Who owns that fence? Legal mumbo jumbo...

[theboyfold]

The fence to the left of my garden is falling over and I've always thought that it was the neighbours issue. Spoke to him yesterday about it, and he's convinced that it's ours.

So a quick flick through the deeds reveals this in the 'Schedule of Restrictive Covenants':



and then this



Does this have anything to do with my fence? I'm a little lost. In the last house it was the fence on the right, and it was clearly shown on my plans. I've downloaded the plans from the Land Registry and they show me nothing of any use.

[Mr Pointy]

Is the fence to the left the south east or north east boundary? It reads as if those two are your responsibility.

Our fences are offset slightly one side or other of the downpipe from the guttering so it's fairly clear who owns which.

[Sam_68]

theboyfold said:

In the last house it was the fence on the right, and it was clearly shown on my plans.

Contrary to popular opinion, there isn't any 'standard' convention to say that you are responsible for the right hand boundary, or anything like that - it varies from property to property.

From the wording you have quoted, you are responsible for the fences on your South East and North East boundaries, but there should be a plan attanched to your title deeds that shows 'T' marks on these boundaries, too.

[theboyfold]

There are fences to the south east, north east and north west. It's the one to the North West that's fallen down.

I've downloaded the plans from the land registery and can't see anything marked with a T, hence my slight confusion!

[Busa mav]

it may be worth downloading the deeds to your neighbours house to see what their wording is , he may have "forgotten" his responsibility .

[theboyfold]

His say exactly the same as mine, "south east and north east boundaries"

[theboyfold]

So here are the plans, is it clear which is north-east and south-east?

[mattdaniels]

The North-East boundary would be the top short side of that red rectangle.
The South-East boundary would be the right hand long side of that red rectangle.

Edited by mattdaniels on Monday 10th October 19:54

[ATTAK Z]

From the layout you have 4 boundaries viz: North, South, East, and West.



None of these is North-East or South-East. It is therefore unclear which boundaries you are responsible for from the information supplied.

Edited by ATTAK Z on Monday 10th October 21:33

[Simpo Two]

Yes, but that doesn't make sense. The person who typed the covenant probably didn't heed the rose.

As I understand it you own/are responsible for the bits where the Ts are on your side, probably one of the north or south sides.

[theboyfold]

Simpo, what are the Ts on there? I was a little confused by that...

[Chrisgr31]

What sort of fence is it? Those clauses say that you are only liable to provide posts and chainlink which won't offer much privacy. Just agree to go halves with the neighbour!

[netherfield]

Depending on the age of your house, newer plans don't often show whose wall/fence belongs to who,our house dates back to 1912 and I still have the original deeds which show the 'T' markings,whereas the plans issued by the Land registry when we bought it show nothing.

When buying a property it is worth asking your solicitor to keep/copy the old deeds as these are often destroyed otherwise. All modern deeds are stored on computer by the Land Registry and show little of what the old ones did.

[furtive]

Simpo Two said:

Yes, but that doesn't make sense. The person who typed the covenant probably didn't heed the rose.

Yup, it looks like you are responsible for the fence at the end of your garden and the one on the right hand side of your garden (when standing in the house looking down the garden)

[0a]

Thin house!