Boundary Fencing Law

pimento

You could always start walking around in the altogether in your dining room and when the weather gets better, in your garden.

I know if I did this, they'd soon put a screen up so they couldn't see me..
How about building a pergola on your side but close to the fence. You could train a wisteria or a grape vine or any creeping flowering climber across it and that would obscure their view a bit.

iamcornholio

Boundaries, fence ownership and responsibilities to maintain fences are completely separate

A boundary is an imaginary line, it may have a fence, hedge or whatever on it, but that does not make the fence or whatever the boundary. The boundary can also remain even when a fence etc is moved

Responsibility to maintain fences does not mean that the fence is owned by one or another neighbour. I could be responsible for a fence, but my neighbour may choose to put his fence up in its place (with my permission) or on his side of the boundary. If the original fence is then removed, then I have no responsiblity to maintain the fence - and nor does my neighbour become responsible to maintain the fence. But he will own the fence, and I can not touch it without his permission.

Ownership of a fence is just that - whoever puts the fence up owns it and the other neighbour can not paint it or hang anything on it, as it does not belong to him

Responsibility to maintain (the inverted T on site deeds) does not grant an abolute responsiblity to maintain (ie look after) or maintain (ie keep) the fence. The fence can be removed or left to rot.

The OP can not place anything on the fence if they don't own the fence - doing so could be a trespass or even criminal damage. They would have to put their own fence on their own side of the boundary and not fix it to the neighbours fence. Anyone moving a fence further into their land, would be wise to note (on their deeds) that they are not moving the boundary, or else risk losing a portion of their land

suzielou2010

This is such a great place! You're all so good!

Yup - it is decided, we totally don't want to have any arguement - particularly if it costs us over £1000 and our peace...

Fence is theirs according to deeds - Hubby says we'd be better off just growing something our side which will grow gradually and slowly but surely give us some privacy, and we'll just keep whatever it is to a sensible height. Hopefully they'll not try and do anything silly to it.

They were so unpleasant to him when they spoke to him before that he's not keen on provoking any kind of further interchange about it!

Thanks again to everyone - seems this is a common problem!

gratefulforhelp_2

Interestingly the height limit is only applicable to solid, non-living structures, plants don't have a limit, unless conifers of a particular type, e.g. Leylandii.

ormus

anyone who can decide the exact boundary line on their property is a better man than me.
my deeds (i own the house outright) are A4 size. the drawing is half that size.
the red Ts are huge in comparison to the rest, ie not to scale.
theres no way of knowing the exact line.

thank god ive got really decent neighbours.

Swipe

If you wanted a private garden maybe you should have considered the fence height and who owns it before you bought the place.

Pitlanepiglet

gratefulforhelp wrote: »

Interestingly the height limit is only applicable to solid, non-living structures, plants don't have a limit, unless conifers of a particular type, e.g. Leylandii.

Not entirely correct, the new (ish) High Hedges legislation provides a mechanism for a party to apply to the Local Authority for a determination on whether a hedge is too high and, if successful the LA can order that the hedge height is reduced to 2m (or whatever it believes is reasonable but not under 2m).

The sensible approach to avoid getting caught by the High Hedges legislation is to plant individual trees and not a hedge. Individual trees are not caught by the legislation, even if they are Leylandii.

We have a similar problem with our top neighbours, added to by a fairly significant difference in land level. It's their fence and he's a bit prone to chopping down what is on it, so we've put in posts and wires ourside of the fence to grow things up against thus leaving a small gap to his fence.