Fences & Neighbours

[Cyberprog]

Hi All,

I have a fence to the rear of my property, which buts up to the side of my neighbours property.

Neither of the registered title plans show any "T" markers on the boundary. I have an original title plan which shows "T" markers on my other boundaries, but none with this neighbour.

I wish to replace the ~20+ year old fence with a new fence, as our dogs have gotten through a few times due to rotting panels and overgrown bushes on our side. The cost for doing this will be a little over 2k including vat, using concrete posts, concrete gravel boards and decent panels.

The original deeds (which, again, I have a copy of) state;

3.1 "Party Boundaries" means;-
3.1.1 any part of a wall of the house also forming part of a building erected or being erected on an adjoining plot on the Development and
3.1.2 any other wall (not being a wall of the House), fence or hedge on a boundary between the Property and the curtilage of any dwelling within the Development, unless marked "T" on the plan.
3.2 Maintenance repair and renewal of the Party Boundaries is to be at the join and equal expense of the Buyer and the registered proprietors from time to time of the adjoining plot concerned/

I've spoken with the neighbour, who didn't offer to pay anything initially, but has offered to pay towards a lesser quality fence (akin to £17 a panel!). When presented with the fact that it was going to be £1k, she just said she didn't have that sort of money. She has, I believe, fairly recently split with her partner, which may be the cause of some financial stress, but nonetheless I did offer to pay for the fence to be sorted upfront, and for her to repay in chunks to be determined.

So that's the factual side of things - here's the question - do I need her permission to replace the shared boundary? I also assume that once it has been replaced (and I'm under no obligation as far as I can tell to install a lesser fence) - she would be jointly liable for the cost (along with her ex partner). I'd then have to enforce that through the courts if she refused to pay, but presumably that would be against both herself and her partner, and I could then register a charge on the house when all is said and done.

Things haven't been helped by my partner getting drunk and talking st in the back garden the other night however... sigh.

Anyway - any help would be appreciated!

[Cyberprog]

I appreciate all your opinions on the matter - but nobody has actually provided anything to backup this - other than what they feel.

The fence is ~24 years old. Installed by Bryant Homes when the estate was built. The panels are rotten and have been pushed over by the plants the previous owner "trained" up the fence and onto trellis panels on the top. The dogs are just pushing through rotten boards when her daughter (who does not live at home) visits and brings her dog round - and dogs being dogs want to interact with one another. There is nothing I can do about this with the state of the fence currently.

If I've got to replace the fence, then I'd rather the job was a proper job - hence £2k, rather than spend a couple of hundred every couple of years and then have to sort that out.

I'm also mindful that while she claims not to have the money, the area we live in is fairly expensive - and that in the grand scheme of house ownership, is not a lot of money to shell out on what would be a proper job. I can also see her upset in that through no fault of her own, the fence is failing, but I should point out that she initially tried to dump the whole thing on me - asking me when *I* would be sorting it. And sorting it I am, sadly for her, that also means that there is an obligation on her to pay for it according to the deeds.

Ironically, in the last 5 years both she and the previous proprietor have independently replaced panels. I'm unsure why neither raised it as a shared fence at the time, but it's been missed.

In a conversation today her daughter got involved and reckons the fence is hers, and on the face of what I was shown I accepted that and she's now going to replace with cheap fence. Sadly, I've now read the document she was relying upon, and it refers to the marked shared fence with her rear neighbour (my side neighbour whose garden extends past me). So we'll have to have another discussion tomorrow.

Edited by Cyberprog on Saturday 26th May 23:54

[Cyberprog]

don'tbesilly said:

I can't offer any help, but I could ask you to do this:

Put yourself in your neighbours shoes and let us know how you would react when presented with the scenario as you've outlined above?

I'd be annoyed that the fence had failed, but I'd also acknowledge my obligations towards a shared fence. It's in black and white on the paperwork and was something that was accepted when the property was bought.

[Cyberprog]

Thats What She Said said:

Where in the deeds does it say you get to decide solely on how much to spend on replacing the fence, and then hold your neighbour to ransom, with threats of court action?

Buy an expensive fence if you want one. Then price up the costs of budget fence panels and posts, and ask your neighbour nicely to split the cost of the cheaper stuff.

The deeds don't specify anything like that - hence my question here It just says repair and replacement shall be jointly borne. I don't think there's any argument that the fence is in need of repair - but when more than 70% of the panels are in need to repair - I think you'd look towards replacement instead.

[Cyberprog]

OK, so this has been resolved.

It's not the dogs fault - the panels are totally rotten, coupled with the plants the previous owner put in, have meant that the slightest bit of pressure to cause them to cave in.

Round here we're talking a minimum of £100/panel for a professional to get involved.

Anyway, I went out this afternoon and they'd already been out and bought literally the cheapest panels possible - which aren't even the right panels (they bought panels to go in a slotted post). I worked with them all afternoon, including a trip to B&Q to get two new posts as we discovered they'd rotted, and we've bodged the fence in for now. I'll have to have a further day to this now to fix their mistake and get some batten against the edge of each post to anchor the damn panels to.

I've offered to pay half and corrected them on the title deed line they were trying to throw in on me - when read with the title plan, you can see immediately that the line they were relying upon referred to the border to the north, which was marked as being their responsibility.

I'm not happy with the quality of the fence that's been installed. I'm not happy that I've basically lost two days of my weekend to this shenanigans, and I'd have rather paid someone to get it done - but we're past that. I've made it quite clear to them that if this cheap st they've installed fails in 5 years, we'll be replacing the whole damn thing how I wanted it doing and we'll have to argue about the cost then. It's a typical case of buy cheap buy thrice - but some people can't be swayed, and they have all pitched in to help on their side to be fair to them, with just me working on my end.

The deeds are very clear as per my original post, and that they have the same stuff in theirs - as they bought from Bryant homes just as the previous proprietor of my house did. The obligation is for us to both repair or replace and to share the cost. A fence is required as a result of the deeds (for all those saying there's no obligation to have the fence).

She is at least, happy with the outcome, and we'll have to plant some new trees to screen it off a bit. Where we are in 5 years we'll see. I'm betting she'll be gone by then - her oldest is already living elsewhere, her partner was roped in to assist, her son is 17ish IIRC and the other daughter a bit younger - give it a few years and they'll all be gone and it'll be some other poor bugger's problem. I shall see if she's happy to sign a boundary agreement and we can get the fence properly registered with the land registry in the mean time, I'm happy to spend the £40 required!

[Cyberprog]

Toltec said:

I was wondering this, for comparison -

We had a concrete post fence put in last year, the existing fence was one I had put in sixteen years ago, it was still sound, however the small forty year old retaining wall it was just inside was starting to lean quite badly and as it crossed over three other neighbours I decided to sort it before it caused a problem. The company I had in removed the old fence and wall and used ten foot posts and two or three concrete gravel boards per section to form a new fence and to retain the 25 to 50cm soil height difference. It cost about £120 per section iirc, some companies quoted double and really didn't want to do it going on their attitude. Seven new sections of fence in two days, two guys on the first day removed the old fence and wall, four guys on the second put the new fence in.

The quote was for 11 panels, though from my discussion with her the end two she had done fairly recently, so I'd have left those be (I can't see them anyway, they're out of the way in the corner) so it would have been slightly less - probably around £1600ish for that. That's about £150 a panel and would probably have been a two day job.

[Cyberprog]

crofty1984 said:

Is it a legal requirement to have a fence at all? If it blew down or otherwise disappeared one day, would the law dictate that a fence was put up if both parties were happy to not have one? I know where I live the deeds specially say we can't have fence round some of our gardens. Though, to be fair, most people ignore it and nobody minds.

In this case, it's dictated by the requirements in the deeds.

[Cyberprog]

Jasandjules said:

To keep dogs in get a deer fence shoved up - inside your boundary.

Not the stupidest suggestion! I'd already considered a inner fence actually to stop the dogs from getting to the boundary, and that will likely be done when the extension and other building work happens. It'll also make poo-picking a darn sight easier!

[Cyberprog]

DrDeAtH said:

Some bamboo or Japanese knotweed would look lovely....

Lol, the missus was suggesting bamboo - I shot that one down. Once we've got the borders all clear then I'm looking at maybe a cherry, pear and a couple of conifers - basically trees which don't have much low down branches once established, but will give the above fence level screening that I'd like. The border can then be filled with chippings and managed a bit better by just knocking back anything that grows!

[Cyberprog]

OpulentBob said:

OP, do you think now it would have been better just to get your own fence put up and suck up the (inflated, IMO) £2k rather than waste your BH weekend, will have to repair it all in a few years anyway, and made yourself look a bit of a berk of a neighbour on here? Lets face it, it's only like 4 payments on a generic german TDi printer-salesman wagon.

Or do you think the financial power trip/snob factor you were trying to exert over your neighbours (who are now sitting at home laughing at you and your £2k quote) was worth it?

I know what I think.



Were it me, I'd plant a hedge along the boundary so that in 5 years time you can forget the stty fence was even there, let it rot. A nice Brabant-type conifer hedge will stop the dogs too.

Given they clearly had the money to rent a van, buy a load of panels, and get it all in place, I find her claim to not have any money somewhat suspect. However I wasn't expecting them to move so quickly - if I'd have had the choice here I'd just have put the decent fence in and paid someone to do it - whether I'd get anything back out of them would have been academic, I wouldn't have considered it sufficient to fall out with them over. My original question has been misinterpreted as to my intentions.

FYI, their driveway has 3 vehicles on it, none less than 3 years old.

I certainly value wasting my bloody weekend at more than the £1k they might possibly have been responsible for, when it's prevented me from going and seeing my nephews and doing a number of other jobs that my time is better spent on. But here we are.

[Cyberprog]

Elysium said:

The deeds will not define the type of fence required, or the quality of the repair required, or what happens when the two parties disagree regarding the need for maintenance or the costs. They will certainly not help determine the point at which a fence is beyond economic repair and requires replacement.

You have decided that you want to do this in a certain way, there is no legal basis for that in the deeds and you are expecting the adjoining owners to accept your view without question and pay half of whatever cost you have decided to incur.

That is not a reasonable position.

And that's the crux of the matter, I don't know how you are supposed to resolve the issue if those things are not clearly defined. I appreciate it may not seem like a reasonable position, but I would think that this would normally be resolved with a bit of give and take. Sadly, we've now ended up with the cheapest possible solution to the problem - I was proposing something at the higher end of cost given I didn't want to mess with it again for a considerable time - and there's been no way to get a middle of the road solution as they've gone down the cheap route.

Breadvan72 said:

I doubt that the OP would recognise a reasonable position even if it hit him on the head with a fence post.

I think that's a bit rude @Breadvan72, I'm a reasonable person and I can see both sides of the issue.

[Cyberprog]

Lazermilk said:

So the reason you need a stronger fence is because your plants and dogs will damage a cheaper one? How is this the neighbours fault and why should they pay extra to compensate you?

Like others have suggested, just build a stronger fence on your land blocking the access/view of the cheaper one if it bothers you that much, they have fulfilled their part of the deal already it seems (from opinion on here it seems they have done so to a higher standard than would be necessary also), its not their fault if you cant be bothered to sort out the plants or keep your dogs within your property.

You were also proposing to take them to court if they didn't agree with you, don't forget

I've not said I need to build a stronger fence because I intend to keep the plants - indeed I have razed the plants from the ground along about 70% of the boundary, and will remove the rest in the coming weekend. The dogs don't damage the fence if it's not rotten - if it's rotten then they will obviously be able to break through!

I don't know how they have repaired the fence to a higher standard? The minimum standard has been met, i.e. that the panels have been replaced with like for like. They have definitely not done so to a higher standard, given that the wrong panels were purchased and I still have to sort bits of it out.

BertBert said:

Did the OP make a typo? Does he mean "more" rather than "less" (or "all" rather than "none")? I presumed he was trying to say they had loads of money as they had 3 newish cars, but that's not what came out.

Yes, that was what I was getting at - can afford three fairly new cars, yet can't afford a decent fence repair?

[Cyberprog]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

And I think I've admitted that several times here. I think that maybe insisting on a 2k fence would have been unreasonable, but I also think that ending up with a £300 fence is also unreasonable when I effectively didn't have any say in that decision, and as it is a shared fence I'm liable for half the cost. Neither of us has been happy here I think!

[Cyberprog]

Lazermilk said:

I thought someone had implied that just a simple wire/fence post type would be technically sufficient? If so, then you are lucky they didn't tear down the lot and replace with this if there is nothing that states what kind of fence it should be, this was what I meant - higher standard than technically needed, is it not just to mark the boundary?
If that's not the case then please ignore that part.

Regarding the plants, you originally said this was part of the issue of how the dogs got out, rotten panels and overgrown bushes, so its fair to say that isn't the neighbours problem.

Regarding the dogs, perhaps train them not to damage fences, rotten or not.

I think the minimum standard would be to replace what was there. If there were no boundary, then yes, wire would be minimum.

Yep, the plants were trained up the fence by the previous owners and over time grew to push the panels back as they became weaker. I've taken care of this problem (well, mostly, certainly for the affected panels) so this would not be an issue in the future.

If you have dogs on either side of the fence, then you'll struggle to stop them from wanting to meet one another! Ours are all rescues so while we train them as best we can, we're fighting against their previous training (or lack thereof). It's something that is a continuous process for us.