My fence your fence?

JAHL

Hi I am buying a small house and the left hand fence (looking out from the back door) has long gone. My garden space and the neighbour's has grown wild and I need to get my part cleared and fenced in urgently to allow my 2 dogs to access it. The neighbour appears to be a very ill old gent who has a nurse visiting each day so I am not keen to go round asking if he will contribute to the cost of the fence. My intention is to just go ahead and get a fence erected to secure my space. Is there any reason why I shouldnt do this? Although I pay for the fence it still wouldnt be 'my fence' but would that be an issue at all that I am not seeing? Thanks

maas

We had the same problem with our last house, where the fence was short and falling apart. Similarly the neighbour was very elderly and didnt seem to look after their garden at all by the looks of things.

We just asked (during the meet the neighbour conversation) if they didnt mind if we replaced the garden fence (we didnt ask for any money) and they didnt object.

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The new house I just bought, the neighbours have recently replaced MY FENCE (during the purchase) with a taller one and part of that new fence has collapsed (during those storms a few weeks ago). But they've volunteered to fix it so I'll just leave them to it.

Road_Hog

JAHL wrote: »

Although I pay for the fence it still wouldnt be 'my fence' but would that be an issue at all that I am not seeing? Thanks

It would be your fence. It is the boundary that may belong to the other party. Check the deeds to see who owns the boundary.

G_M

If you buy a fence and put it up, of course it is your fence!

The issues are

1) where do you put it and
2) who owns the boundary

If you own the boundary, you can putup a fence on it (subject to Planning Permission which may restrict height etc)

If you do not own the boundary, either you will need permission to put up the fence, or you could put up the fence on YOUR land ie 6" your side of the boundary.

As to boundary ownership, this can be hard to establish:

* The Land Registry Title, and/or Plan, might specify, but more usually does not
* The original Developer's Plan, might specify
* You might be able to deduce via common usage: eg in a road of 50 houses, if all the other owners claim ownship of their left hand fence, you could (fairly) safely deduce the same applies to your property

Land_Registry

As G_M implies, the ownership and maintenance of boundaries is not a straightforward matter.

You might like to read our guidance on Boundaries from our website