Fence replacement - council house neighbours

TheCyclingProgrammer

carlislelass wrote: »

Our council say if facing your house fences on left hand side are yours

Do they really say that somewhere official? Because it's a load of rubbish!

TheCyclingProgrammer

uknick wrote: »

I'm surprised by the idea of shared fences. Maintaining a fence seems to be a big enough problem when only one person has to pay to maintain it. I can see real problems trying to get both parties to agree to spend money on them.

A fence can become "shared" simply by both neighbours agreeing to split the cost and build the fence on the boundary line rather than on one side. It doesn't necessarily have to be something specified by the deeds.

My house is one of a pair of semi detached houses. Our deeds don't specify boundary responsibility but we are both happy to treat the outer boundaries as ours and the central boundary as shared which seems fair.

datostar

Is your neighbour's house still owned by the Council? If so, it might be worth getting him to report the decrepit fence to the Council. I mention this because we have a Council House end on to us at the bottom of the garden. The fence between us started to collapse. It had always been our belief that it was our responsibility and I'd treated and repaired it in the past, but the neighbour got the Council to come and replace it. Result!
If he's willing to do that the worst that could happen is that they refuse to do it then you'll know for sure that it's down to you.