Legal Position For the Cost of Repair

GDB2222

This link may help:

https://www.boundary-problems.co.uk/boundary-problems/walls.html

p00hsticks

I'm not a legal expert but, living in a hilly area (in England) and also having a retaining wall to support our garden, the information we were given from our solicitor when we bought the house was that the responsibility for maintenance and repair of retaining walls always falls on the owner who is benefitting from the land being retained (i.e.e whose land is being held up by the wall).

ThisIsWeird

p00hsticks said:

I'm not a legal expert but, living in a hilly area (in England) and also having a retaining wall to support our garden, the information we were given from our solicitor when we bought the house was that the responsibility for maintenance and repair of retaining walls always falls on the owner who is benefitting from the land being retained (i.e.e whose land is being held up by the wall).

That can be one of the determining factors, yes. But it also matters who did the actual work - if one side either excavated the land on their side, or built it up on the other - the person who changed the natural slope of the shared land is usually liable for retaining the change.

If you excavate away the land on your side of the boundary, you cannot tell your neighbour to then retain their unsupported land... :-)

Section62

p00hsticks said:

I'm not a legal expert but, living in a hilly area (in England) and also having a retaining wall to support our garden, the information we were given from our solicitor when we bought the house was that the responsibility for maintenance and repair of retaining walls always falls on the owner who is benefitting from the land being retained (i.e.e whose land is being held up by the wall).

Your solicitor was wrong.

If there is nothing explicitly stating who is responsible for maintining a retaining wall then a court might start with the presumption that the property with the benefit of the retained land is responsible, but that could be rebutted if the owner of the higher land can demonstrate that the natural ground levels were altered for the benefit of the 'lower' property (for example).