Billed for a boundary fence

Pomsky

We have received a bill from our local council for an apparent shared cost for them replacing a  boundary fence. Our property is owned and the other is council rented property. Should we need to pay this?  Our property is an end terraced house and we have think we should only have the responsibility for the outer fencing and not the fencing seperating the 2 gardens. Where do we stand....? 

theoretica

You start by reading your property deeds.  Did your house used to be a council one?  If they were thorough they would have written this sort of thing into the deeds - and some councils are very alert and thorough about such things.

Mathematically, a terrace of 6 houses will have 7 fences - one each doesn't work out.

olgadapolga

You might also want to see if the council have a tenants' handbook. This may seem odd but when a fence fell down between ourselves (owned) and our neighbours' (council/HA tenants respectively) there was a clause that said the council/HA was entirely responsible for the cost of replacement but only if the fence was the responsibility of the council/HA.

So, in our case, the fence was the responsibility of the council/HA (proven by the house deeds). The council/HA tried to fob the costs off onto the tenant, who refused to do anything about it. We read the tenants' handbook (downloaded it) and found out that if the fence was between council/HA and private ownership then the council/HA paid for it to be repaired, not the tenant (whereas if it was between two council properties then it was down to the tenant).

user1977

Pomsky said:

we have think we should only have the responsibility for the outer fencing and not the fencing seperating the 2 gardens.

What's made you think that? What were you told by your solicitor about the boundaries when you bought?

mattyprice4004

Check your deeds for who is responsible for the boundary. 

Manxman_in_exile

Our deeds don't say and I wouldn't be surprised if the OP's don't either.  

We live in a terrace and - assuming the deeds don't say and it isn't clear that a fence belongs to one property rather than next door - I don't see any problem in two properties sharing the maintenance etc costs of a fence that marks the boundary between them.  Who wants to get into an argumant with neighbours over a fence?  Sometimes you may find a neighbour who will insist that it's "the law" that you have to maintain the fence on the left (or the right - which side will depend on what side the neighbour is!) of your property, but that's twaddle.

If like the OP you are end of terrace, then you should share the costs of the fence you share with the house you are attached to, and the "outer fencing", as the OP calls it, is your responsibility and nothing to do with anyone else.  Being a "semi" at the end of a terrace has it's advantages, but it has a cost too.

Of course, it would have been nice if the council had forewarned the OP as to what they were doing and why... 

(The OP might be better on the house selling and buying etc board)

Pomsky

Thanks for all your comments we will have a look at our deeds to see what they say. 👍