Fence query

[Laurasanford111]

Hi

So next door have what is thier fence on our left hand side, they had it out up just before we moved in. The right hand side fence is ours, they have plastic netting stuff at the top with fake plants on, it's unsightly for us, it's not a nice shade of green, I have a climber which eventually will cover some of the plastic stuff so we don't have to see it. They had it put up to stop foxes getting over, however our cat has decided to go over and squash the plastic stuff so now they have put up some wooden trellis stuff on our side of the fence?! To try and deter the cat...thing is so many cats in the area I dont know how they even know it's our cat. My question is, they're not allowed to fix things to our side of the fence are they?! Surely you would need to ask first so we have a long stretch of plastic stuff with one patch of trellis... Once my climber takes off you won't see any of it but I want to check I'm right in what I'm thinking that they can't just install things to our side of the fence?

Thanks

I thought they could as it's their fence? You say yourself you won't see it soon, I would just leave it. It is annoying having cats coming into your garden and doing their business, so I don't really blame them. Speaking as someone who has a cat!

Normally in fencing the fence you own is on your land - slightly inside the boundary. This means the fence is entirely on your property, and is owned by you. People are not supposed to put stuff on it (either side) or modify it without permission, but often do.

So normally it depends whether the fence is actually your fence and is entirely on your land. If it is, then no they aren't allowed to attach stuff to either side without your permission. If it isn't and they own it then they are allowed to attach things to it, provided those attachments do not encroach over the boundary (which it may be very close to the fence) onto your land. Since a trellis would barely add any width to a fence that wasn't yours, unless the boundary was particularly well defined and/or the fence was right on the boundary I think it would be hard to prove that an addition like a trellis actually encroached on someone elses land.

It's probably worth noting that if someone wants to, they can erect a fence right next to a fence they don't own, provided they erect it on their own land and do not damage the other fence in the process. People often do this when/if they are unhappy with the way their neighbour maintains their fence or if they want a uniform fence type around their garden - this gives them control of the situation, but means that they end up losing a few inches of land in the process.

Of course there are lots of other fencing arrangements such as shared fencing that are defined in the house deeds and what is written above may not apply to you.