Hostile neighbour regarding fencing

Not necessarily

That’s rude of them

Ours is as Marshbird said, all shared. Our house was built 1998. Was such fun when we lost sections of our fence shared with a total of 7 neighbours (and ours is a modest sized family garden, we're basically the garden that everyone else's stops on!).

That's not true. It will either be marked on your deeds or the sellers information pack from the previous owners when you bought the house. Either way you can put up a new fence on your own land.

This is true on convention. I replaced my fence - 2 diff neighbours and spoke to them both. Neither had a preference. The main fence they have the good side as I wanted the rails for garden wires. The other shorter side - i think I have the good side as they had a very old trellis system in front and neither of us can really see it anyway.

It sounds as though it is his fence. (Good side facing you is the convention). Perhaps he feels bad that he has not got round to repairing it since December, and that is why he is very defensive. Could you ask him if he would like your assistance in repairing it? That would come over better than just taking the matter into your own hands.

I don't think everyone follows the good side rule. We did when replacing our fence, but the neighbours on the other side gave us their bad side when putting a new fence in.

Agree
Just do it.
One time, the neighbor paid for the new fence , at the back, right side. Ours I think.
We paid for the back.
Then the neighbour on the left - their fence at the back - we paid for.
One neighbour went halves one time - we did it - their fence.
And the last time we both removed the hedge together and then he paid for the new fence.
Moral of the story- who ever can afford it pays - or the fence stays down.
Luckily in our current house it's all walks and hedges - and brilliant neighbours.

not all properties have this on deeds. it’s not that uncommon for it not to be clearly marked, and has to be established another way during conveyencing,
Some properties even share their boundary fences anyway. My current property was built in 1964- nowt on deeds. It’s shared. We both muck in to fix it. Or have so far.

Not always true through. We have a fence dividing us and the house that backs onto our garden. We have the posts on our side but talking to the neighbour he said he put the fence up and all around his garden he has put the posts on the outside so he has the good side facing in.

Sounds very much like undiagnosed dementia, try not to take it personally. I think you will struggle to have any sensible conversation with him about it.

It would be worth trying to find out if he has any family who need to made aware that he is struggling.

As far as the fence goes, I think your best option is to cover the gap with a fence on your own side of the boundary for now so you can at least let your dog out - maybe something like chicken wire just to cover the gap?

just build a fence a couple of inches in on your side

We’ve lived here nearly ten years. For the first few weeks we thought the house was empty and due to be sold (perhaps waiting for probate or something).

The front driveway is ruined as butterfly bushes have taken hold in the paving and are now huge and lifted all the blocks. It’s a two car driveway but you can now only fit one. There is a tree growing in front of her garagevdoir, again through the paving. It’s about 7/8ft now. The pile of post in her front porch is waist height and a meter wide. You can see the stacked boxes and piled up furniture through the window. The tree worries me every time we have a storm- it’s so close to the back of both houses. The tree is significantly taller than our roof- you can see it clearly if you stand in front of either house. The branches go over both our houses by several meters and because it’s so close if it came down it could easily land on either house.

For a significant period last year I think her electricity was cut off- you could see her moving around at night by torchlight but there were never any main lights put on. Again I reported this to the council as a welfare issue. No help was forthcoming. They just said they were aware of the issue as they’d had several reports.

When we first moved in we tried to be neighbourly- Christmas cards etc, trying to check on her when it snowed, seeing if she needed any help. Nothing major, just tried to be polite and friendly, She was either rude and aggressive or completely ignored any contact. Any attempt over the last few months to sort out the fence/tree issue has resulted in the same. It wears you down.

If it's just panels just put them back up yourself, it's not a big job.

Not all deeds tell you who is responsible for the fencing. It's perfectly possible and common that some don't.
Some tell you somewhere in the deeds wording that everyone is responsible for the left fence or similar, others don't.
Some no-one is responsible for, so you can try to get your neighbour to split, but you can't make them.
Which side the 'good side' faces has no relevance, you can point a fence you buy whichever way you like.

In your situation, if you can put up a fence without entering his garden I'd go ahead and do it regardless, whether that's on the original posts or just inside your boundary. He can't afford it, and you don't want a dog in his garden, so what's he going to do? Shout for a while then move on. But that's me.

Was the contractor stood in his garden? Could he be worried about you damaging things/trampling plants?

@RubyRoo29 if it isn’t on the deeds then it might say in the paperwork your solicitor would have got when you purchased? There are usually questions the solicitor asks the vendor. In mine it says which we own and which we do not - might be worth looking at the documentation?