To remove the fence

[NoTreadingHere]

We have a fence that sits about 7cm from the neighbour's wall. It's a huge wall covering the entire length of their property. They never see into our side.

Our relations have been amicable but I've been keen to entirely remove the fence. It's rotting and decrepit, but the issue is that they demand the existing fence replaced (at shared cost) by a new and very expensive new fence to protect their precious 7cm.

They're now moving and are in the process of selling the property. They're not living in the property and I'm keen to have a helper come in and quietly pull out and remove the fencing. DH is totally absolutely against it, mainly because he's timid and conflict averse. I'm fuming as neither the existing owners or new owners would ever know about the fence removal and this is a golden opportunity to solve the fence problem forever. The new owners are unlikely to be any more forgiving (it's that kind of area).

Basically I'm raging that the solution can't be implemented

If you have a fence you are obliged to maintain it. However, you are not obliged to keep a fence unless there is something in the lease or deeds that requires you to have one. If you take it down I suspect there is little they could do. I would imagine they have some compulsion to protect "their" land, which obviously includes that 7cm strip, and have a fear they will lose that land if a fence doesn't go in. Just take it down.

read your deeds first! If it says you have to have a fence/wall, do you want to keep the one you have or do you want to build a new one or take the risk no one mentions it & you can go without (until you sell anyway).??

7cm is a pathetic amount of land to be bitching about. (Yes 7cm x length of garden, but FFS honestly?!)

they can't maintain their 7cm strip from their own garden, that's ridiculous.

id remove the dilapidated fence. Mark each end of the boundary line and let the grass grow to the wall or turf behind a flower bed (you won't need much turf!!). I wouldn't plant much in the strip (maybe a couple of low climbing roses) & I'd keep them below the height of the wall.& o wouldn't let anything like ivy grow up it.

the worst that'll happen is you'll need to put a wire along the boarder 🤷🏻‍♀️. (Unless there's something in the deeds to say you have to have a fence/wall)

Surely it will be noticably removed if its old & rotted out ? I'd be miffed as the new owner & double check the land boundry just to be sure before installing another 1 (at half your expense) so you might still end up with a ugly/expensive fence

You might think its pathetic but the law is on the neighbours side. Its their land. How they maintain it is their problem no-one else's.

OP cannot take the fence down if she is not the legal owner of it which why we are asking show is the legal owner of it and therefore the boundary.

She also cannot do anything to that 7cm of land, you telling her to just go ahead and plant a bed of flowers will land her in legal problems.

If OP is the owner of the boundary and fence well its on her to maintain her own fence. if she doesn't want to replace it with another fence she still has to mark the boundary and she cannot touch that 7cm of land.

Its pretty simple. Why would you deliberately do something that could put you in legal issues further down the line, not to mention if she decides to sell a boundary dispute will affect the value of her own home.

Like my idiot neighbours who are now in that situation through their own sheer idiotic behaviour who think they are entitled to my land when they are not. Who now by not marking the boundary they are legally responsible for caused themselves a boundary dispute and will cost them more than it would of to mark it with some wire.

This is the kind of thread I find absolutely baffling.

OP wants to steal her neighbours’ land and a significant number of posters think it’s perfectly fine for her to do so.

Can’t get my head around it..

I do wonder how many people egging her on are homeowners and how they would react if a neighbour did this.

It does beg the question why the neighbour left an inaccessible 7cm strip of their land behind a brick wall. Presumably for guttering?
OP....who has responsibility for the fence?

Or because of foundations of the wall. When I bought my house the neighbours garage at the back (wall) is in my deeds as basically the foundations being on my property and that I have to give them rights to access it for maintenance.

This is obviously how the houses were built so not much can be done.

The reason for the gap is to avoid complicated things like this, where if you end up with a shit neighbour and they try to refuse access it becomes a whole thing. Also avoids having to pay to update deeds to include covenants to ensure access can be provided.

Foundations makes sense. But 7cm isn't going to give them the room to have access, particularly if there is a fence up.
Personally I would take the neighbour up on their offer to go halves and put a nice new fence up.

Access is more that they don't need to get deeds updated making sure access can be given because the foundations or what not are now encroaching on someone else's land.

To be honest if your accessing it due to foundations then your wall must be in pretty bad state so you'd more like be taking that part of all of it down which can done from the neighbours side.

Also another point is that like in my situation with the wall, they would have to make good any damage to my garden due to any work they do to maintain it. Also means if they don't maintain it including the guttering that overhangs and it causes damage in my garden they have to pay to fix it.

There are lots of very good reason why they have left that gap

I'd do what you planned. Old owners aren't affected. New owners would never know. If their wall is do high the fence is invisible there's no problem with removing the fence. Just don't start damaging their wall or they might start to look into things.

Knock down fence. Replace with small fence of the white picket variety etc that you can put up yourself and cheap as you like, to mark the boundary. Job done.

That would be far to sensible and mature response - I don't think we are dealing with a person who is

This is the second boundary thread on here in the past week. The replies to both have been inconsistent- on the other thread where a neighbour has stolen some of their land the AIBU voted the neighbour is out of order and should give the land back. In this thread where the opposite is proposed - you are wanting to take 7cm of the entire length of the boundary (so if you garden is 15m long it would be 1m2 approx) the Mumsnetters are supporting you in the vote 😂

YABU- you are wanting to take land from your neighbour. If on the deeds it is your responsibility to maintain then you should replace the fence. Your neighbour has been very reasonable in offering to go 50% of the cost if that is the case - but you could ask to use a cheaper contractor.
another option is for you to change the boundary legally with your neighbour.

Its because of the size. In other thread its clearly a big piece of land. Here its 7cm so people think who care. What they don't think through are all the legal implications. If the wall becomes the boundary and foundations now sit on their side deeds need to be updated for access etc. Its extra headache and expense.

Not to mention future legal issues is new buyer realises.

My neighbour is the same who cares its only 7cm until I explain that this is temporary because you wouldn't come to a sensible solution so I put my own fence up and some of it will come down when I need to extend. At which point those 7cm are going to matter to me because if the boundary is moved I will then have to leave another 7cm or whatever as a gap meaning i have lost 14cm in total and it all adds up by the time the wall is insulated and boarded another 10cm or more is lost.

We've had this exact row with our neighbours but in the aftermath. They thought they 'owned' about 20cm in our yard and wanted to erect a fence. The no fence status quo had endured for 30 years so told them to do one. They were very upset they had lost this land behind our fence and next to their wall. They can't see it or access it, but were determined it was theirs. Nuts.

Just because YOU wouldn’t care about your property being stolen, doesn’t mean the actual owners of the property next to you won’t care.

You are potentially setting yourself up for a legal battle with neighbours, not to mention you are being dishonest and trying to steal land that does not belong to you. I’m with your husband on this.

And none of this wrangling changes the fact that the earth will still be here after this pointless species of ours has become extinct.

All this drama over 7cm of land that none of us really owns.

If it is your fence then you should maintain it, or at least advise the old/new neighbours so you can come to some kind of agreement with showing the boundary line. If it’s not your fence then you don’t have to pay half towards anything. Tell them it’s falling down and make them either put a boundary wire up or a new fence. I definitely would not put anything in this land like plants ect as you could end up with a court case. Sounds like you are trying to be a little sneaky 🤷🏻‍♀️

Nope - the planning documents and land registry site maps for the wall/building will very clearly show that the wall is within the boundary, and does not serve as a boundary.

Our neighbours have a 3-7cm inaccessible gap between the side of their house and where our side of house path runs. There is no fence and we store our bins there. However, both we and they know that that tiny, useless piece of. 3-7cm x 4m strip of land is theirs as it is very clearly marked on our deeds and land registry documents. It may seem insignificant, but that piece of land does not belong to you - and you cannot have it.

You are absolutely not entitled to claim it as yours. A nice neighbour moving in may happily agree in writing to the removal of the fence and allow you to plant a hedge that grows over it, but on the condition that you understand that the land in question is and remains theirs. I suspect, though, that if they want to maintain the gap to preserve the integrity of the wall (eg against damp etc) they would be wise to decline.

@notreadinghere If the fence predates both your occupancies, then, in law, it adds further evidence that it marks your boundary and where your neighbour’s land begins.

Who does the fence belong to? Our neighbours are trying to steal a 15cm strip of our land.
If you take the fence down and it’s theirs that’s theft do you really want to start a neighbour war with new neighbours? Particularly as you’ve already said your husband doesn’t want to.

OP isn't planning to build on the 7cm or use it. It can still belong to next door even with no boundary. Some front gardens where we live have no border between them. It doesn't mean next door can use your garden.

The OP has very clearly said she wants to use it as part of her garden.

Shocked how many people think this is ok.

She doesn’t give a shit about the 7cm of space!

She rightly doesn’t want to pay for an expensive new fence.

Im sure if the neighbours wanted to pay for the fence themselves then OP wouldn’t care.