am i being a cheeky fucker?

[detectivebird]

we've just had our back garden fence done last week. we informed neighbours on both sides (garden is three-sided, so the left and right sides are facing into their gardens iyswim). we didn't expect them to offer any money to split the cost and indeed they didn't.

turns out when the fencers were here, both neighbours arranged for their back gardens to also be fenced on the remaining sides. it's being done this week. so we've paid for a side each for them!

dp and my mum reckons we should ask them for a contribution but this feels really cheeky to me. am i just being a scaredy-cat?

You basically offered to replace 3 fences when you probably only own 2 of them.
They're not being CF, you just didn't work out which fences were yours.
YABU

Surely one of the sides is your your responsibility anyway? Is there anyone at the end of your garden? If not that’s your as well so in fact only one neighbour wins here

Where I live we all own the back and right hand side fences. We are the first house (going left the right) and our left hand 'fence' is a brick wall. Our neighbours to our left replaced their back and right panels and they looked lovely so we decided to do the same with the same company. All good, no one out of pocket - but our neighbour came and asked if we could face the 'good' side of the fence facing him so that his matched perfectly. He couldn't understand why we refused and wanted the good side of our fence facing towards our side - just as be had done with his right hand fence. Didn't speak to us for a couple of years after that.

Hm, in a straightforward terrace there have to be (n x 2) + 1 fences where n is the number of houses. In the OP’s diagram for instance disregarding any other houses there are 7 fences for 3 houses - (3 x 2) + 1. That number is never going to be divisible by n, so there’s always going to be an odd fence, someone must own 3 rather than 2 fences. Maybe that someone is the OP anyway?

Much more likely to be the one on the end of the terrace.

You shouldn’t have fenced the side that’s not your boundary. You did so you’re lucky the neighbours are ok about you shoving your choice along their land! Now they’ve had to invest in the last bit to ensure theirs don’t look like shit!

so we decided to do the same with the same company. All good, no one out of pocket - but our neighbour came and asked if we could face the 'good' side of the fence facing him so that his matched perfectly. He couldn't understand why we refused and wanted the good side of our fence facing towards our side - just as be had done with his right hand fence. Didn't speak to us for a couple of years after that.

Some people! Why the hell would he get the 'good side' when you were the one paying for it. FFS!

You have been daft here really. You do not own both sides so you should have asked that side to pay towards it. I bet they are rubbing their hands together when you paid for it all!

...There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Boundaries should have been checked before hand because one your CF neighbours had got away with a free fence. Not sure if everyone’s is the same but here you own the back and the fence to the left.

Haven’t rtf, it’s probably been mentioned but somewhere in your deeds it will mention which bit of the boundary you ‘own’ and are responsible for fencing. So probably one side that you’ve had fenced was yours and you are responsible for the cost while the other belonged to the neighbour on that side and the costs should be borne by them. But their back fences, not bounding onto your property are nothing to do with you.

Some of the fencing will belong to you, it will tell you which in your deeds.

When we got our fence done I also paid for all 3 sides as the neighbour's was in a state and I didn't feel I could insist on them changing it but I wanted my garden to look nice.

I guess now they've seen the result they've decided to do their gardens too ... I would be pleased that you had neighbours who wanted to maintain their properties.

After all your have still had the work done even if they hadn't done anything.

As crappy as it is that you’ve had to pay for all sides to get an overall new fence all the way around, and they’ve probably paid less for the same effect. Not much you can do about it. Maybe they grudgingly paid to make sure they didn’t have an odd fence running down one side. You don’t know.

@headintheiclouds yep unfortunately we're responsible for the entire boundary. Something I totally overlooked when buying the house (I was young and over excited). We're on the end of a row so are responsible for the right-hand fence, noone to the back so that's ours too and the fence to the left is technically our responsibility according to the deeds too

I wouldn’t ask for contributions. But I might not allow the workmen to “tie in” to my fence. Especially if it’s not on the boundary line.

In America I’ve seen fences side by side with space between on the boundary line. That makes more sense to me than a “shared” fence

See, in a lot of terraces that wouldn’t matter much, because the house around the corner would be responsible, as your side fence would be their back fence, iynwim?

i'm in a mid terrace,3 side fence.i am resonsible for one length strip..and the little bottom strip.i would have to seek permission from neighbour if wanted to remove or replace whats essentially their fence..i think..youd be a cf asking for £contribution now! both of them presumeably only latched on to workies,to replace and ensure they have matching both sides. ..it mighta been better to inform them before change and negotiate costs at that point..if you wanta be neckie and possibly refused,you could ask the fency ones to offer you token gesture reduuction as ..job c/o..work done for you. if agreed cost already i wouldnt

There are lots of different ownership deals with fences. They don’t always belong to one neighbour or another. Mine are shared with my neighbours. Any fence replaced needs to be split 50/50 with the person on the other side of it. I’ve been here over a decade and in that time have had one fence replaced entirely (50/50 with neighbour A), another fence repaired (50/50 with neighbour B) and the other fence both replaced and a few years later repaired (both times split 50/50 with neighbour C).

Just be happy with the new fence and chalk it up to experience. Perhaps consider your extra bit of payment was for choosing the fence and getting all of it done at once at a time of your choosing. It’s likely that your neighbours were too busy to think about the fences and saw the nice fence you had done and then just thought, it would be easy to ask this guy to do the other bits whilst he’s here, saving them any planning/researching tradesmen etc.

I think YABU to ask for a contribution, you wanted the fence doing, they shouldn't have to pay towards that in anyway. The fact they then had their other fences done is non of your business.

My mum's new neighbours recently replaced their fence and paid for the joining fence to be done. They wanted the fence doing while my mum was happy with the old but once it was done she had all her other fences repainted to match.

Oppurtunistic how???? They have less fence than you, they owe you nothing.

YABU.

That is all.

you chose to replace it ... you pay ...sorry.

We are also responsible for all sides of our boundary. Our house is 1930s and our two immediate neighbours are 1950s/60s....for whatever complicated reason but relating back to our house being here for a long time before the others, all fences are our responsibility. It's only a total pain in the arse in a storm (we're on the coast so it's always windy) and we have the task of doing a tour of the garden the following morning to work out how many fence panels are still there and how many have become dilapidated overnight!

Usually you are only responsible for the right side (forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=386160), but need to check deeds as not always the case.

You should have discussed this before though, they might have felt the fence was adequate - but have taken the opportunity to get their other side done. The fence company may also approached them and ordered a good price.

@Detectivebird, you've handled yourself very well in this discussion, and I hope you have a lovely time in your beautiful garden!