Neighbours - garden fence damage

Suzkin

Hi, Please can anyone advise?

1) My neighbours have drilled 2 planks of wood into my closeboard fence, and have nailed industrial type nails into it, with strong coated rope attached - in order to secure a white tent in their garden.

The tent will probably be there for *at least* 3-4 months.

I am very unhappy about this :mad:: I paid for the fence, for which I am responsible and which is on my boundary line. Moreover, as soon as it was errected, I wrote to them, asking them NOT to attach anything to it.

Not only have they have gone ahead and done it, they did not seek my permission, either.

Any ideas what I can do? They will not listen to me - and have ignored my letters. One of the ropes I could reach over and cut (although I'm not sure whether that would constitute damage - even though they are damaging my fence!), but this would still leave lots of other nails and the 2 planks of wood firmly attached - which I cannot reach.

2) They are also refusing to cut their vegetation which is now emeshed into the arras rails of my fence (I wanted the 'flat' side facing into my garden, since I prefer the look).

When I wrote to them offering to cut it down for free, for them, and then asked them - in passing- whether they had any more thoughts about it, I was met with hostility!

I have called 101 (local community police), to see if they will visit, take a look and then knock on the door.

Is there anything more I could do? What would the next stage be?

Thanks.

Suzkin

Hi,

Yes - you are being rude. I write because talking to them politely and nicely has not worked. By writing, they can reflect on the matter..

sporedude

Or ignore the letter, Whatever works for them.

sibot74

Suzkin wrote: »

Hi,

Yes - you are being rude. I write because talking to them politely and nicely has not worked. By writing, they can reflect on the matter..

I'm sorry you think that - I wasn't intending to be, as I said.

I have to say that if talking to them hasn't worked, I don't think writing a letter will either. I don't see any way of preventing them from doing whatever they want on 'their' side of your fence. If the entire fence is on your side of the boundary then perhaps you might have a case for criminal damage? But I think you have to consider whether it is worth all this aggro for what is, in the grand scheme of things, a trivial matter.

Are the nails protruding out of your side of the fence such that they might cause injury? Is the fence otherwise damaged? If the answer to both of these is 'no', I don't really see a problem.

(Also, the 'good neighbourly' thing to do is to erect a fence on a boundary with the arris rails on the erectee's side of the fence, but it sounds as if there isn't much love to be lost here anyway. And if you can't access the other side of the fence, how did you plan to maintain it?)

misgrace

I think you have every right to have a moan, as its your fence, on your boundry.
My friend had similar fence wars, she had a brand new fence errected on her boundry, her neighbours decided to build a lean-to, so she had great big nails poking through her side as they built, or should I say jerry built it against her posts,using her posts as thier support, then to add insult to injury they decided to erect a washing line, using another one of her posts.

End story is, after a while with the weight of the lean-to, and the weight of the washing, some of her fence panels buckled and broke, plus the posts were in a sorry state too.

No amount of nicey nice talk worked, (some neighbours are like that),she tried everything, they didnt want to know, so she pulled the post out that held the washing line, with the washing still on it, and pulled the posts that had the nails and bits holding one end of thier lean-to up.

I know some of you might think it was very drastic of her, but you dont know what she had to put up with, and I know she tried her best, but they were not approachable.
Its been sorted now, but they wont attach anything to her fence ever again lol.

I think you should be concerned about the weight of this tent against your fence, my neighbours have buckled mine a bit due to the weight of something against ours, so we are getting that sorted, but it is a long drawn out affair.
Good luck and let us know how you get on.:D

roswell

unless all the fence is on your side of the boundry and very clearly on your boundry i cant see anyone doing anything about it you will just get yourself wound up about something very trivial as already said.


fences are designed to have nails in them .. its just part of life you cant dictate what they do on thier property ...

misgrace

My neighbours have drilled 2 planks of wood into my closeboard fence, and have nailed industrial type nails into it, with strong coated rope attached - in order to secure a white tent in their garden.

Eeerr, I think 2 planks of wood, industrial nails, and tent rope is just a wee bit different to a few nails.:eek:

Mojisola

Go to https://www.gardenlaw.co.uk/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=6&sid=c8f72b13784f273fb2ae5f4927bb7c40

The people there will give you advice - and sympathy! Basically, it's your fence and they are not allowed to touch it and certainly can't use it as support for anything in their garden.

Added: I see you've already gone there!

Suzkin

Wow, I've thanked the helpful people who have replied. It's amazing the number of other cynics (trolls?) who roam this site.

sibot74

I was trying to be helpful - I know if my neighbours resorted to writing me letters instead of talking to me that would make me less inclined to do what they were asking rather than more .

I do appreciate, however, that it sounds like your neighbours are a lot worse than any I've had the misfortune to live beside - so good luck with the community police. I still believe, if I were you, I would think hard about whether this is something I wanted to get so excercised about though (unless the fence thing is the proverbial straw). Life's too short.

macman

misgrace wrote: »

My neighbours have drilled 2 planks of wood into my closeboard fence, and have nailed industrial type nails into it, with strong coated rope attached - in order to secure a white tent in their garden.

Eeerr, I think 2 planks of wood, industrial nails, and tent rope is just a wee bit different to a few nails.:eek:

Legally speaking they cannot attach anything to your fence on their side, although they can put what they like up within a mm of it. Most people would not object to a few light nails, but obviously your neigbours have done more than this and don't give a monkey's.
You can legally remove the nails on your property as long as you don't trespass, but in reality this may not be the wisest course of action for you.