Tricky situation with some neighbours (perhaps)

[EnglandRuby2019]

I don't think there is an answer to this but it's worrying me.
We live in a small cul de sac of a handful of detached houses. We have a shared courtyard setting where we are all jointly responsible for the upkeep of the driveway should it ever need repairs.

The value of the houses at present is around £650K. A couple of years ago, the original owners of the house nearest the entrance from the road moved and a new family moved in. They take very little care of the outside of their house ( weeds, dirty garage door) and last year their 6 ft high fence which is runs half the length of the shared courtyard/ driveway almost blew over, so they have propped it up. It looks a mess.

We are worried that when we sell at some point, the fence will put buyers off as makes the small development look tatty.

Legally, it's not on shared land but on the boundary.
can we ever drop hints to them?

Do you want to fix it yourself or are you expecting they will spend their time and money chang8ng something that doesn't bother them for your benefit?

Are there any covenants relating to how external areas need to be maintained? If not you're probably stuck with it as it either doesn't bother them or they can't afford to fix it.

There is nothing you can do about this i would think. Stop thinking of the whatifs and just get on with it. Drop hints? Do you think they haven’t noticed that they propped up the fence?

You want your neighbours to do (potentially expensive) work to their property in case You ever want to sell?
YABU. Focus on maintaining your property the way you like it.

In the legalities about the shared driveway there are certain obligations around maintaining it, how it can be used and so on. The point is that their fence is only just on their land ( by a matter a very narrow kerbstone) but the impact of the tattiness affects us all because anyone entering the other 3 houses has to drive past it. We've lived here for almost 25 years as have the other 2 families and everyone has always pulled together, keeping their areas of the drive way weed-free and tidy. All I am saying is that the falling down fence - which is overlooked from our kitchen-diner- detracts from our house and is a concern when we sell. I don't think there is anything unreasonable about saying an adjoining property can devalue a neighbour's home. They seem insensitive to the communal spirit to try to keep it looking tidy.
As for costs- none of you know what their finances are so it's all speculation. I know more than any of you what that is and I dont' think money is the issue.

A friend of mine has this exact situation but she is the house nearest the road. She does maintain it as she's very aware that her property effectively forms the entrance to the other three properties, but also feels slightly annoyed that all the cars belonging to / visiting the back houses go along "her" bit of road, churning it up and yet she has to maintain it. If it got to the stage where she couldn't do that (age, lack of funds) I expect she'd be more than happy if one of the other families nicely raised the point about impacting on the others and offered to help sort it. The only thing you can do is very nicely say it affects the look of the entrance way and see if they'd be amenable to sorting it out. Don't fall out with them though or it could become very difficult.

OP I think posters have been unduly harsh on you.

My parents had to live next door to a house that the owners left in a terrible state of repair for years. It isn’t considerate at all

I would suss them out, get into conversation and try and bring it up in a non-confrontational manner.

Agree with PP, don’t fall out with them. I know only too well how crap that can be

Thank you @Morley19

They won't need to replace the fence at all. It will cost them nothing but time.

All they need to do is remove and realign 2 panels which are leaning right over. They almost fell into the shared drive in high winds and they propped them up by tethering them somehow which we assumed was a temp solution. They just need a bit of DIY to sort them out.

I did say at the start that I didnt see how I could DO anything but it's disappointing to have new neighbours move in after being here over 20 years and they are seemingly insensitive to how the other houses try to maintain the frontage.

All they need to do is remove and realign 2 panels which are leaning right over

Can you just do that if they go on holiday?

Deny all knowledge if asked, just say you thought they'd instructed builders to do it - unless there's cctv of course.

If it's something you know is straightforward DIY, can you offer to help them do it? I'm hopeless at DIY, and often have no clue how big a job is. They may think it needs actually replacing, and might be delighted if you offer to help them sort it.