How do you find out who owns a fence?

[mrsnancybotwin]

I've downloaded the title register and title plan from the goverment land registry site but it just outlines the property in red.

I still can't work out who owns the fence either side?

Any ideas anyone?

Does it have any wording on your deeds? I suppose that thin black line is the border, so whoever has rhe fence inside the border would own it? Unless otherwise specified?

If you stand at your back door, the left hand side and the fence at the end turning right is yours until it meets your neighbours boundary. The fence running down the RH side is your neighbours.
If you stand at your front door the same rule applies.

I disagree with this. On my deeds, if I stand at the back door, the fence on my left is my neighbours. It is shown on my deeds, although the plan you download from the land registry has much less detail. Can you ask for a copy of what is in your deeds from the bank or building society (assuming it is mortgaged)?

This is not correct

Yes. Standing in your garden, looking at your house - the left hand side is yours. Assuming there's nothing to the contrary on the land registry.

The old reasoning used to be as pointed out as above but this no longer applies. We couldn't get an answer from our builders when we bought a new build 20 odd years ago (we were told you have to assume jointly owned) and Land Registry no longer seem to put the little arrows on which signified ownership

Don't forget that "who owns the fence" and "who owns the boundary" are also two separate things! For the boundary it's often simplest to check with neighbours if any of them have been there for a long time and work out which side of the house it is.

We had this issue and the way my garden is located means sides of it are the back of 6 other gardens. Conveniently everyone said they were all ours. We just had to bite the bullet and sort the whole boundary ourselves as some were in a terrible state, nobody wanted to chip in, so we just went with what we wanted and kept the “nice” side for ourselves.

If you are looking at a fence in a built up area the tradition is to put the fence posts juttiing into the owners land and the "clean line" along the property boundry.

But the best thing is to ask and if you have awkard NDN relationship you can skip a few houses that were built as the same time and ask them who owns what at their property as the ownership setup will (most likely than not) flow down the row of houses.

Mine is on the right as you look at the front of the house or if you stand in the back garden with your back to the house so I don't think there's a hard and fast rule.

We own the fence on the right of our property. When we moved in they were all a state so we replaced all 3 sides. Who owns fences are different to which boundary you are responsible for.

When we bought our solicitor said that if it doesn't denote ownership on the title plan and deeds then it's assumed to be shared.