Boundary fence falling down and probate sale

[Wizotto]

Next door is responsible for the boundary between our houses. The fence is slowly falling down and it has not been repaired. The person who lived there died over a year ago and the house is on sale but no sale yet. Is it the responsibility of the executors of the estate to sort this out? Have told the estate agents but only tenants in there at the moment so not sure what else to do... One of the fence panels fell into our garden and we have put it outside next door's front door as it has exposed nails on it and we have young children. Not sure what is supposed to happen here or what we should do but would have thought in their interests to replace as they are trying to sell. Any ideas? Thanks

Have you checked the deeds to make sure they are responsible for maintaining it? That would be called a positive covenant. You can only enforce those against the original party to the covenant, so you may now be in trouble.

Best to put up a new fence, at your cost, on your side of the boundary. You'd own the fence.

Totally agree with Collaborate, put your own fence up next to the boundary fence. It will be yours to stain/grow things against it, repair if it fails. And will hide from view the crappy fence next door.

Unless there is something in next door's deeds that states they have to maintain the boundary then there is sod all you can do. They are not legally required to repair the fence, in fact they do not even have to have a fence.

Save yourself the stress, cough up for a fence you want and like. Awful but it will keep your children safe, no more falling fence panels etc Plus imagine this 6 months down the line, new owner, no money to repair fence, new owners have kid, he/she keeps kicking the football into your garden and comes into your garden through the fallen fence panel gap to retrieve his/her ball. And repeat. (this did not happen to me but my friend)

If you want to look into this further, wander on over to GardenLaw forum and see how stressful arsehole neighbours can be about fences/boundaries/hedges etc

You do have my sympathies but sometimes you have to do things that other people should. Plus you get to choose the style of the fence (silver lining)

Arrangements around boundaries tend to come down to the neighbours agreeing a way forward. As the others mention the deeds can offer some clues as to what has gone before but they are rarely the be all and end all here.

For example the people you bought from may have completed a particulars of sale document which added some additional detail whilst next door may have put up the fence without discussing whilst in some cases people erect a fence on their own land as well.

As the owner next door has died discussing and agreeing a way forward can be much trickier for obvious reasons. There is unlikely to be any legal obligation on the part of the executors to do anything re the fence and even if there were pursuing it, if they did not agree, could be stressful and costly.

A boundary dispute is of course something any seller would want to avoid but that also cuts both ways so it might be worth looking at either carrying out the repair yourself and letting the executors (Estate agent) know that you are or doing something temporary and then approaching any new neighbour to see how they see it - you may find that the executors complete a particulars of sale saying their deceased relative maintained the fence and the new neighbour takes the job on. That is though the best case scenario and not guaranteed of course.