to do this work without neighbours' consent?

[glaikitlass]

DH and I moved into our house last autumn. It's a semi-detached house on a row of similar.

When we viewed it, it was clear some work needed done but the price reflected this. We have sorted out the indoors over the winter and are now wanting to sort the outdoors.

The fences around our house scored a 3 on the home report. We have checked with the RoS (land registry in Scotland) and we own the fences.

We have small nieces and nephews who visit a lot as well as pets and want them to be able to play in the garden without risk of escape- there are a lot of gaps/holes/broken boards just now. A lot of it is rotten and beyond repair.

We have tried for over a month to speak to our neighbours about this. I have bumped into both sets of neighbours since we moved in and it's clear that neither set speak English. We have tried knocking on both their doors but there's never an answer, and we have put typed notes through outlining-

• we own the fences and plan to replace them
• we'd like to get started with the work asap
• there won't be any changes to the neighbours' light etc (we're not planning on replacing the current 5 foot fences with giant walls, but there will be fewer gaps and they'll be flush with the garden)
• we will pay for all work (obviously)
• the languages other than English we do speak in case there is some crossover and they want to chat (DH and I are both Bi/Tri lingual but of different languages!)

We were hoping that with notes they would be able to give them to friends/relatives who do speak English to translate.

We really want to check our neighbours are happy before we go ahead- as far as we can tell they don't have anything fixed to their side of the fences but we don't want to go clambering into their gardens to check.

However it's now dragging on and we don't want to make them feel we're harrassing them, but do want to crack on with the work.

AIBU to just book our fencers to get started and if they have issues they will presumably come and speak to us? WWYD?

I think you've done enough. Just get cracking.

I think you have been completely reasonable. you have tried to speak to them. then you have given written notice of your intentions, now I would just get on and do the works. as long as you are mindful of them when you do them - don't leave panels down, get the works down swiftly and don't let the fencers work very early in the morning/late at night with the radio on, then there is really is nothing more to say or do.

I think you've done LOADS and you're only asking out of courtesy because the fences are yours.

Can you do a montage of pictures that make it clear? eg, a pic of your house, a pic of the fence in bad condition. Sad face emoticon. Picture of a new fence. Happy face emoticon and then maybe a picture of your houses with a £ sign on yours and a £ crossed out on theirs?

But that's just making work for yourself. Go ahead and sort out your fences!

OK, that's reassuring- thank you!
I like the picture montage idea.

This is our first house and we want to be nice neighbours- where we lived previously we were really lucky as we had a good landlord who owned all four flats so there were never any issues when work was being done.
We had our driveway repaved earlier in the year and one of the more elderly neighbours from one side stood and watched the workmen in a way that one of them described as "mildly terrifying" so I'm just hoping we haven't annoyed her already