Does anyone have any experience of dealing with ivy on a shared boundary? I can’t find anything online about who is responsible and what can be done about it when it’s shared rather than a boundary with a fence maintained by one side.
For context, our garden was overrun with ivy when we bought our house. We pulled it out of the beds but a lot of the fence is covered. It needs replacing (it’s falling apart) so we bought the panels as our neighbour told us it was our boundary. We’ve now discovered it’s a shared boundary but are happy to continue replacing it as that’s the easiest solution.
One section is overrun with ivy, the roots on our side are as thick as my wrist and wound round the post plus there’s about 3ft on top of the falling apart panel. We’ve been advised the best solution would be to remove the ivy on our side and the top so we can get in the new panel. The alternative is supporting it somehow whilst we remove and replace but this will be v time consuming and the ivy is likely to make light work of the new panel.
We’ve spoken to our neighbour and they want to retain the ivy on their side which is fine but they also don’t want us to cut any ivy on our side that could affect theirs or remove the ivy on top of the fence.
What can we legally do? This is the latest issue in a long line of issues with our neighbour, who at times has screamed abuse at me and our visitors, so an amicable solution is unlikely. My ideal solution would be minimal/no ivy in my garden and a structurally sound fence panel but I don’t want to do anything that could break the law.