Whose fence is it?

SAM81

SAM81

SAM81

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Joined
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The recent storms in the north east have taken its toll on the fence dividing the bottom of our garden and the house backing onto it. It's safe to say the fence is done for and needs replacing. I've consulted all the documentation we received when we purchased the house and nothing indicates whose fence it is.

Is there a way of finding this information out?
 
How long have you been there? And how long have your neighbours been there? It's probably better to have a chat with them and go 50/50 or find out who owns them.

The tricky part will be if you find out the neighbour owns them, but refuses to repair/replace.
 
Semple said:
How long have you been there? And how long have your neighbours been there? It's probably better to have a chat with them and go 50/50 or find out who owns them.

The tricky part will be if you find out the neighbour owns them, but refuses to repair/replace.
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In that case, just put up a new fence as close as you can to theirs!
 
nipped out for milk yesterday and saw loads of fences blown over and a few more trees.

must be a huge call for fence repair right now up here, wonder if lumber prices go insane.


get it fixed ASAP imo
 
We had 3 seperate fences, all difff types looked a mess.

For the sake of (at the time) a few hundred quid i just paid to have it all done
 
These threads come up so often.

Nobody "owns a side" unless written into the deeds; and that is VERY VERY VERY rarely done and usually hard to decipher.

Norms like "Joe Bloggs maintains that one" count for a lot in terms of getting on with your neighbor but are not enforceable.

Like the chap above, I paid to replace the left because it was a state and my neighbor is work shy.
 
dLockers said:
These threads come up so often.

Nobody "owns a side" unless written into the deeds; and that is VERY VERY VERY rarely done and usually hard to decipher.

Norms like "Joe Bloggs maintains that one" count for a lot in terms of getting on with your neighbor but are not enforceable.

Like the chap above, I paid to replace the left because it was a state and my neighbor is work shy.
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Normally when you have gardens side by side one will have the posts or cross supports showing and the other side of garden will have all the panel showing.

Like the poster above says, post side is normally your side, but its not always the case.

Best thing is to talk to the neighbours, see what they say, if they are happy to split the cost which is the best way as you can say together we could get a nicer looking and better fence that will hold up for years etc.

If they aren't interested try and get it in writing and then put something up that looks crap their side.
 
scarps said:
Normally when you have gardens side by side one will have the posts or cross supports showing and the other side of garden will have all the panel showing.
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Which as I said is simply a societal behaviour/social 'norm'. It has no basis in any legal sense of the word.
 
dLockers said:
Nobody "owns a side" unless written into the deeds; and that is VERY VERY VERY rarely done and usually hard to decipher.
.
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Thankfully our deeds are really clear and simple so it saves any issues with maintenance. we own the fence to the rear and the left of the property. didn't realise it was that rare!
 
Rich1988 said:
Thankfully our deeds are really clear and simple so it saves any issues with maintenance. we own the fence to the rear and the left of the property. didn't realise it was that rare!
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Your deeds say that, or the questionnaire your previous owner filled out? :D
 
Our deeds are clear as the fence between us and our neighbour straddles the border of the plot and is termed a party wall fence. It is therefore the responsibility of both parties. Best to get a firm in to do a quote and ask them to address it to both yourself and the neighbour so they can collect half from each of you. I wouldn't trust our neighbour to pay us if we forked out for the whole thing so that's how I would do it.
 
thenewoc said:
Our deeds are clear as the fence between us and our neighbour straddles the border of the plot and is termed a party wall fence. It is therefore the responsibility of both parties. Best to get a firm in to do a quote and ask them to address it to both yourself and the neighbour so they can collect half from each of you. I wouldn't trust our neighbour to pay us if we forked out for the whole thing so that's how I would do it.
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That’s great advice.

It was like getting blood from a stone with my neighbour. To avoid arguments, having to chase, etc., we got invoiced separately.
 
I have a pretty good idea what will happen if ours falls down and we don't get some quotes in. The neighbour will either bodge it up without asking us or get someone unsuitable around to give a quote for a less substantial solution than we currently have. Ours won't last a lot longer because it's wooden posts concreted into earth.
 
If its a modern built property then the likelihood is that the fence is a "party fence". Likely, but not always the case.

If its an earlier built property, and one fence or other - left or right - might belong to each property. The house deeds boundary pictures often have a sideways "T" symbol attached to the fence lines and the side that the T lays upon indicates the fence owner.

The convention of having the supporting fence posts on the owners side is not a reliable indicator.

The answer *ought* to be in the deeds. But sometimes hard to pick out since the info could be contained in a Covenant attached to the property.

All the best
 
Rather than start a new thread - our neighbour had a company out today to look at reworking the boundary fencing between our properties (their responsibility) and the guy remarked it was the first appointment he'd had in a week where the neighbours were actually discussing it in person and not in dispute and communicating via email... our neighbour who works in that industry piped up with around here it is more normal to be dealing with solicitors/lawyers...
 
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