Imagine needing your neighbor’s approval in order to build your house taller due to a weird law about sunlight. What would you do if the neighbor told you not to build? Would you comply or fight the law?

In this story, one man is in this situation, and he tells his grandchild the whole story about how he fought and won his right to build his house three stories tall.

Let’s read all about it.

Their neighbor sued them for wanting to add another story to their house, so my grandparents built two

So, to establish some things, the parents of my father own a couple of apartment complexes in this big city (Germany).

They as well as me and my parents all live in this one house, but in different apartments.

My father grew up in this house and never moved away.

I will probably one day move to another floor (I’m 19 y/o), but don’t intend to leave this house.

Apparently, the house used to be much smaller.

My grandpa just told me that in the early 80s, it used to be just one story high (so really just a very long but super short house, if that makes any sense).

I’m living on the third floor at the moment so I asked how this came to pass.

What he told me was absolutely hilarious.

Ok, now the story.

It started with the grandparents wanting to add onto their house.

My grandparents wanted to add another floor/story to this very long and flat house. So they obviously contacted the authorities and got all the paperwork done. Everything was fine.

Then their neighbor found out about this and got really mad. He owned and still owns some other apartment complexes in this same area and on the same street. He inherited those complexes from his father.

My grandparents reminded the neighbor, that they had a deal with the neighbor’s father, that if my grandparents wanted to add more floors to their houses, then the neighbor would comply as long as he also could add more floors.

There’s an interesting German law that’s the heart of this dispute.

All the neighbor had to say to this was “Yeah, that’s what my FATHER said to you, but now he’s dead and I don’t want you to add another floor to your house!! I’ll sue you if you do that!!”

To which my grandpa just replied in his sweetest voice: “alright, do it!”

The reason why the neighbor could sue us for adding another floor was some weird clause in the german law that existed at that time, that stated, that a house only could be so high, so that the houses next to it would get a specific amount of “sun and air”. So that it wouldn’t cast too big of a shadow on the other houses around.

My grandpa knew this was bs because a few houses in this area already had like seven floors so it wouldn’t be an inconvenience if our house would “stock up”.

This is an interesting way to go to court! It’s more like court coming to you!

So he went to court.

He told me, that there literally was a court meeting and a trial on the street in front of our house.

He brought a lawyer, his attorney, police officers and some specialists from the state department with him. T

here the specialists said that our house could actually be three floors tall without robbing this neighbor any of his “air and sun”. With the attorney and the lawyer as witnesses, everything was settled.

The neighbor was really upset.

Then the neighbor came over and had a fit, screaming and huffing the whole time and demanded that it should only be one floor at most.

My grandpa said: “Alright, we’ll do one floor and then we’re gonna see what we’ll do next.”

They built the floor. And then, because that’s what the specialists said, built another.

Right as when the workers wanted to start to work on the second added (so in total third) floor, the neighbor comes flying. Demands to know why they’re doing one more than they said they’ll do.

It wasn’t over yet!

Police were called. The police (already very tired of this whole situation and especially with the neighbor) told my grandpa to continue building, because the concrete was already mixed and ready to use.

This house is now three floors high. I don’t really know what happened to the neighbor because I never met him but my grandpa said that they’re fine now.

There was some kind of story that ended up with my grandpa actually building walls AROUND some of the windows of the third floor because the neighbor demanded some bs about fireproof windows.

Definitely fireproof if you ask me.

That is such a weird law and neighborhood dispute!

Let’s see what Reddit thought of this situation.

Here’s another story about someone wanting to add onto their house.

Another person shares their perspective.

This person enjoyed the story.

He was determined to get his way!

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.