Front garden fence - Advice please!

[NikkiMartin]

Not really an AIBU - just popped in here for advice.

We bought our 100 year old house 4 years ago, semi detached with no boundaries in front garden between us and neighbours.

Our deeds don't state precisely where this is other than a line - how is it you find out exactly where your boundary line is without spending an obscene amount of cash?

I want them to be happy of course with where we erect a fence - but if they feel the boundary is quite different from us - argh!

What's a nice way to do this, that keeps the adjacent household happy but also makes sure that the land we bought is kept!

We are not a listed building, and there are no other restrictions in deeds.

start of by speaking to them and saying you’d like a fence. Suggest you’d like to measure the front of both properties and find the middle, and use that as the boundary, see what they say.
If they are involved in it and are in agreement of it being dead centre, as any reasonable person would be, then it could all be sorted with minimal cost/ fuss.
🤞🏻

@PlasticSurgeonWithASidelineAsAStuntWoman

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. You have a very interesting username 👀 is it true?!

The sticky part is, our deed boundary is at an slant, as our houses are at an angle. So it's not a straight ahead type of thing - that'd be much easier! But I'm hoping the reasonable aspect manifests - fingers crossed!

Plant a hedge? Forgiving of blurred boundary line situations.

Lol
No, not true. Just an interesting sentence I saw on another thread after a derailment about identifiable details and details being similar, but changed enough to not be identified.

You can usually get a map of your property boundaries fairly cheaply from the Land Registry. Cheapest version just £3 (iirc) but you can pay more for something more detailed but it's not ridiculous money.

When you have got your hands on those, a simple and polite conversation with your neighbour, show them your document and ask them to help out marking the border. The more you can include them in the division, hopefully the less disagreement you might come up against.

We had to do similar when we moved in to ours 11 years ago. Our desire to erect the fence driven by the fact his shitty kids used to scream past our front window and race round our car (on the opposite side of our house) like the whole front garden was theirs. The fence made its point particularly well.

It's a pain but I would urge you to get it absolutely right. Those neighbours might not always be there and new ones might be very concerned/upset/angry that you appear to have stolen some of their land. We sold a house that we had lived in for 30 years, happily sharing a drive with our neighbours. Just after we moved out, next door sold up too, and our buyers and next door's buyer have been in a horrible, expensive, soul destroying legal battle for the last 10 years over the boundary. Damage has been done (deliberately) so that neither of them can now use the drive. Use the boundary on your deeds and stick to it rigidly - just because your current neighbours might have agreed to it doesn't make it legal.

If the houses are semi detached with a straight party wall dividing them internally then usually the border externally follows that line. If that's the case for you, agree the end point where the gardens meet the pavement or road and put the fence in a straight line from the party wall to there.

It might help to download their deeds too to check they have the same dividing line as yours - not expensive. Then speak to them about putting up a boundary fence, assuming that is permitted. Even so, as long as your neighbours are on board, who else would object?

Google "determined boundary".

I agree with @RosaCaramella obtain the deeds for both properties from Land Registry.

Invite the neighbours in for tea and cake and explain to them you would like to put a fence up. How do they feel about that? Do they know where the boundary is.