Fence Etiquette? (Bit long!)

[Mamf74]

My neighbour is talking about getting new fences up along his boundary, he wants them 8 feet high (!) and I was wondering whether we would need to contribute financially for this, or what the general etiquette was?

A bit of background, he is currently in a legal dispute with neighbours on the other side as he took down railings that were on the boundary between front gardens and replaced them with a wall - the railings are technically the neighbours and they knew nothing about his plans until they came home to find the railings gone and a wall in their place. He then tried to get £400 from them to pay as it was "their" wall! This was after he told us he was taking the wall between our front gardens down and replacing it, even though (at the time) he thought it belonged to us..... Very odd!

The second query was re planning - we live in a terraced house on a hill. As such, each pair of houses are stepped up the hill so we have a wall / boundary that is about 3 foot high, tapering down to about a foot. On top of this is his fence (the top of the wall is his ground level, iyswim?) so would this be taken into consideration when planning is applied for - if it's 8 foot on his side it would make it approx 11 foot on parts of our side which could block substantial amounts of light.

Thanks for reading, he's a bit of an arse and I wanted to check what was resonable expectations so I could tell if he were trying it on.

Without applying for planning consent and obtaining it, he legally cannot erect a fence higher than 2m (6.5 feet) on the highest side (ie your side as you are on the lower slope).

Planning portal has info on this: www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/ Search there and print and show it to him.

This is assuming you are in England or Wales. Not sure about Scotland or NI.

If he still ploughs ahead with fence and its higher than 2m on the lower side, report to your local planning department and he will be fined and forced to remove and replace with something lower.

As for you having to contribute. Only if you wish to replace fence and even then it may not be "yours" to have upkeep on. I can't tell you as this may be stated in property deeds or determined by location of fence etc.

You need to essentially gain some evidence regarding cost of fence if you don't wish it to be renewed so write a letter to him stating this (and take a copy) and post it recorded delivery (otherwise he can say you did not hand it to him).

This way you are not obliged to participate in costs even if he goes ahead (assuming he erects fence lower than 2m).

Just as a precaution, take photos of how it all looks now in case you come home one day and your neighbour has changed it all in your absence

We used to live on a hill and had the same problems re fence heights, a 4ft fence for one neighbour was a 6ft fence for another. Part of the reason we moved!

As MrsFlorrick says you can't go higher than 2m from the natural land level without planning and to be honest you don't want to feel like you are living in a prison with walls as high as 8ft or more.

You are only obliged to pay for half the costs if the fence is a party/shared fence, (we have a party fence and went halves on the damaged panels with our lovely neighbours) if the fence is his responsibility then he has to pay for it all, but clearly he gets full say over what it looks like and the height but not over 2m ie he can have 3ft fence/4ft fence etc.

Yes the wall height is taken into consideration for the total height of the "fence"

Thanks for your replies! Apologies for the delay in replying, very flakey internet here......

Feel a bit more reassured, thank you; the fence is definitely his so feel confident about telling him he needs to foot the bill - he's the type of person who would insist on having things his way even if we were paying so we'll just leave him to it. It's not damaged in any way, if anything it needs a post shoring up but the structure of the fence is sound his wife he just wants a new one.

And, lots of photos of our "plants" have been taken, thanks for the suggestion Potterer!