Should I offer to contribute to cost of fence repair?

[melpomene]

The fence between our garden and our neighbours' garden (which is owned by our neighbours) is becoming quite wobbly at one end and leaning towards our garden. The neighbours haven't said anything about it to us but I'm thinking I'd better mention it to them so it can be fixed before it collapses. The weak part of the fence has ivy on it (on our side and some on their side), and also it's where our clothes line is attached (thought most of the clothes I hang up are the dds' itsy bitsy ones, so not very heavy). So I'm just anticipating that the neighbours may say we're responsible for the fence coming down, or may ask us to pay something towards it. Would this be reasonable? Or should I expect them to pay the full cost or repair?

(I've trimmed off most of the ivy now.)

In the interests of neighbourliness and having a nice fence we went halves with our neighbours when we replaced the fence between our properties. It was 'technically' their fence, but contributing meant that we could have some say about the new fence and we all pitched in to knock the old one down and put the new one up

Does to be honest sound as if you should actually pay for most, if not all, of the repairs, if you have caused the damage.

If I were your neighbour and the only reason the fence was weak was because of the ivy & the clothes line I would be cheesed off at being expected to stump up the cots to repair it.