Garden fence and NDN

Assuming you are in England (unsure about the rules in Wales and Scotland) she can't make you do anything.

Your choices:

Leave as is.
Replace.
Remove completely (the legal responsibility is to maintain the BOUNDARY which is invisible)

Her choices:

Put up with it
Pay to have a fence placed on her side of the boundary
Agree with you that she can replace the fence at her cost
Employ a solicitor who will charge her to tell her the above and charge her more to write letters.

Be clear on your legal rights and responsibilities and if needed write a cease and desist.

Our local fox likes to sunbathe on the shed, which is taller than the fence between us and the next door neighbour. A hole in the fence being repaired will not stop it.

Legally, you do not, as a pp said, have to even have a fence. Ignore her or post a print out of the law through her letterbox, along with a note re her granddaughter kicking her ball against it. Laugh very loudly when she tries to charge you for her new fence.

I thank my lucky stars for my current neighbours. We argued in a friendly way as both of us tried to pay for our replacement fence.
Years ago as a young first time buyer the elderly neighbours made increasingly ridiculous demands which initially we accommodated to keep things friendly.
I don’t have many positive memories of my EXH, but him finally telling them to Fuck Off is one of them. They never really bothered us again after that.

Can you replace one panel of the fence?

Is it definitely your fence? Have you checked the deeds/Land Registry? We thought our neighbour was being reasonable wanting to split the cost of our fence. Turned out it’s theirs. We’d all assumed it was ours. 😂 TBH we didn’t mind too much as it meant we decided between us what kind of fence we were getting

Nail in a plank of wood on your side.

YANBU tho, She can’t make you do shit.

She is chatting bollocks. If it’s your fence, you can choose how to mark the boundary. You have no responsibility to pay for anything she does in her garden and she can’t force you to do anything in yours.

Could you go to B&Q and see if you can get an off cut a bit bigger than that size and shove it behind your bush to block it off. That’s as far as I’d go if it were my fence.

Honestly next time just tell her to fuck off. If she shouts again tell her you'll call the police because she's harassing you. She thinks she can intimidate you, and has done to an extent, so you need to respond with the same energy to show her she can't.

OMG I had a neighbour like this but in my case it was a mature hedge that was on my side.
She took it upon herself to rip huge holes in the hedge and then complained that my dog went through the damaged hedge.( She wanted me to put up a new fence.)
She was insane- shouting and shrieking and no I didn't put up a new fence but filled in the gaps with chicken wire.
I was glad to move!

Oh what a bully. Get a ring doorbell, keep a record of all of her harassment

30cm by 50cm is quite a hole, so I can see why she wants it fixed. But as others have said she can't make you. At that size of gap though I would imagine a decent windy bit of weather and the panel will break, personally I'd just replace the panel before it gets worse.

Tell her to make the hole a little bigger and she too can enjoy your camelia bush 😉
Alternatively tell her you are not in a position to replace it yet but it is on a long of work you plan over the next 10 - 15 years.

I have a similar issue to your neighbour in that the fence owned by my ndn has a massive whole in it that their dogs have created and regularly escape through. However, my only comment was their dogs are not friendly and they need to find a way of preventing them getting into my garden. They have patched it, it looks hideous but I have just moved the garden store thing down so I can't see it.

I can kinda see her point that the whole presents a risk for animals getting through so you probably should try to secure the hole. Maybe ask if you can have access to her side to put a wooden panel over the hole. But otherwise she can't take it further so just ignore her.

I appreciate the view here, but for the sake of neighbourly accord (ignoring that she seems crazy), is it not the right thing to maintain the fence you own on your side?

To get a fencer round to replace one panel is not a huge amount (appreciate everything is expensive at the moment). If my fence had a hole and foxes were getting in, my response would be to fix it. As I’d expect the other side who own their fence to upkeep their own.

Legally you don’t have to do it. It’s the same as all the posts about overgrown hedges etc. Maintain them and don’t let them cause issues for neighbours.

So if it's YOUR PROPERTY as she keeps yelling, why on earth does she think she has a say in what you do with it? It's like my neighbour telling me I should replace my car because the current one looks scruffy parked outside... (my neighbours would never do anything like this, because they are lovely, and posts like OPs just makes me appreciate them more).

You can take the whole thing down and not even have a fence if you want
Ignore the silly woman

I really wouldn't try this. Solicitors can and do sometimes write letters demanding all sorts of outrageous things. A solicitor may know there's no chance of it being legally required but if the client is paying them tonwrite a letter demanding for instance a neighbour removes their rose bush because the client doesn't like the smell they are at liberty to do so. (Yes a neighbour further down the road tried exactly that to their immediate neighbours). The solicitors get money from writing a letter. Easy peasy. The client may or may not get their wishes but money is made, even if it's the type of demand that would be laughed out of court.

OP ignore your neighbour. Let her froth. If she does try to use a solicitor to intimidate you ignore it.

If you can’t ignore then I’d put the onus back on to her eg “If you can send me proof from a solicitor that I am legally required to replace the whole fence then I will discuss it with you.”
She’ll never be able to get that obviously so nothing you need to do.

No, you won't have to pay for it.

It's all sound and fury signifying nothing. Let her bluster, it's not going to achieve anytihng.

Oh ignore her and she confronts you again tell her you’ll call the police on her the old fucking bat

You don't HAVE to do anything and she can't make you. She's trying to bully you for her own reasons - 'foxes' is not a reason. I think you might just have to grey rock her - either by telling her she's free to put her own fence up if the sight of yours offends her, or by saying 'I don't plan to do that just now.'

Who's she going to take her complaint to if you own your house? She'll get laughed at by just about anyone who hears that it's YOUR fence.