pesky neighbour and dividing fence

the_cat

It is quite possible to replace the fence and 'save' the ivy. They are very robust plants and will tolerate a huge amount.

Simply (gently) pull the ivy down from the fence his side and leave as much as you can lying on the floor. You will lose some obv espec if it is growing directly on the fence and not on a trellis ( if there is a trellis carefully unscrew it and lever away from fence) As long as you leave the roots it will soon recover. Put in new panel and reattach ivy (ideally to a trellis to help the panel last longer)

Its more work and perhaps not your ideal, but would be worth doing to get it sorted quick and keep the peace imo

delain

Well at least now he will probably let you replace the panels, though I;d be inclined to tell him it's his responsibilty, what if your children had been in the garden? Is the dog an old softie or the agressive type?

brians_daughter

delain wrote: »

Is the dog an old softie or the agressive type?

I dunno TBH, it has a huge bark tho lol. I dont think its well trained as when his neieces come to visit the mum (his sis) makes him put the dog outside..so i guess either she doesnt like dogs or has reason to believe it isnt safe around her lil uns?

Hes home about 2ish today he said so i am purposely not leaving the house until i have seen him. :T:T:T

delain

Seems a bit odd, his behavior really. I mean I know it might just be because I have children of my own (one of whom is scared of large dogs owing to a bad experience) If I had such a dog and saw it going at the fence like that I'd have reinforced or replaced it myself, I know Twin1 would be absolutely terrified if a dog suddenly appeared in the garden.

puddy

just to confirm there are lots of myths about ownership of fences and boundaries.

it is rare (in older properties at least) that anyone has 'ownership' of boundaries.

there may be specifics in your deeds which mean that you have responsiblity to maintain a boundary, if you do, this merely means that you have to keep it marked, you could do this with string if you wanted to

you may have a different specific, saying that you must maintain a boundary feature, such as a fence or wall, this is different to above. it does not mean that you 'own' a boundary, it means that you must own a fence along it (or wall) but theres nothing to stop someone putting a fence or wall in their own land against the boundary, as long as you ask permission from the original fence owner (if this is your neighbour) to put something or attach something to their fence

in this case, i would have simply built a fence at the back, you will only encroach on your garden by a few inches

ceridwen

I dont know about that - myths about ownership of boundaries that is.

I remember when I bought my house that my solicitor put the plans in front of me and said "This side wall is yours and the wall the other side of your garden belongs to the neighbour the other side of you - in effect the houses there own one side wall each".

So - that was a solicitor telling me that - on my old property FWIW.

Only trouble was that I was a naive first-time buyer at the time and had no concept of what problems neighbours could create about boundaries at that point - or I would have paid more attention to which of my side garden walls it is thats "mine". I've had to work out by a process of logical deduction since on all the houses in my road which one it must be that my solicitor meant...:o

Re fence posts - I always understood that the owner of the fence has to have the fence posts on their side (that sounds reasonable to me - ie that the person who wants the fence is the one that has to put up with the "ugly side view" - ie those posts).

puddy

hopefully your solicitor told you that because on your deeds it had a T on the side that you 'own'.

with regard to fence posts, of course the post should be on the owners side, the person putting the fence up of course, because you wouldnt put buildings on the land of next door

its usual that no one owns or has responsiblity for a boundary, if thats the case, its up to negotiation as to who might like to put a fence up (and pay for it) then the fence becomes the ownership of the person who put it up, but that doesnt mean they 'own' the boundary

most people believe that if you look at a house, you 'own' the boundary on the left, but this is not the case

largely its illogical to say that someone owns a boundary, how can you own a boundary?

pigpen

It is 'has responsibility for maintaining' rather than 'owning' is how we were led to believe it is written.. needless to say we removed our neighbours fence and put up a new sturdy one while the house was empty..

pulliptears

DORIS_PALMER wrote: »

"landregistryservices" quoted above by pulliptears is not the real UK Land Registry and would appear to be another scam site!

Oh goodness! Thank you, have now changed that link to the real land registry.

dizziblonde

Our deeds actually state that one side fence is ours, the other is the neighbours and the back fence (houses back-to-back each other) is shared... great fun (not) when you've got builders from hell working in the house out the back regularly having bonfires right up against it - if they set fire to it - they're darn well not fobbing the repairs off onto us, and if they catch my pear tree in the flames - there will be wrath.