Who pays for the fence?

[budgiegirl]

My mum recently died, and her garden has a fence at the bottom that shares a border with another house. The fence has fallen down, and the neighbour wants us to pay to replace it. Although we couldn't find who owned the fence on the land registry, the neighbour has a document that shows that the border is ours - fair enough.

However, there is a small (about 3ft high) wire fence that must have been there when the houses were first built in the 70s, marking the border. It's in decent repair. The neighbour must have built the wooden fence on his side that is now there and has fallen down. I'm 99% sure that mum and dad (both now deceased, so we can't check with them) did not build, or particularly want this fence, as the wire fence is also on other sides of the garden with no wooden fencing.

Where do we stand with this? What are our obligations. Is it enough that we provide the wire fencing as a border (there are mature shrubs in front of forming a natural border anyway)? Or are we obliged to fix/replace the wooden fencing which is what the neighbour wants?

The only thing I am mindful of is that I don't want to get into a dispute with the neighbour as we will probably be putting the house on the market n due course.

You dont need a particular fence, just a way to mark the boundary which it sounds like they have. If they want a fence they can build their own on their own property

I agree, there is no legal obligation for you to have a fence.
If the neighbour wants one he can pay for one

There is no UK law that legally requires you to have a fence except in certain cases like living next to a railway or with livestock. They cannot legally compel you to put up a fence on your land.

I believe you can get into difficulty if there is a fence on your land or boundary owner by you that is unsafe but that gets a bit more complex.

If you refuse to put up a fence they can apply for mediation but wont get anywhere. They could use the threat of raising a official complaint as leverage as it could hinder your sale. Also I wouldn't buy a house without a fence so may impact selling but they cannot force you.

You have a wire fence in place. That's fine. You don't actually even need to have that but it would be odd to keep it open.

There's no reason to put a fence on his side. If he wants that it's up to him.

However, in order to keep the peace and avoid issues whilst you're selling I would get some of that reed/willow screening and attach it to the wire fence. It's low cost, straightforward and will create a more defined border that gives some privacy.

Honestly. Just replace the missing panel. The house won't sell with a wire frbce

LMAO of course it will!

Actually a wire fence at the bottom could put a lot of people off - as would a dispute with the neighbours.

You don’t have to - but I would weigh up how much it is and the effect it would have not too

This. You don't need a fence. If the neighbour wants one, he needs to replace it himself.

Your only obligation, unless stated otherwise on the deeds, is to ensure that your property does not pose a risk.

You're not legally obliged to put a fence up. But when you do come to sell buyers will expect to see a fence. So might as well just get on with it without creating a needless dispute.

So there's a wire fence and mature shrubs? Sounds like a border is there already.
You could always see if they would contribute half of the costs of replacing the fence and then it would become a shared responsibility

Yes to be honest I agree with this.

Replacing fence : No dispute with neighbour, much better for selling the property. Will put you slightly out of pocket.

Not replacing fence: Neighbour declares dispute, potential buyers put off by lack of fence (and shitty neighbours if they ask you why there isn’t a fence). Might save you some money in the short term.

To be fair, I don't think it will be a problem, I didn't even notice that the fence had come down! You can't very easily see either the wooden fence or the wire fence through the shrubs.

Most posters are confirming what I suspected - that we are not really obliged to replace a wooden fence, as there is already a wire fence there. Might offer to go halves though, just in the spirit of being neighbourly, and wanting to get the house sold. It's further complicated by the fact that some of the fence also borders mum's next door neighbour - perhaps we'll get together and offer to go 1/3s all in.

If they want a fence on their side of the boundary, then they need to pay for it.

My parents had (what I gather from your post) a similar issue to yours albeit there wasn’t a wired fence marking the border. They bought the property and there was a more than adequate fence up. The neighbours put another fence up on their side because they didn’t want the less attractive side on their side (or something like that). Sooooo eventually their fence broke, they wanted my parents to replace it blaming the fact there was two fences which caused their fence to deteriorate quicker. They were not legally obliged too. Because there was a border already up in their case it was a fence.

the way I understand is the original wired fence and shrubs are still intact but it’s the neighbours fence that has come down. A fence put up by them which actually doesn’t mark the house property border. Therefore I’d leave the original wired fence up. If your wired fence is broken then I’d just replace it with a fence. The problem you’ll have when coming to sell is if the land is not according to the property deeds

My advice is to get legal advice. Keep in mind if you go to sell the house and you have a dispute - you’ll need to disclose that to future buyers.

I was told that whoever has the pretty side owns the fence. Makes sense why would you put up a fence with the crappy side looking at your property? We have neighbours on three sides and they all put up fences, we have the backside of three different types but it's rented so we don't mind. If we bought it we would put our own up just inside theirs so it all matched.

@Doggymummar that's totally not true. I have 2 'good' sides that were there when we moved in but we share responsibilities with the neighbours

Good to know

There is also an equally valid argument that if there is a “not-pretty” side of the fence, e.g. with woodwork batons on, the fence owner should have that side facing their property so they can maintain the fence from their side, thus giving the neighbours the “pretty” side (and fewer opportunities to tamper with the fence structure).

Two “good” sides alleviates this.

The house deeds will show along who has responsibility for the boundary, which is not necessarily the same who owns the fence, as having or not having the “good” side doesn’t necessarily help you.