackets live next to each other or in the same estate.

Here are some common questions that pop up regarding neighbours, disputes and rights in Phuket to provide readers with a clue as to methods to avoid or deal with neighbour issues:

My neighbour has grown a fruit tree, which now hangs over the wall between our gardens. I don’t actually like eating the fruit, but my wife told me we could take some and sell it out of the back of a pick-up truck. Can we take the fruit hanging over the wall?

Not necessarily. You can cut overhanging branches, and you can collect fruit which falls onto your land. However, you can’t simply remove the fruit. Foreigners should be careful that, if they are leasing land (they naturally can’t own land), that they cannot exercise the same rights as their landlord might be able to.

Under Section 1347 of the Civil and Commercial Code (“CCC”): “The owner of a piece of land may cut off and keep roots of a tree or bush which have penetrated from the adjoining piece of land. He may also cut off and keep overhanging branches after giving the possessor of the adjoining piece of land reasonable notice to remove them, such notice not having been complied with.”

And further under Section 1348. “Fruits falling naturally upon adjoining land are presumed to be fruits of such land.”

We built a lovely modern European style house on a piece of land in a jungle area at the base of a mountain in Phuket five years ago. At the time, nobody lived on the bare land next to the property. However, a whole community has formed in recent years comprising tin-roofed temporary buildings, temporary electricity wires, a chicken and rooster enclosure, a carp lake which becomes mosquito-infested during wet season and what seems to be an informal karaoke bar. Our immediate neighbours built their roof at such a height and at such an angle that during the wet season the rain simply pours onto our expensive Japanese grass lawn and floods our garden. Is this legal?

No. Under the CCC Section 1341 “The owner of an immovable property must not construct roofs or other structures which cause rain water to fall upon the adjoining property.”

Please note however, that if you sue under this section or similar provisions of law, go through the Court of First Instance decision, pay the legal fees and expenses of trial, you may then have to face an appeal and further appeal against any decisions such that the costs of suing may far exceed the damages you suffer from the raindrops affecting your expensive Japanese grass lawn. You might be better off buying your neighbour some guttering and a present to keep the peace.

My wife bought some bare land next to the land plot on which our house is built. We didn’t erect a wall around the land as it is pretty clear from the natural boundaries of the land where the land begins and ends, as the land is also next to a public road. We went on holiday to Europe for four months during the wet season and, when we came back, there was a wooden hut dwelling on the bare land. We didn’t give permission for it to be there. Are we entitled to insist on the building being removed? There are young children in the building.

You must be mindful not to take any action which could cause harm to others. If the property is always inhabited, then you unfortunately will have to sue to enforce your rights in relation to the land.