Now add the ingredients that you have a vested interest in setting an example, and have infinite resources to do so. Say you set aside a billion dollar to hammer your neighbour with lawsuit after lawsuit, no matter how frivolous. You can run this way for years while consistently losing. It’s not a matter of being right or wrong, it’s a matter of who has the longest breath. Sure After several years the tables might turn and the judges may find it odd you’re claiming such weird things, but then again you’ve been going at it for years already.
So sure there might be a moral argument on what is right or wrong, but the law in practice does not work like that. Unless a judge sets an example by nipping this behaviour in the bud with excessive fees, but good luck seeing that ever happen.
The only way I’d see the neighbour win is if a whale of an activist Party would side with him and make it clear that any legal fight will be taken up with the biggest defence possible, but this is equally unlikely to happen unfortunately.
I wasn't making a moral argument, I was making a practical one. The demand, in and of itself, means very little. Being notified may matter, but the fact that it was couched as a "demand" rather than a "request" is irrelevant. And the notice will only matter in so far as you are actually in breech of a contract or there is a tort or you are breaking a law. As you illustrated, it's primarily the ability to punish non-compliance that actually matters (via procedure, public relations, etc).
Through it all though, the fact that the other party demanded something of you instead of politely asked" or humbly requested is not really relevant. What matters is that you got notice. That's it.
So sure there might be a moral argument on what is right or wrong, but the law in practice does not work like that. Unless a judge sets an example by nipping this behaviour in the bud with excessive fees, but good luck seeing that ever happen.
The only way I’d see the neighbour win is if a whale of an activist Party would side with him and make it clear that any legal fight will be taken up with the biggest defence possible, but this is equally unlikely to happen unfortunately.