Broken fence - Neighbour's deed doesn't show any 'T' but ours does?

Shoza · 25 Feb 2017 at 23:59

SPG said:
Looking down the Garden..... Rear and fence to the left is your responsibility, its quite simple.

Completely incorrect.

It will either be stated specifically in the deeds or joint responsibility.

Deep · 26 Feb 2017 at 10:05

SPG said:
Looking down the Garden..... Rear and fence to the left is your responsibility, its quite simple.

But it's not that though.

SPG · 26 Feb 2017 at 10:23

8/10 it is, but check the deeds.

Burned_Alive · 26 Feb 2017 at 14:04

SPG said:
Looking down the Garden..... Rear and fence to the left is your responsibility, its quite simple.

Our back fence is on the left of the house behind us.... checkmate.

ci_newman · 26 Feb 2017 at 14:47

SPG said:
Looking down the Garden..... Rear and fence to the left is your responsibility, its quite simple.

It's not that simple though. In my garden (confirmed with the deeds) it is rear and right side of the garden (and the rear is next to a road, so no shared responsibilty)

SexyGreyFox · 26 Feb 2017 at 15:02

We are shared with 4 neighbours and we've always shared the cost.

koolpc · 26 Feb 2017 at 15:06

With ours, we are responsible for the rear and the right side.

Just fix it for goodness sake. Its only a fence panel!

Skillmister · 27 Feb 2017 at 06:34

My colleague deals with boundary disputes and some have run up legal fees into the 10s of thousands.

It's mind boggling but sometimes people would rather pay legal fees in an attempt to prove a point than 10s/100s of pounds to just fix the problem.

Many properties have no boundary maintenance provisions whatsoever in the deeds. What would you do in that situation? Probably just fix it and move on with your life.

Punt · 27 Feb 2017 at 11:27

Our back fence is shored up with a lump of wood screwed to a tree in out garden. Deeds say it's the neighbours responsibility but the post are on our side. We mentioned this to the neighbour a few months back and she's not spoken to us since

We can't be arsed with any hassle so we're just going to sort it ourselves but put the posts in our property so it's our fence, she can keep the old knackered one falling into her garden, once the shoring up is removed!

Rroff · 27 Feb 2017 at 11:41

SPG said:
Looking down the Garden..... Rear and fence to the left is your responsibility, its quite simple.

Only as a "rule of thumb" as it tends to apply to a lot of places but no means a hard and fast rule - about 70-80% of the properties shown on the plan for this area have it but some have really odd arrangements.

ChrisD. · 27 Feb 2017 at 11:48

Just asked my mate who is a solicitor as I'm in the same situation, ie no T's. This is her reply.

The original transfer states that you are to maintain and repair the fences marked with a ‘T’ on the plan. However, there are on such markings – they may have been accidentally missed off at the time you bought and the transfer was done, or it may have been deliberate so you and your neighbours all have joint responsibility.

It’s not an issue though, very few titles have ownership of the fences stated, so most people just come to some arrangement with neighbours, i.e. 50/50 costs.

When I bought the house I'm fairly certain the developer told me it was 50/50 with the neighbours, which is interesting actually as one panel at the back shares with two different houses.

darknite · 27 Feb 2017 at 12:01

I am now replacing 2 and a half panels on one of the fences i own. New neighbours moved in the day after Doris. They came straight round and offered to pay half of any costs, which was nice. But I told them not to worry and pointed to the other side of the property to show another chunk of fence was missing which is theirs.... Plus i did think it was a bit harsh to have just bought a place, move in the day after a storm and pay half of the neighbours fence repair!

All of the fences around my property are mine. Until I can buy the "ransom" strip left my the house builder then I will simply remove one fence :-)

Phoenix211 · 27 Feb 2017 at 14:10

SPG said:
Looking down the Garden..... Rear and fence to the left is your responsibility, its quite simple.

except i'm responsible for the fence (which in my case is a wall) on the right. So no, not simple and refer to deeds.

SexyGreyFox · 27 Feb 2017 at 18:11

Skillmister said:
My colleague deals with boundary disputes and some have run up legal fees into the 10s of thousands.

The daftest one I came across was my mate Neil and his neighbour but concerning guttering.
The neighbour came round saying the guttering was wrong but Neil pointed out that it was his neighbour who recently had cowboys in and they fitted his guttering wrong, he needs to get them back so it flows correctly.
The neighbour wasn't having it and several letters appeared from a Solicitor but Neil ripped them up.
Eventually he was ordered to Court, gave his story, the neighbour confirmed that it was him who had his guttering replaced but Neil should now be responsible and have his done so it flows correctly

The neighbour ended up paying £1000s.

mjd · 27 Feb 2017 at 20:57

Deeds are largely worthless for establishing who owns what and where physical boundaries actually lie. Things change over time and the deeds are often based on out of date OS maps from my experience. Furthermore a boundary is not a physical feature, it's an invisible line that would have been set out when the land was originally split up, so a fence showing as one person's responsibility whilst also sitting on what appears to be a neighbour's parcel of land is no great surprise. Personally I would erect my own fence and paint the neighbour's side bright pink. As the owner of the fence yourself the neighbour will have no recourse whatsoever.

Also you hear a lot of old wives tales about who owns what. It's all cobblers and unless the title deed indicates ownership, the boundary is jointly owned....And just to complicate things further, without specific wording regarding what is owned and maintained by who, who actually owns a perceived boundary feature is unknown.