Boundary, drive, maintenance?

[SouthWestmom]

We have detached houses and our neighbours drive is parallel to ours but raised. This means you could step down from it to our drive. The raised part has an edging which is now crumbling - the part that is like a small wall. It is falling onto my drive.

Who would be responsible for maintaining it?

Them. It supports their drive. It’s like a mini retaining wall for their property. Good luck with negotiations!

Oh brilliant thank you. I've been worrying about it for ages. It made sense it was then but I couldn't find anything online.

I don't think it's all that simple, you'd need to check your deeds:

'Retaining Walls
Retaining walls occur where there is a change of ground level between the land on either side of the wall. A retaining wall must have greater strength than a normal wall in order to support the weight of the land retained on the higher side of the wall. The requirement for this extra strength makes them more expensive to build and more expensive to repair.

Problems can arise when a retaining wall is located on a boundary. There are two circumstances to consider:

a landowner who owns a retaining wall that supports his neighbour's higher land is subject to an implied (unless it is expressly stated in a deed) easement and owes a duty of support to his neighbour's land;
a landowner who owns a retaining wall that supports his own land is under a general duty of care to maintain the wall in such a condition that his land is prevented from collapsing onto his neighbour's lower land.
It is usually when a retaining wall (on a boundary) falls into disrepair that its ownership comes into question. Neither landowner wants to go to the expense of repairing the wall and each sees an opportunity to force his neighbour to undertake the work. The situation should not arise if the deeds of one or both properties are specific as to ownership of the retaining wall. It is when the deeds are silent that an investigation of the position of the boundary is needed.

An investigation can only succeed if the deeds contain a particularly clear and accurate description of the boundaries. Often the deed and plan are so imprecise that it is possible to determine the position of the boundary to only a decimetre (100 mm). This may be enough to ascertain that the wall is on the boundary but insufficient to ascertain on which side of the boundary its stands.'

Unless your deeds give a totally clear answer I suspect this would be a 50:50 responsibility.

Oh dear. I'll have to look at them. The drive is about half a meter higher on a slope and has had paving slabs used to finish it (vertical) - these are now crumbling and falling onto my drive.

I'd say it's on the boundary and forms part of their 'structure'. I'm going to have to look the deeds up.

It is usually the responsibility of the owner of the higher drive unless the deeds say differently. Paving slabs are not good enough. Any wall would have to be totally on their land as it would be wider than slabs. It cannot be on your land j less you agree. Paving slabs are narrow so h less the deeds say joint responsibility you would be giving up your land for a new wall and paying out as well.

The deeds aren't very clear. I think the edge is on their land but the deeds refer to retaining walls being party walls (in legalese so maybe my interpretation) and jointly maintained - not sure if that applies if it's all on their property by a few centimetres.

We don't know them well but they are very pleasant when we see them. I'm not looking to start a war!