Fence painted!

freezspirit

Come home today to find neighbour has painted my fence!

Not a boundary fence might I add as this fence is 12-18inches inside my property and the boundary is clearly defined by a 2 brick wall.

Fence was put up over 10 years ago using excellent quality 1inch thick timber (expensive at the time) we left it to naturally go silver as that how we wanted it.

Now this new neighbour has painted/stained it brown. I'm blood boilling mad! He didn't even think to ask!

Firstly what should I do to calm down. Secondly what would you do in my situation. Should I get a quote for how much the timber cost and give it to the neighbour as a form of compensation towards reinstalation of how fence used to be?

tilly_willow

My advice on the calming down is write a letter to your neighbour stating just how you feel BUT and this is the important bit, DO NOT give it to the neighbour. Then read it tomorrow when you've had breathing space. At that point start thinking about what you'd like to do about this. There letter allows you to get out the feelings so you approach the issue slightly less furious.

As far as the fence is concerned only you can decide what would adequately compensate fot the damage but I suggest you do need to make sure your neighbour knows where the actual boundary line is.

gardenroute

Okay you're boiling mad, maybe its not the best time to deal with this. I'm not a lawyer, I can't comment on aggravated trespass/criminal damage; but I think you should approach this in a calm manner.
The fact that you have a boundary wall and a fence shows some kind of history here. Maybe you should try to find out why he did this and what he hoped to gain from spending hours painting a fence that did not belong to him nor was on his property.

freezspirit

bit of an update, dad (still mad) went round to ask if he painted it and why as it wasn't even his property. He indeed painted it and acted as if nothing was wrong. We have come up with 2 solutions, one to get quotes for timber and labour charges to replace fence as was. Other it to calm down for a couple of days then go round to neighbour and tell him to finish the job by painting the other side of the fence as a compromise and chalk it up to experience that he should of known better.

We liked the look of how wood natural ages, dad spent ages sourcing the timber and built the fence himself, horiontal timbers with varying spacing so not your normal fence panels type fence. My personal feeling is that it is trespassing and vandalising other peoples stuff. My property and his are at different levels so the boundary is very clearly marked. Interestingly you would of thought if the fence was on the boundary line all he had to do was knock on the door and asked who it belonged to.

a1cat

It was probably just ignorance and not malicious, as others say he probably thought it wouldn't do the fence any harm, would look better his side and help preserve the timber.

You'd probably win any kind of 'taking it further' but is destroying good neighbours relations worth it?

And if you did make it official, ie a legal dispute, you'd have to declare it if you wanted to sell the property (or risk getting sued when the new owner found out).

tim_n

I still get confused over who owns a fence and is responsible for the maintenance. I own neither of the fences surrounding my garden and a concrete wall at the end of the garden.

We have started painting our side of the fence much to the relief of one of our neighbours because he seems to think it's our fence (though he built it on his property line but only our side of it. On the other side we've painted half the fence before realising that it might seep through, so we knocked and asked and they said it was fine and to carry on.

Doesn't sound good that your nice weathered fence has been painted - was it only his side but some came through or did he actually climb over the fence and start slapping it on? Sounds like a well intentioned but odd neighbour, it's not worth falling out over, try to be amicable - it's only a fence and having had neighbours from hell, I'd rather have a stained fence than someone I felt I had to hide from in the garden.

kataklysm

I'd be livid. And that means you should not attempt to talk to your neighbour about it yet.

Disputes are always best avoided. Plus you have to disclose them if you ever move house. Take a few more days, put it into perspective, and have a calm conversation if you must to decide on a solution. It was stupid but he only meant well, keep that in mind.

I once came home and found my FIL had cut down a 20yr old climber from the front of my house. It was the maddest I had ever been about anything, I was completely heartbroken. But I most certainly did not vent at the FIL. We're still best buds, he just knows not to do any gardening at ours anymore... :rotfl:

ali-t

If you have a powerwasher that might take the wood stain off. I recently had my fences powerwashed before having them retreated and it took all the previous wood stain off. At the very least you could have some fun by pressure washing a message into the fence panels!

STOCKWIRE

Good site for information http://www.gardenlaw.co.uk

cootambear

check your house purchase documents. it should clearly state who is responsible for which fences.

a1cat

cootambear wrote: »

check your house purchase documents. it should clearly state who is responsible for which fences.

In my experience this is rarely the case.