Is the fence mine?

[liky]

There's a decaying fence in between my neighbours and myself (1930s Semi-Detached houses).

How do I find out if the fence is mine?
I had always assumed it was, I'm not sure why.

It badly needs replacing but I don't want to shell out loads of money if it's not mine and the neighbours are responsible (they are richer than me and the main reason the fence needs replacing is because they allow ivy to grown up it almost a foot deep in places.

I bought the house 10 years ago, and the fence wasn't in my radar at the time.

House deeds might say which boundary you are responsible for (or might not).

Look on the land registry or in your documents from when you purchased. If there is a T sign then that denotes which side owns the boundary. In lots of cases there is no clear boundary ownership and in practice lots of neighbours go halves on the cost of replacement. If you are on speaking terms with the neighbours why not go round with a friendly “ do you know who owns each boundary” and take it from there.

Look at your deeds, on ours it has a small T against our fence. Although it's barely visible on our house, it's clearer further down the street, so was possible to work out.

You don't own a boundary - it's the dividing line between two properties. You might be responsible for a boundary structure, i.e. fence or wall if the title register and plan indicate this. If not and the structure follows the boundary line then the presumption would be that you were jointly responsible. If it's to one side of the boundary line then the owner of the land at that side would be presumed to be responsible. The neighbours might say they paid for it so it's theirs.

If you can't find out (our deeds don't say) you could offer to go 50/50 with the neighbour?

@wowfudge

You don't own a boundary - it's the dividing line between two properties. You might be responsible for a boundary structure, i.e. fence or wall if the title register and plan indicate this. If not and the structure follows the boundary line then the presumption would be that you were jointly responsible. If it's to one side of the boundary line then the owner of the land at that side would be presumed to be responsible. The neighbours might say they paid for it so it's theirs.

The fence is on the boundary line. The neighbours are 'new' the fence is 'old' and they definitely didn't put it in.

Thanks everyone, can I get the Deeds from the Land Registry online? And will the little 'T' be shown on there?
(And why is it a 'T' rather than another letter?)

Look on your deeds and theirs. It is likely the boundaries and maintenance of was on the purchase enquiry form completed by vendors.

Yes from land registry. I assume T as in the - is the boundary and | denoting which side is responsible.

Lots of people assume that the left hand boundary is yours, but that is not necessarily the case (according to our planning department when I asked).

The title register and title plan can be downloaded from the gov.uk Land Registry website - they cost £3 each. There may be T marks or reference to boundary structures in the documents, but there could well be nothing.

It's not actually a T, just a symbol that looks like the letter T. The head is aligned along the boundary line and the root points into the property of the owner of the boundary line iyswim.

Which side are the posts on? Generally, the nice side faces your neighbour, so if the posts are on your side they are your fences and therefore you are responsible. Have a look out an upstairs window to see if you can see if there is a pattern e.g. all nice sides facing right, which would indicate owners are responsible for the fences on the right (and the left side is the responsibility of the neighbours on the left)

However, even if it is found to be your neighbours, they don't have to replace it, and as long as the fence isn't dangerous, they don't need to sort it. Even if it was dangerous, they'd be well within their rights to just remove it and not replace it.

How do you know they are richer than you?

@NachoNachoMan

Which side are the posts on? Generally, the nice side faces your neighbour, so if the posts are on your side they are your fences and therefore you are responsible. Have a look out an upstairs window to see if you can see if there is a pattern e.g. all nice sides facing right, which would indicate owners are responsible for the fences on the right (and the left side is the responsibility of the neighbours on the left)

However, even if it is found to be your neighbours, they don't have to replace it, and as long as the fence isn't dangerous, they don't need to sort it. Even if it was dangerous, they'd be well within their rights to just remove it and not replace it.

This isn't true either. For some reason I have 2 'good sides'. We tend to share responsibility for the 2 sides though

@dementedpixie that's why I said generally. It's not a hard and fast rule, we've replaced all the fences around our garden now even the side we weren't responsible and had all the posts facing in/nice sides facing neighbours. It's just another thing that could point to who's responsibility it is incase the deeds do not show this information.

I'm back - with a name change.

I've attached a photo of the plans from LR.

I am in the lower house - ringed in red.
That seems to show that the fence does belong to me (because of the little T shape)
Am I right?

I'd say the fence between the two highlighted properties is the responsibility of the one on the right of the picture.