I paid for new Fence and neighbor refuses to pay

mstar

Hello All,

My property and the neighbours have no marking that shows who owns what fence. Its a old property and i have been told its a shared fence. I checked my deeds and with land registry/council 5 years ago who confirmed this when i moved into the house.

I replaced the fence as a safety issue as i have a small toddler and it was battered and had fallen over everywhere.
After discussing with neughbour and they agreed. Now i am getting ignored and responses
like "my solicitor is having a look he has not got back to me". I asked for half the cost as a fair amount
considering he did nothing i took 2 days off from work, removal of old fences etc etc.

Does anyone know if this turns ugly will i basically get nothing going the legal route?
As maybe the law is black and white and i be told "well you should not of done it"

Anyone advise? as i cannot afford to take this cost myself as it was £1200.

please help as this is starting to make difficult but i just want a fair result.:(

Furts

A boundary is a line drawn on a map, or an imaginary line drawn on the ground. Somebody has to own this miniscule line of land so in your case it appears it is jointly owned. A fence will be erected on, or near to this boundary but the fence will not be jointly owned. Indeed years ago there may not have been a fence when the gardens were formed. Plus over the years fences often get moved.

The bottom line is you may own the fence and the responsibility for it, or your neighbour might. This is what you have to look into. If it is your fence the neighbour could be an awkward bug-er and refuse to pay you for it.

Hintza

The OP has bought and paid for a new fence and unless they can prove there was an agreement for the neighbour to pay half then unfortunately that is tough. It could be even worse if the neighbour argued the fence is on his land without his permission, it might need to be moved/removed.

OP go gently for the time being and hope he comes up with the cash.

Torry_Quine

Did your neighbour agree to pay their share before you went ahead and got the new fence? If not then you have no way of making them pay

mstar

Hi there, i did ask and he said ok. I said don't worry paying right now but pay me after its done. From my neighbours i have been told that there is not legal owner of the fences on my road. They are normally shared by the neighbours.

societys_child

Torry_Quine wrote: »

Did your neighbour agree to pay their share before you went ahead and got the new fence? If not then you have no way of making them pay

This^ . . . and did the neighbour know how much you were going to ask him to pay to protect your child?

I replaced the fence as a safety issue as i have a small toddler

Furts

Torry_Quine wrote: »

Did your neighbour agree to pay their share before you went ahead and got the new fence? If not then you have no way of making them pay

On a similar note, if the neighbour did agree in advance to pay half, where does that really put you? I doubt this was witnessed and how can it be enforced in good neighbourly ways. Add to this if the neighbour now denies agreeing to anything it becomes a bitter pill to swallow.

Further if it does end up with litigation you would be wise to have proof that you sought quotes, you engineered the job down to an acceptable cost and you accepted the cheapest quote. Playing Devil's Advocate I suggest a Judge might say £1200 is too much to spend on a fence.

kev25v6

Id stick with paying for the whole fence myself and paint their side some horrible colour. It's your fence and they can't touch it.

TheCyclingProgrammer

mstar wrote: »

Hi there, i did ask and he said ok. I said don't worry paying right now but pay me after its done. From my neighbours i have been told that there is not legal owner of the fences on my road. They are normally shared by the neighbours.

Your neighbours are wrong and showing a misunderstanding of how boundaries work.

Shared boundaries does not mean shared ownership of the fence. You paid for the fence, therefore it's legally your property. If you have joint responsibility for the boundary then you have a right to erect a fence on that boundary I would have thought but this doesn't transfer ownership to your neighbour in any way.

Unfortunately unless you have it in writing that your neighbour was willing to split the costs there isn't much you can do.

moneyistooshorttomention

Playing devils advocate - did you give the neighbour the standard 3 written quotations from firms you had in to investigate the cost of the fence?

In your position - I would have given the neighbour a letter stating words to effect of "As per conversation between us of x date regarding fence replacement and your agreement to cover 50% of the cost of this - I enclose herewith copies of the 3 written quotations I have received from firms tendering for the job. I would like to suggest that WE employ Firm B for the job. Can I have your agreement to this please?"

If you didn't follow that procedure - then your neighbour could easily argue that he agreed in principle to pay 50% of the cost of the fence, but you had stated you thought it would cost around £1,000 (for the sake of argument) and he is now refusing to pay half because you went ahead and booked a dearer firm without his agreement.

Did you discuss the various written quotations with him? Or did you think "I'll have that firm" and then tell him he will pay half of that?? In which case - I can sympathise with your neighbour - because mine are trying to quote an "over the garden wall" conversation that I wasn't even a part of to get money out of me. If they had done it all properly and I had had my fair say in all respects and fair share in choosing which firm to use - then I would have paid up. As that wasn't what happened then......

stator

You can take your neighbour to small claims court. If your neighbour doesn't turn up it will normally be awarded against them and in your favour. Then you would have to try and enforce the claim, which may also cost you some money.
If the neighbour turns up to court and denies agreeing to pay for it then your claim will be rejected.