Housing association refuse to repair neighbour fence

theoretica

They quite possibly do have an obligation to ensure it is not hazardous - falling on you with rust nails or something.  But they could deal with that by removing it.  If your neighbour has a dog or children then they can be held responsible for their behaviour and should keep them off your property somehow if you ask - but that is the occupier's not the owner's responsibility.  But maintaining or replacing a fence because you liked having a fence - sorry, no. 

Aylesbury_Duck

outtatune said:

jooble182 said:

user1977 said:

jooble182 said:

it should just be by default a legal obligation to maintain fences in my opinion.

Why? Lots of boundaries don't have any fence. Would that mean the owners would to put one up, even if nobody wanted it?

Sure fair enough if there isn't one there, it was personal opinion but if there is a fence there it would be good to keep it maintained. I'm not looking to write the details of how to get this into law just a gripe about how it works. 

Again, what's your gripe? If you're the one who wants there to be a fence, and the neighbour isn't that bothered, why should it be neighbour who pays?

That's my view on it, too.  If you want a fence, pay for it.  If you don't want to pay for it, then you have to live with whatever the neighbour chooses to have and maintain, as long as it doesn't trespass, create a hazard or fail to keep their roaming animals contained.  The default laws seem sensible.

Manxman_in_exile

+1  ^^^        

lincroft1710

Back in the 1960s had relatives who lived in a council house in Cumberland. The "fences" separating the rear gardens were 10 cm high wooden posts with a single strand of thick wire running between them.

olgadapolga

Being as it states quite clearly on their website that they are responsible for fence repairs, I'd be writing to their chief executive about it.

We had a similar situation many years ago. We lived next door to a housing association property. The fence broke due to lack of maintenance. We asked the neighbour to talk to the HA about it, which they did but the answer was that they weren't going to sort it out, and that being as the fence was "to the left hand side, then the law stated" that it was our responsibility, not theirs, and they "proved" this with a very dodgy map of sorts.

We had the land registry documents proving that the boundary wasn't ours to maintain. I showed this to the neighbours who agreed with us but refused to be further involved and told us to contact the HA ourselves. So we did. The HA then tried telling us that it wasn't down to them anyway, it was the neighbours' responsibility to sort it out.

I wrote to the CEO with a copy of the deeds which clearly showed that responsibility lay with the HA. We also sent them a copy of their own residents' handbook which stated that where a boundary/fence was between a HA property and a privately owned property then the HA would deal with repairs (if the fence was between two HA properties then it was down to the occupier to sort out). I wasn't kind in my letter and pointed out that their staff required further training amongst other things.

Net result: the fence was repaired (they actually replaced the whole fence) within a few weeks. The neighbours fell out with us as they said that we'd ruined their relationship with the HA. The HA offered mediation to help with this but we declined as we didn't care that much about the neighbours anyway, it had only been a polite greeting type relationship as opposed to a cake, cup of tea and natter relationship. The HA apologised for the fact that their staff were clueless.

tightauldgit

Just to be clear though... The statement 'we are responsible for fixing fences' does not imply 'we have responsibility TO fix your fence' 

If they choose not to and it's legally compliant then they are within their rights to simply leave it. 

Manxman_in_exile

@jooble182   -  apologies if you've already told us, but are you a tenant of the HA yourself, or do you just live next door to one?

If you and your neighbour are both tenants then I'd have thought the HA should be dealing with it.

If you aren't a tenant, I don't suppose you've got anything to lose by complaining to the HA, but if you aren't a tenant and the fence is yours, I'd expect the HA to say they're only responsible for repairs to fences they own and not yours.