Garden Fence

Ollimae

My daughter's neighbour asked if they would go halves on a new fence, which my daughter agreed to as the other was falling down. The thing is that they are semis and each have their own fence to maintain on either side so I assumed the middle boundary would be a party fence although the neighbour is saying it's my daughter's fence.
There's no indication on my daughter's title deeds as to who actually owns the fence and the previous fence seems to have been a joint affair too with the previous owners of both houses.
There's a path on my daughter's side between her and the next house so they both have their own fences and the neighbour's house is an end house so there is no house next to them.

Anyway the work was done yesterday and without any consultation the good side has been given to the neighbour. That isn't so much of a problem but for the fact that there was no discussion about it and my daughter feels they should have at least flipped a coin and not taken it upon themselves to take the good side.

The fence posts are concrete ones and they are in the middle of the boundary. There are gravel boards under the fence which have also had the good side to the neighbours.

One part of the fence had to be made to fit over a low wall and the builder has only covered one side of this, the neighbour's side, and left my daughter with the frame he made showing on her side, which she's not at all happy about. Added to this the fence panel near the house wall is almost 3 metres high which I thought wasn't the legal height.

Now, if the neighbour had been paying for all of the fence my daughter would have said nothing, but with him expecting her to cough up £400 for a fence that she feels looks ugly on her side she's not happy about paying half.....what can she do? It's as if the neighbour told the builder that it was his fence and only he was paying for it.

Is she entitled to withold some of the money she said she'd pay as she now has to buy some trellis to cover up the ugly frame that's been left facing her garden.

pinkteapot

Who had the good side of the old fence?

If the new one is the same way round, I think it's less objectionable than if the neigher has switched the direction....

krlyr

If the neighbours are arguing that it's the daughters boundary/responsibility then they could argue that installation and maintenance should all be up to her so they've done her a favour going halves, and their reward is getting the 'good side'. However, your daughter is not obliged to fence her boundary, or could have used a cheaper, shorter, or less appealing fence if she so chose to so the neighbours should appreciate the gesture of sharing the cost to get a fence they like, and should be pleased to get any fence even if they got the 'bad side'.
It's a tough one. If it were me, I would perhaps see if she can buy a copy of the neighbour's deeds online from the Land Registry (think it costs £4-6 or so) and see if the boundary is actually their responsibility before she hands any money over. I thought that party walls were marked on your deeds still, just by a separate icon, so would first check that they're not trying to con her into going halves on their own fencing.
Secondly, if that isn't the case, I would ask myself whether it's worth getting into an argument over it, or worse, an official neighbourly dispute which would have to be declared if she were to sell. If they are the kind of neighbour to have a friendly discussion, she could suggest paying slightly less as a result of not getting the good side, but if they're selfish enough to go ahead and have it faced their way without so much as cehcking that's OK, it may not bode well for a fair compromise either..

pinkteapot

Just to say, it depends on the age of the property. My house was built in 1990 and the deeds give no indication of who is responsible for each boundary at all. Mum kept going on about how there'd be little marks, I swore there weren't, she looked at the plans and said "Oh, there's not".

pimento

Paint it green and it will blend in just fine. All fences look awful when they come in that bright orange colour.

Land_Registry

The issues you raise are not uncommon and invariably rely, as krlyr suggests, on trying to reach a compromise with the neighbour.

Land Registry cannot provide legal advice on such matters but we do provide a degree of guidance and explanation re some of the answers to boundary questions provided by the information we hold.

pinkteapot refers to the age of a property being important but there is no hard and fast rule to this. A key factor can often be whether the properties formed part of a development which had a sole original owner i.e. developer who then built on and sold the land in plots. The opportunity to define or apportion responsibility naturally exists in such circumstances and the same applied to say a Victorian developer as it does nowadays.

The online fee for checking the title register is £4 using our online service It is though very important to read the aforementioned FAQ and related Public Guide to understand and appreciate what information might be available.

In some cases checking the titles for the affected properties will reveal what you are after whilst in others it may not.

Ollimae

Thanks for all the replies.

The bad side of the fence, though it wasn't considerate of the neighbour not to discuss it, isn't a huge problem and wouldn't be cause for any concern really.
It's the part of the fence that's had to be built that's causing the trouble. With that the builder made a wooden frame which is quite deep, the depth of the wall beneath it, and he's just covered the neighbour's side with panels and left my daughter with an ugly frame with screws sticking out at all angles. It's as if the neighbour told him he was paying for it all so my daughter didn't matter.

Also the fence panel by the house wall is 9ft high and keeps some light out of the dining room now.

The fence has those concrete posts and the panels slot in but it's been built in the boundary line, as was the old fence, so that seems to me to be a party fence.

My daughter wants to offer £300 instead of £400 because she'll need to pay to have the frame covered now, and would like the 9ft fence lowered. There are a couple of gravel boards beneath the fence so perhaps just removing them would work. Do you think that's acceptable?

cyclonebri1

Forget the good side or bad side of the fence, it has no standing in law.
It does indicate who owns/is responsible for the boundary but is so far out of date as to be unreliable.

It is not impossible and infact likely in this case that 1 property has boundaries on both sides.

Land registry enquiry, £8, should provide the answer.

I'm sorry and I'm not trying to be a smatass, but I have to ask, does Land Registry representative have his/her employers permission to post info, that will be taken as Gospel, here?

Ollimae

She is forgetting the bad side of the fence. It's the 9ft high panel by their house wall and the ugly frame the builder made but didn't cover with fencing that's the problem.

Gloomendoom

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Land registry enquiry, £8, should provide the answer.

I wouldn't bet on it. I paid my money but am still none the wiser. I did get a nice little plan with a thick marker pen outline showing where the boundary is though... plus or minus three or four feet.

tightrs

My daughter wants to offer £300 instead of £400 because she'll need to pay to have the frame covered now, and would like the 9ft fence lowered. There are a couple of gravel boards beneath the fence so perhaps just removing them would work. Do you think that's acceptable?[/QUOTE]

i would not pay anything until the job was completed to your daughters satisfaction,her neighbour is happy point out to him your objections and withhold all the money until he gets it sorted