Buying a house with a view of the sea is on my bucket list. It would be so relaxing to look out the window or sit out in the backyard with a cup of coffee and look out at the sea view.

What would be really annoying would be having this amazing view, but also having neighbors looking down on your backyard (literally from nearby townhouses) and watching you while you enjoy the view.

If you bought a house with a sea view, would you want to use trees to block the neighbor’s view of your property even if it meant also blocking their view of the sea, or would you cut down the trees to give the neighbors the view and let go of your wishes to have privacy?

In this story, new homeowners are grappling with this exact issue. Let’s read all about it.

IATAH for blocking my neighbour’s view?

We’ve recently fulfilled our dream of a run-down house by the sea.

Previous owner informed us that he had fought – and won – in court against the neighbours HOA, due to a few old trees on our property.

The neighbouring townhouses were built perpendicular to ours, in a way that their gardens and balconies look directly across our garden and terrace to the sea. Hence, the previous owner of the house planted trees to provide some privacy some ~40 years ago.

This sounds like a nice thing to do.

Before escrow even closed, we obliged to felling an old tree.

We didn’t want to be bad neighbours.

As a result they can see ~40% of the sea view from the balconies.

These neighbors sound annoying.

Now, in the open spot from the tree, we see our neighbours whenever we go in the garden.

And -every- -single- -time-, without exception, they complain about not removing the rest of the tree.

No matter the conversation, they will slip it in. “Lovely weather? If only that tree didn’t block the view, I might be able to enjoy it”

AITAH for valuing our privacy over their view?

If I were them, I’d be having second thoughts about buying a house next to such annoying neighbors.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a young woman who didn’t expect closing her door to study to lead to a sibling blowout.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This is a good point.

Here’s a suggestion to install a camera.

Another person suggests taking away the view that they have.

One person shares how they handled it when a neighbor talked to them about the view.

The whole point of buying a house by the sea is to enjoy the sea view, so I can understand how annoying it must be for the neighbors not to get to enjoy that view. However, the homeowner deserves to keep their trees and keep their privacy. If the neighbors don’t like it, they can move.

It’s pretty rude of them to expect the homeowners to sacrifice their privacy when they don’t have to. I’m sure if the roles were reversed, the neighbors wouldn’t cut down the trees.