Can my neighbour take the fence!

[Adventadventures]

We have a rental property that my son is presently living in. The neighbours have just been round and said they are moving out and are taking the garden fence!, and we can pay £200 to keep it if we like
Now these neighbours are tenants so don’t even own the property . They are landscape gardeners though and say they did replace the fence and have receipts (we were not aware of this) but I would have thought this was the landlords responsibility or possibly joint responsibility at best .
I did replace the other side fence myself so assume this is my neighbours boundary which is being disputed.
I have checked the deeds and just says it is a party fence .
I think reading between the lines the tenants have done loads of work in the garden and not received a penny so I think we are caught in the cross fire of this dispute. I am going to contact the landlords but what would you do if they just don’t engage as they have so far with the tenants we can’t just not have a fence my son has dogs (although they will love the bigger garden). Would you pay? Let them take the fence? Something else?

Id let the landlord deal with it

Tell the landlord they need to reimburse the tenants or buy a new fence

There is no law says a fence needs to be there, but if it’s a party fence on the deeds then you’re jointly responsible so it’s between you and the landlord. If the tenants put the fence in and it’s theirs then they can take it.

You can’t stop them taking their property. Your son’s ll should replace the missing fence asap.

So you own property A and are renting it out to your son.
neighbours are renting property B from a landlord?

I'd have thought they have to leave tThe property as they found it, so if there was a fence, they replaced it and are planning to take the new fence, then they need to leave the original fence in its place.

If it's the landlord's boundary, they should be selling it to him, not to you.

Definitely talk to the landlord.

This

Our back garden we look after the left hand side, neighbour looks after the right hand side, as you look out from our house.

You are all right. I think the landlord is just not engaging with the tenants. My concern is the landlords might just not put a new fence up although I think they will probably need to to relet the property. The house needs a lot of work so they are not the best at keeping on top of maintenance. I will text him and let you know how I get on

This, if there was a fence there in the first place they can't leave it without. Did they ask your permission to replace the fence? You could ask they put the old one back (which I'm assuming they won't be able to).

It's a dispute between them and their landlord and I would expect the LL to put a claim into wherever the deposit is held.

Renters usually sign a contract that states they have to leave the property in the condition they started from.

Was there a fence when the renters moved in? If so they will need to leave one or lose their rental deposit I would have thought.

Contact their landlord, I cant see them happy about that. However I can see your dogs being VERY happy in the future. All that extra space😂

I think it is your responsibility to keep your animals in. So up to your son to make sure his dogs stay on his property.

Yeah there was a fence originally. The neighbours tenants moved in in 2019. So the fence was probably replaced 2020/2021 when my son wasn’t there and we had other tenants (he moved in late 2021) . No one consulted us about replacing the fence
I am pretty certain this is our neighbours fence as I paid outright for the replacement fence on the other side of our garden.

Just make plans to put up a fence if you can do it for less than £200. Or pay. The neighbour had no obligation to have a fence.

If it is their fence then of course they can take it. They also didn’t need to consult you when it was put up.

Your son has a responsibility to keep his animals in. He can’t just let them run all over the neighbours garden because there isn’t a fence.

So if the neighbour doesn’t replace his fence, you need to put one up on your side to keep the animals in or the animals don’t go in the garden.

The neighbours landlord should make them leave the property as they found it. ( not give deposit back) .
this is nothing to do with you unless this is actually your boundary to maintain.

Not if the tenants had to replace the fence because the landlord refused to replace or maintain it

This.
I think they’re just trying to make £200 towards their move. If I tried taking my garden fence down I’m sure it’d just splinter, break.

Ok they have taken the fence. And totally destroyed the garden by the look of it. It turned out the landlord was evicting them due to non payment of rent. So relationships had completely broken down between the 2. The tenants replaced the fence because they wanted a slightly higher one. There was nothing wrong with the original one apparently.
The LL did get the original one back but subsequently got rid of it. LL has said he will replace it for us but given the state of the garden I dread to see what the inside of the house is like so it may be well down the to do list. In all honesty I wish we had just paid the £200 even though it was not really our responsibility.

This thing is you could have paid £200 and the ll or new tenant could have taken the fence down anyway, if it was on their land.
You are better putting up a cheap chicken wire fence to mark the boundary and then a higher, stronger fence inside your own boundary. Since you own the house, it's not wasted money and you will avoid further issues over it.

Sounds like they would have taken it even if you had paid. Either they were really broke and needed the money or grifters. At least next door will replace eventually.