Boundaries finding which is mine?

ruda202

I bought the property couple of months ago and on my deed said clearly that I’m responsible for all fences which normally doesn’t happens but next door neighbors who is not attached to my house claiming that the right side is his. Solicitors confirmed that is ours but he still claiming that is his and he does not want to show us his deed even though we showed him ours. He just send us copy of questioner when he was bound his house, but that is not legal document. What to do because we needs to change the fence but we don’t know exactly which side is ours 

ruda202

That is his questioner 

MikeJXE

Yours is the fence with the T on your side which looks like all of them 

If that questionnaire is from the neighbour on your right looking from the road 

He's wrong 

theoretica

BUT - the T on the boundary only means you are responsible for ensuring the boundary is marked in some way.  Unless there are more words to go with it.  If it is 'your' boundary and your predecessor had a bit of wire up to mark it and previous owner of the neighbour's house paid for a fancy fence just their side of it then it would be their fence.  Do the fences on all sides match?

You don't need your neighbour to show their deeds - just pay £3 and get your own copy.

MikeJXE

theoretica said:

BUT - the T on the boundary only means you are responsible for ensuring the boundary is marked in some way.  Unless there are more words to go with it.  If it is 'your' boundary and your predecessor had a bit of wire up to mark it and previous owner of the neighbour's house paid for a fancy fence just their side of it then it would be their fence.  Do the fences on all sides match?

You don't need your neighbour to show their deeds - just pay £3 and get your own copy.

Agreed, they need to decide if the fence is on the boundary or the other side the boundary 

I think their deeds will only show the T on the end of the garden unless he has it completely wrong and his fence is on his right which is more realistic 

ruda202

theoretica said:

BUT - the T on the boundary only means you are responsible for ensuring the boundary is marked in some way.  Unless there are more words to go with it.  If it is 'your' boundary and your predecessor had a bit of wire up to mark it and previous owner of the neighbour's house paid for a fancy fence just their side of it then it would be their fence.  Do the fences on all sides match?

You don't need your neighbour to show their deeds - just pay £3 and get your own copy.

I did bought the £3 copy from land register but that what it’s showing 

MikeJXE

ruda202 said:

theoretica said:

BUT - the T on the boundary only means you are responsible for ensuring the boundary is marked in some way.  Unless there are more words to go with it.  If it is 'your' boundary and your predecessor had a bit of wire up to mark it and previous owner of the neighbour's house paid for a fancy fence just their side of it then it would be their fence.  Do the fences on all sides match?

You don't need your neighbour to show their deeds - just pay £3 and get your own copy.

I did bought the £3 copy from land register but that what it’s showing 

Thats confusing 

You first stated the next door house not attached to ours can only be the one to your right looking from the road

it is obviously not that one because you are in a semi and it is attached to yours 
 
It changes nothing just check if the fence is on the boundary or the other side 

Section62

ruda202 said:

I bought the property couple of months ago and on my deed said clearly that I’m responsible for all fences which normally doesn’t happens...

More or less every urban street will have at least one property which is responsible for boundaries on both sides, as there will usually be one more boundary than the number of houses.  So this is quite common.

Were the properties originally built by a local authority?  With those it is fairly common for responsibility for the boundaries to be passed to the buyers wherever possible so the LA gets shot of the liability.  For that reason properties sold off earlier are more likely to have responsibility than those sold later (or still in LA ownership).

I'd also query whether the 'angled' boundary between yours and 148(?) at the rear/LHS is yours or theirs.

However, as already commented on by others, who is responsibile for the boundary and who owns the fence are two separate things.

ThisIsWeird

Still some confusion, Ruda.

Your first plan, above, that shows boundaries with 'T's on three of them, is yours? Your house is No4?

You are right - that is unusual. It might happen at the end of a 'terrace' or row of houses, where one end property is lumbered with 'responsibility' for fences on both sides (and often the rear), but that's seemingly not the case here. So it's weird, but your deeds plan clearly shows Ts on three sides. Is there any reference made to this in the text of your deeds?

You then posted this:

I presume that's your neighbour's plot? Ok, where did the 'questioner' - the 'property information document' - you included come from? Is that yours or his?

A few basics - unless the deeds actually specify that a person has to maintain a specific type of physical boundary, then - almost certainly - no-one can force them to. So, for instance, if one of these fences was definitely on your side of the boundary line, you could remove it if you wanted to (unless you needed to keep in dawgs and stuff). That would usually be a silly and unneighbourly thing to do, but I'm just saying that you could. And them with their fences.

So, who owns/has responsibility for these fences? No idea. There's a slight difference between owning and being responsible; you would 'own' the fence outright if it sat fully on your side of the boundary line. You could then do with it what you wish, and no-one else would be allowed to touch it. Often fences are placed on the actual boundary line, and then one person usually accepts responsibility for it, but they do not 'own' it outright. (Not sure what difference that makes in practice - none, really, unless there's a dispute.)

So, whilst you are sorting out who is responsible for which fence, I think I'd do a couple of things. The first is to look at the yellow arrows on these two pics - there's a kind of porch or outhouse or shed or summat sticking out the side of your (and other matching houses) side. And then at the bottom of the plot, there are what look like a couple of garages. Do either of these help to determine where - exactly - the actual boundary lies? And where is that current fence in relation to the boundary?

The second thing I'd do is to have a chat with other neighbours on that road, especially the ones with matching house outlines. Ask them which fences they consider they have 'responsibility' for.

From this info, can you determine where the existing fences sit in relation to the boundaries? 'On', to their side, or to your side?

What is the actual issue here? You reckon the fence needs replacing, and you presumably want to do it in your style? But the neighb is saying "It's ours - leave it alone!"? What will the neighbour do then - replace it in their style, or just let it rot?!

Bottom line - if this is 'your' fence, your responsibility, then you can replace it in your style. But you'll need to either get that across in a legally-unambiguous way - a solicitor's letter, for example, which will likely P them off -  or else you place a new 100%-yours fence on your side of the boundary line.

The latter might be the best solution, if you want all your fences to match - you'll then have full control over them.

Do you have Legal Protection included in your house insurance? If so, you can always call them up for a chat over the legalities - they should be able to guide you towards how to determine the true ownership. If you don't have LP, then for gawd's sakes add it now...

TELLIT01

Right and Left can easily be confused when referring to gardens.  The OP is clearly referring to the property to the left as we view the plan but would be on the right if looking down the garden.

As others have said, the T simply indicates who has responsibility for marking the boundary.  It doesn't automatically mean that the current fence is actually running along the boundary line.  The fence posts on the current fencewould only have to be moved a couple of inches for the entire structure to be in the neighbour's garden.  If that has happened the OP has no right to do anything to it.  All they can do is construct a new fence immediately beside it.

If the fence needs repairing/replacing and it is the neighbour's fence I'm surprised they haven't jumped at the idea of the OP paying for it, although doing so could open a whole new can of worms at a later date.

Section62

ThisIsWeird said:

You are right - that is unusual. It might happen at the end of a 'terrace' or row of houses, where one end property is lumbered with 'responsibility' for fences on both sides (and often the rear), but that's seemingly not the case here. So it's weird, but your deeds plan clearly shows Ts on three sides. Is there any reference made to this in the text of your deeds?

Not really.  There is no law or rule which says the 'additional' boundary has to be at the end of the row, nor that the boundaries have to be distributed equally between properties.  It would be perfectly legitimate for alternating properties to be responsible for both or neither of the boundaries between them.

Furthermore, as I pointed out in my previous post, with LA housing in particular it is common for the boundaries to go with the properties as they are sold off, so responsibility is based on when the property was sold, rather than physical relationships with other properties.

For those reasons, and because 4,2,150 and 148(?) have a slightly complicated corner-plot type arrangement, there is nothing inherently 'wrong' with number 4 having both 'side' boundaries.