If you erect a fence on your own land to avoid issues of party fence....

[Fizzylemonade]

how far away from the boundary does it have to be? Are there any legal issues with this?

My Aunt shares a party fence with her neighbour. She wants to erect a fence on her land, the current fence is in good repair it is just not in keeping with the beautiful fence she has around the other sides of her property and wants a new one erected to match.

The neighbour is happy to keep the current fence as that matches her other fences so she is fine about my Aunty doing her own but neither of them knows if there is any stipulation on how far in to her land this should be. She is elderly and will be looking to move soon to a bungalow, so to avoid any issues with the new neighbours my Aunt wants to get the fence built now.

I am assuming that if anyone has any experience of this it would be with problematic neighbours.

Anyone help???

It should say on the deeds to the house where the boundaries to the property lie. It has to be on the boundary line as in the deeds or else she may be in trouble with the new neighbours if it goes over or may loose land if it is under. Your aunt can put the fence up on her land anywhere she wishes but it will not be a party fence as this only divided the two areas of land. Just be aware though that any new neighbour may remove the existing fence and use the newly built one as a party wall, therefore taking some of your aunts land.

I would contact the local planning department and ask if the boundaries could be measured and staked out properly. If the new fence is to go inside of the boundary she needs to make sure that there is a marker in the ground beyond it which delineates the crossover. Get both parties to agree to it and sign something for avoidance of doubt in the future.

As long as it is within the boundary and less than 21m high (probably in line with height of other one to keep good neighbourly relations)and there are no restrictive covenants then I don't think there is an issue as such.