Ex council fence on my land, can I remove?

LaScofe

Hi, we have recently bought a house, which I believe used to be a council owned property. We want to add a driveway onto the property and apply for a dropped curb. There is a metal fence on the edge of our garden between the garden and the pavement, which was probably installed by the council when they owned the house. Does anybody know if we are allowed to remove this fence as it is on our land? Or would it still technically belong to the council and we would have to get permission? Thank you!
Also sorry if this is the wrong place to post, it is my first time using this!

GDB2222

You probably can remove it. What does your title say? Those gardens are all quite 'open-plan'.

adonis

You need to check with the council first,

you might not be able to put in a driveway or a dropped kerb, there may be restrictions on parking.

Is the property freehold or leasehold?

twopenny

The fence itself is far too nice to be council installed. I've never seen such on Council properties.

Is there similar on the house oposite you?

bris

You can remover the fence but you should first of all get the permission to drop the kerb for the driveway. 

Its a gamble whether you get the permission or not so no point removing the fence for nothing.

casper_gutman

twopenny said:

The fence itself is far too nice to be council installed. I've never seen such on Council properties.

Is there similar on the house oposite you?

I can believe the council installed it. It looks like the sort of thing they'd install in a park or around a children's playground, as if they were treating the open front gardens as a public space.

If the layout is as I imagine from the photo, I think some of the neighbous are likely to seriously dislike the idea of part of what they may well think of as a communal open front area being turned into a private driveway. Tread carefully, OP!

Sandtree

It looks like it marks the boundary of your property rather than being "on your land". The deeds should show if you are responsible and therefore own the fencing on that boundary edge

prowla

Is that path along the houses a right-of-way?

My guess is the previous occupiers may have put the fence there to stop people cutting the corner (across their garden) to get onto the path.

casper_gutman

Sandtree said:

It looks like it marks the boundary of your property rather than being "on your land". The deeds should show if you are responsible and therefore own the fencing on that boundary edge

The deeds won't tell you anything about ownership of the fence, just about who is responsible for maintaining the boundary. You can put a fence along a boundary even if you don't have responsibility for it, and it doesn't become the property of the person on the other side just because the deeds say they should have put a fence up.

The ownership of this fence will be tricky to determine because the council owned your house when they put the fence up, and also had responsibility for the street. Did they put the fence up on the plot of the house, to mark the boundary of the garden? Or did they put it on land which is part of the highway (albeit unpaved), to mark the boundary of the highway? If they built the fence in the garden, then it will have become yours when they sold you the house. If it's on the highway, then it's not yours.

No plan on your deeds will be detailed enough to tell you which of these applies. The council may not even know, as the answer didn't matter as long as they owned the house!

twopenny

Casper there are obviously councils that have a classier approach than ours then.
We just get poor post and rail or cheap panels 

bris

It's almost certainly been erected to divide a private garden from a public footpath.

Going by the picture a dropped kerb would be very unlikely as it's going in from the side over this path and not from the front.