What do you do if you become aware that there is Japanese Knotweed on your land?
The answer is, enter into a treatment plan with a reputable contractor as soon as possible.
If you don’t then you risk being sued by the owners of any neighbouring land who claim that the value of their property is diminished because of the infestation of knotweed on your land even though that knotweed has not spread to your neighbour’s land.
The very fact that it is likely to spread unless you eradicate it is, as the law currently stands, likely to be enough for your neighbour to obtain an injunction against you requiring you to treat and eradicate the knotweed from your own land and of course with that injunction will come a hefty bill for your neighbour’s legal costs.
Additionally, it is quite likely that your local authority will serve a notice on you to remove the knotweed if the amenity of an area (or adjoining area) is being adversely affected and you can be fined up to a £1000 in the Magistrate’s Court and the authority can step in to undertake the removal of the knotweed and recover its costs of doing that from you.
It’s even worse than that because you might also be served with a Community Protection Notice under the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime & Policing Act 2014 for not controlling Japanese Knotweed if you could be reasonably expected to do so.
If you do have Japanese Knotweed on your land then it is important not to try and tackle it yourself but instead to contact a specialist invasive weed removal contractor for two mains reasons. Firstly, it is incredibly hard to eradicate. Secondly, when Japanese Knotweed is disposed of it becomes a controlled waste which means that there are various criminal offences involved in not disposing of the waste correctly.
If you are being affected by Japanese Knotweed either on your land or on a neighbour’s land and want to know more about your rights/obligations, please contact Nick Lambert on 0114 266 6660 or at [email protected]
