Boundary clarity

KittyPop

My neighbours removed the boundary fence between our properties and put up a new one 50cm onto their land (ie we now have 50cm of their land our side of the new fence) - initially saying it had been in the wrong place (now they have admitted they put it in the wrong place). They initially said they were responsible for the boundary. Their deeds state they are responsible for A to B and B to C - but neither of us understands or can work out what this is. On our property, we have 4x boundaries - two are clearly marked as our responsibility - and the other two have no markings (one of which is the above mentioned boundary). How do we determine the A to B and B to C and responsibility - before tackling the 50cm of land our side of the fence that we do not want. Many thanks

MeteredOut

Is there more to this that your not wanting to share?

It's not clear exactly whether the new fence and the 50cm of their land is causing an issue. If so, what is the issue and what resolution do you want? If not, its not clear what you want.

Without seeing the deeds, I doubt many will be able to tell you who is/was responsible for what.

If you want, you can pay for a boundary survey and they might be able to determine what A, B and C are, and who owns/is responsible for what.

Contrary to popular believe, there are no fixed rules as to who owns/is responsible for anything built on a boundary.

Were you consulted in the removal of the fence? In theory, if it turns out you owned the fence previously on that boundary, and it was taken down without your approval, your neighbour has committed criminal damage. 

Slinky

It's not often we get anybody saying they don't want extra land!

propertyrental

So what is the problem? The new fence gives you an extra 50cm of land. Excellent!

If the neighbour now wants to move the fence back to where it was, well, before the move were you happy with where it was? If so, the problem is.....?

ThisIsWeird

KittyPop said:

My neighbours removed the boundary fence between our properties and put up a new one 50cm onto their land (ie we now have 50cm of their land our side of the new fence) - initially saying it had been in the wrong place (now they have admitted they put it in the wrong place). They initially said they were responsible for the boundary. Their deeds state they are responsible for A to B and B to C - but neither of us understands or can work out what this is. On our property, we have 4x boundaries - two are clearly marked as our responsibility - and the other two have no markings (one of which is the above mentioned boundary). How do we determine the A to B and B to C and responsibility - before tackling the 50cm of land our side of the fence that we do not want. Many thanks

Blimey
Kitty, it doesn't really matter who has the allocated 'responsibility' for any boundary, as it's nigh on impossible to force or oblige anyone to put up an actual fence, unless it's to keep in their wild animals and children. 
If one party doesn't want to put up 'their' fence, and sometimes there's a genuine reason like they cannot afford to, then the other party may just need to bite the bullet and put up one themselves instead.
All that really matters is that the location of the boundary line itself is known and, ideally, agreed. Then whoever puts up the fence should ideally position it on their side of this boundary line, so that they then own that physical fence in every sense. 
A shared or 'party' fence, split cost, would usually straddle the boundary line.
In practice, a few inches either way is often not a concern to folk, and full accuracy often hard to determine in any case!
So, it doesn't really matter what your deeds say about 'responsibility' - ye cannae force folk to put up a fence. Ok, most folk do the right thing, and take responsibility for at least one side of their plot, and this makes for good relations, and it can be galling if one neighbour just says 'non' and behaves selfishly.
How to sort your situation? If you'd like suggestions on here, it would help if you posted your deeds map, along with any other useful info, such as the location of fixed objects like original buildings, gates, garages, paths, that sort of thing. Also the associated text that relates to this.

sheramber

If you are so upset by the extra 50cms , you can erect your own boundary marker on the actual boundary.

It could be a piece of string, a piece of wire, a line of netting,  whatever you wanted to put there.

Maintaining the boundary does not mean you or your neighbour has to erect a fence.