Strange garden boundary observation/WWYD? - pics (sort of)

fiwen30

We went for another viewing of the semi-detached chalet bungalow we’re purchasing, and were shown around by the sellers again. It reaffirmed how much we like the house, but we wanted a second look & some more info on something strange on one side of the garden boundary.

On our first viewing, we thought there was a bunch of garden clippings behind ‘our’ 4ft fence on the left side of the rear garden, but on the second viewing we realise it’s a bloody hedge! I’ve attached some poorly executed diagrams of exactly what is going on, because I obviously forgot to take a photo 

So, there are original posts marking the boundary line between the 2 semis. Our house has a 4ft fence on it’s own set of posts. Perfectly normal.
Mrs Elderly-Nextdoor and her adult daughter originally had a bit of a fence to the right of their back room window, followed by a hedge on her side of the boundary. She has since installed a 6ft fence a short distance along the boundary, and then around the hedge, leaving it sandwiched in between the 2 fences, with no access left at the rear of the garden to get at the hedge from her side. It’s worth noting that this hedge is about 3ft wide, and not an unsubstantial amount to voluntarily diminish one’s rather small garden by, but I digress.

Now according to the sellers, Mrs E-ND has basically washed her hands of this hedge. Like I said, it can’t be accessed from her side to be maintained, as there was no access left at the rear, and her new fence is 6ft. The sellers have currently kept it trimmed down (with Mrs E-ND’s consent) to the height of their 4ft fence, but honestly it looks ridiculous.

Mrs E-ND has suggested that the sellers could remove said ugly hedge, but they’re unwilling to put the time & money into removing a hedge that isn’t on their land, or their responsibility. Sellers believe the new fence was put up so strangely in order to save Mrs E-ND said time & money to remove her own hedge, despite losing herself 3ft of garden to ‘dead’ space taken up by ugly hedge.

Do you think there’s anything we could do about this godawful hedge-sandwich once we move in?

My partner is all for taking down our 4ft fence, chainsawing the hedge at the ground and putting stump killer all over it. But, what sort of permission would we need (verbal, written, legal?) from Mrs E-ND, to make sure we we’re not liable for removing the hedge?
Is it maybe worth washing our own hands of the ugly hedge, and letting it grow up to the height of their own 6ft fence so that they may top it themselves? I don’t think we can make them remove the hedge, as it is theirs and is on their land, even though they seem perfectly happy to let the sellers remove it for them.
I also know that even if we take down our fence and remove the ugly hedge, we can’t legally just amalgamate the empty 3ft left behind into our own garden, despite Mrs E-ND’s stupid-shaped fence. If we reinstate our own fence, either 4ft or 6ft, on the boundary line, surely the same thing will keep happening when weeds and things grow up between the fences again? At the moment, it seems like the sellers are assuming responsibility for upkeep on this rogue 3ft, simply because they have the shorter fence on their side and so can reach. But if we put up a similar 6ft fence, there would be no such caveat.

Easiest & cheapest thing would to just keep topping the stupid hedge to our 4ft fence, but after 4 years of keeping on top of hedges in our rental, I’m sick to death of trimming hedges. Or we could just let the damn thing grow I suppose, but it’s already pushing in our fence quite considerably, and I’d be concerned about it pushing down the panels entirely if left unchecked, and I want a fence on our boundary, not a hedge, because see previous re. trimming.

I told myself I wouldn’t be one of those people who makes trouble with the neighbours, or gets their knickers in a twist about boundaries or a few inches of land, but this one really has me scratching my head.

First 2 pics are vague aerial views of how the hedge-sandwich looks from above, and the 3rd pic is what I should’ve taken a photo of, standing in our garden and looking at the back of Mrs E-ND’s 6ft fence, over the top of the hedge-sandwich.

What do you think?

AdrianC

So whose land is this hedge on? "Yours"?

Then if/when you buy and move in, remove that dog-leg of fence, and remove the hedge. The boundary line is where the boundary line is, and that's almost certainly a simple straight line through the middle of the party wall, straight forward, straight backward.

theoretica

The once and for all solution - with nextdoor's agreement - would be to take down two fences and one hedge and put back one agreed on fence on the boundary line.  If next door is happy with the status quo and you want it done it would likely be at your expense.  Maybe you could reuse parts of one of the fences already there to keep costs in check. 

fiwen30

AdrianC said:

So whose land is this hedge on? "Yours"?

Then if/when you buy and move in, remove that dog-leg of fence, and remove the hedge. The boundary line is where the boundary line is, and that's almost certainly a simple straight line through the middle of the party wall, straight forward, straight backward.

Hedge is on neighbours land. Dog-leg fence also belongs to neighbours. They chose to put in dog-leg fence around their own hedge - batty, I know!

‘We’ have a straight fence, just inside the boundary line on ‘our’ side.

princeofpounds

Those have to be some of the most artistic 'pictures' I've seen on this forum. Made me chuckle.

Anyway. It's really not that hard to rip out a hedge that size. A morning's work if you leave the stumps in, perhaps a day if you decide to dig the stumps out. I cannot understand how fencing it off can be cheaper.

It seems all parties concede that the hedge still belongs of the neighbour, so you will need her permission in theory. Verbal is enough, but I'd record that or get her to sign a one sentence letter.

The real issue is that it leaves you with boundary features that will no longer correspond to the general boundary indicated on the title plans of your properties (assuming that really is a straight line as shown). That is not a problem if either side are ok with that. Or the neighbour could move the fence or install another boundary feature to mark the boundary - or you can, if you want to.

In the longer term, you run the risk of the understanding breaking down (new neighbour, neighbour wanting to sell etc.). Then it will become a boundary dispute, which the parties can either settle amicably or settle legally if they cannot agree. In basic terms, if the boundary has been in place long enough (20 years IIRC), you would win. If not, they would win.

If it were me, I'd ask for permission to rip it out, do it. Then I'd either:
- put my own 6' fence in to mark my own boundary and forget about what was happening on her side. Or...
- 'adopt' the land to keep it maintained, but keep it in such a state so that if it were demanded back it would be easy to cede - no expensive planted border! 
The choice would depend on what I could see of her side from my own property with a 6' fence in place. You say it's a bungalow so maybe not much, but if there were another storey I'd probably not want to look down every day on a patch of scrub.

fiwen30

princeofpounds said:

Those have to be some of the most artistic 'pictures' I've seen on this forum. Made me chuckle.

Anyway. It's really not that hard to rip out a hedge that size. A morning's work if you leave the stumps in, perhaps a day if you decide to dig the stumps out. I cannot understand how fencing it off can be cheaper.

It seems all parties concede that the hedge still belongs of the neighbour, so you will need her permission in theory. Verbal is enough, but I'd record that or get her to sign a one sentence letter.

The real issue is that it leaves you with boundary features that will no longer correspond to the general boundary indicated on the title plans of your properties (assuming that really is a straight line as shown). That is not a problem if either side are ok with that. Or the neighbour could move the fence or install another boundary feature to mark the boundary - or you can, if you want to.

In the longer term, you run the risk of the understanding breaking down (new neighbour, neighbour wanting to sell etc.). Then it will become a boundary dispute, which the parties can either settle amicably or settle legally if they cannot agree. In basic terms, if the boundary has been in place long enough (20 years IIRC), you would win. If not, they would win.

If it were me, I'd ask for permission to rip it out, do it. Then I'd either:
- put my own 6' fence in to mark my own boundary and forget about what was happening on her side. Or...
- 'adopt' the land to keep it maintained, but keep it in such a state so that if it were demanded back it would be easy to cede - no expensive planted border! 
The choice would depend on what I could see of her side from my own property with a 6' fence in place. You say it's a bungalow so maybe not much, but if there were another storey I'd probably not want to look down every day on a patch of scrub.

Ha, sorry, I just wasn’t sure how to explain properly without visuals, and had forgotten to take pics while we were there today!

Goodness knows why next door chose to fence around the hedge tbh. I know there’s nowt queerer than folks, but that one really confused me!

Yes you’re right, and we certainly don’t want to cause any sort of boundary dispute or kerfuffle by ‘adopting’ the strip of land, post-hedge. I think we’d like our own 6ft fence to match the other 2 sides of the garden boundaries, but I would worry about the lawless land growing back with a vengeance and wrecking our new fence.

Pretty sure we couldn’t put down anti-weed membrane & bark chips without permission? Could we maybe lean over our fence and spray Roundup down there from time to time?  Ridiculous thing to have to be thinking about, honestly.

Thankfully, there aren’t upstairs windows that would overlook the hedge-sandwich, and whilst it’s currently ugly as sin when viewed over the existing 4ft fence, the post-hedge gulf should be invisible behind a new 6ft fence!

AdrianC

fiwen30 said:

AdrianC said:

So whose land is this hedge on? "Yours"?

Then if/when you buy and move in, remove that dog-leg of fence, and remove the hedge. The boundary line is where the boundary line is, and that's almost certainly a simple straight line through the middle of the party wall, straight forward, straight backward.

Hedge is on neighbours land. Dog-leg fence also belongs to neighbours. They chose to put in dog-leg fence around their own hedge - batty, I know!

‘We’ have a straight fence, just inside the boundary line on ‘our’ side.

Ah.

Then... their garden, their choice.

ProDave

Take down your fence and maintain the hedge on your side and keep that as the boundary.  What next door do is not your concern.

fiwen30

AdrianC said:

fiwen30 said:

AdrianC said:

So whose land is this hedge on? "Yours"?

Then if/when you buy and move in, remove that dog-leg of fence, and remove the hedge. The boundary line is where the boundary line is, and that's almost certainly a simple straight line through the middle of the party wall, straight forward, straight backward.

Hedge is on neighbours land. Dog-leg fence also belongs to neighbours. They chose to put in dog-leg fence around their own hedge - batty, I know!

‘We’ have a straight fence, just inside the boundary line on ‘our’ side.

Ah.

Then... their garden, their choice.

Right oh. I don’t suppose you’d know if there’s any sort of regulation that states they must maintain their hedge on their land, if it starts to become a bother and impede our property - pushing down our fence, for example?

If there is something that keeps them accountable for maintaining their hedge, then we’ll leave it be; but if that doesn’t exist or would cause more trouble than it’s worth, then we’ll likely double check & get written permission to remove the dratted thing. Can’t put up a new fence and risk the hedge destroying it, if next door can’t be held accountable for maintenance.

fiwen30

ProDave said:

Take down your fence and maintain the hedge on your side and keep that as the boundary.  What next door do is not your concern.

Trouble is we’re not buying a hedge, and we don’t want a hedge! Particularly a wood, ratty, scrubby thing, that’s full of ivy.

Unicorn_cottage

Why is the hedge such as issue to you? Are you happy living next to neighbours who are a bit cuckoo?