Responsibility for fence

kazzyb123

Hi,

We have bought a mid terraced house with no mention in the deeds who owns each fence. One neighbour said he owns the one on the left of his house the other said he doesn’t know.

We are replacing some panels on the left of our garden which we have paid for because of what the 1st neighbour said.
On the other side the neighbour only uses half of his garden and the rest is sectioned off and basically an over run mess of 9 foot brambles. Ours had also been sectioned off before we moved in but we want to open it up to full size. So we think we don’t own the fence on that side and it is falling down (virtually nothing left of it) but the neighbour on that side doesn’t car because he doesn’t use that section of the garden anyway.

Sooo, should he replace the fence because it’s his even though he doesn’t use the top of the garden or should we replace it because it’s us that wants to use that part of the garden.

We did ask him about it and he didn’t really say much and it’s £200 each.

I can’t prove he owns it though!

Any ideas???

Thanks

Fire_Fox

kazzyb123 wrote: »

Hi,

We have bought a mid terraced house with no mention in the deeds who owns each fence. One neighbour said he owns the one on the left of his house the other said he doesn’t know.

We are replacing some panels on the left of our garden which we have paid for because of what the 1st neighbour said.
On the other side the neighbour only uses half of his garden and the rest is sectioned off and basically an over run mess of 9 foot brambles. Ours had also been sectioned off before we moved in but we want to open it up to full size. So we think we don’t own the fence on that side and it is falling down (virtually nothing left of it) but the neighbour on that side doesn’t car because he doesn’t use that section of the garden anyway.

Sooo, should he replace the fence because it’s his even though he doesn’t use the top of the garden or should we replace it because it’s us that wants to use that part of the garden.

We did ask him about it and he didn’t really say much and it’s £200 each.

I can’t prove he owns it though!

Any ideas???

Thanks

It is convention to face the 'bad' side of any fence towards the side that maintains it. So you might look up and down the row of gardens for clues. However unless there is a covenant in the deeds, or a relevant local authority regulation or their dog is roaming uncontrolled ..... nobody needs to provide a 'proper' fence.

Your neighbour could choose to use wood from old palettes as stakes, and thick twine or plain metal wire running horizontally to mark 'their' boundary. :money: If you have selected of £400 fencing panels you are solely responsible for that cost unfortunately.

Davesnave

It's simple, but I think you realise this already; you want the fence much more than the neighbour, so you'll probably be the one paying for it.


If there was something in the title documentation about the responsibility for making boundaries, then, in theory, you could ask your neighbour to do this, but as Fire Fox says, they could use any materials they liked.

TELLIT01

There is generally little you can do to force a neighbour to replace a fence. Even if there is something in the deeds to state that the boundary line must clearly indicated, all they would need to do is put a couple of straining wires the length of the garden.
The comment about having the 'bad' side of the fence toward the person responsible for the boundary is interesting. It was raised a while back on a gardening site where the vast majority of responses was along the lines of "I've paid a lot of money for the fence and I'm having the 'good' side to me". We had a new fence installed on our 150 foot garden and we certainly had the good side facing us. Our neighbour did the same with the fence he is responsible for, as did his neighbour. I suspect the claim of 'convention' stems from when gardens generally had chain link fencing and then the posts and straining wires were on the property and the chain link marked the actual boundary. In that situation the 'bad' i.e. post were on the owning side.

Davesnave

TELLIT01 wrote: »

I suspect the claim of 'convention' stems from when gardens generally had chain link fencing and then the posts and straining wires were on the property and the chain link marked the actual boundary. In that situation the 'bad' i.e. post were on the owning side.

Also featherboard fencing, where one never sees the arris rails if it's a fence bordering a public space.

[Deleted User]

Hi,


if your neighbour doesn't use his sectioned off part of garden then he won't be peering into your garden, but if you want to hide the 9 foot brambles then you will have to pay and maintain the fence.


You may need to get on to your neighbour's side for maintenance, so have a word with him first.

martinthebandit

Personally I'd be asking the neighbour how much he wants for the bit of sectioned of garden he doesn't use.

robatwork

Davesnave wrote: »

Also featherboard fencing, where one never sees the arris rails if it's a fence bordering a public space.

But aren't fences much easier to scale if the arris boards are on your side? (ie. if I backed onto a footpath I'd put the posts and rails on my side)

p00hsticks

TELLIT01 wrote: »

I suspect the claim of 'convention' stems from when gardens generally had chain link fencing and then the posts and straining wires were on the property and the chain link marked the actual boundary. In that situation the 'bad' i.e. post were on the owning side.

The explanation I've always heard that it's to avoid inadvertently giving an - admittedly miniscule - amount of land over to your neighbour. As the fence needs to be completely on your property, then if you erect fence posts on your land and then attach boards to one side of those posts, if you attach them to the far side of the posts then all the land between the posts remains on your side of the fence, whereas if you do it the other way round you neighbour gains the use of the small amount of land between the posts.

Davesnave

Davesnave wrote: »

Also featherboard fencing, where one never sees the arris rails if it's a fence bordering a public space.

robatwork wrote: »

But aren't fences much easier to scale if the arris boards are on your side? (ie. if I backed onto a footpath I'd put the posts and rails on my side)

Yes, the implication of what I said is that one never sees fences erected with the arris boards on a public-facing side, although some weirdos do occasionally put them them on the side facing neighbours, to have the ' pretty' view themselves.

robatwork

Davesnave wrote: »

Yes, the implication of what I said is that one never sees fences erected with the arris boards on a public-facing side, although some weirdos do occasionally put them them on the side facing neighbours, to have the ' pretty' view themselves.

ha, I think you've just called half the weirdos in here weirdos!