FENCES - who is responsible ?

[MargaretMountford]

my former next door neighbour has rung me to ask me if I can remember who owns or is responsible for the fence on the right hand side of your property - there is some kind of rule isn't there ? We were on her left hand side but shared the costs for repairing the fence when we lived there.
Anyone know the legal bits ? TIA

bump

I think it will be in the title deeds.

If you stand facing your property the fence on your left is your responsibility afair

First place to look is your deeds. Most normally state which fence is your responsibility. Some people think there is a rule that the fence on your left is your responsibility, but there is nothing to prove that this is correct. I suspect that most new builds have this rule. Some properties are responsible for all fencing.

Check your deeds.

you usually own the fencing on the left sometimes it is different it should be on the deeds or local council might know.

It depends where you are, our place, we are responsible for the rhs, but the houses up the road are responsible for the lhs, it will be on your deeds

It isn't always that fixed , you need to see the deeds or hers which could be downloaded (for a small fee) from Land Registry.gov

thanks - will tell her - I think she's checked the title deeds

We have just been through a fence dispute with our new neighbours. There is no rule about left or right. It will be on your deeds but not on the thing you can download for £2 from Land Registry

You either have to ask your mortgage lender- who will probably charge you and may have to dig them out of a repository- or the solicitor who did your conveyancing. He will also charge, but not as much as Land Registry who wanted £90 for one set of deeds or £145 for yours and neighbours

As it's not for you I would tell her to do it herself

I will ! thanks

We're about to have our garden landscaped and all the fences need replacing. I phoned the land registry for clarification of this RH/LH side rule and the woman there said that's a commonly-held mis-conception. After all, somewhere along the road, probably the end house, someone's going to cop for both sides. And what about the fence at the bottom of the garden? If there are little T marks on your deeds, that's a help, but she told me that, at the end of the day, you should negotiate with the neighbours. Easier said than done in some cases. We, hoever, are going to fund it all as we then have complete choice about what fence goes up, and we'd prefer them all to match. A friend in the US has 2 beautiful natural hardwood fences, and one VILE white thing to the RH side. She's going to put her own up on her side of the boundary.

I think that if the horizontal rails that the boards are nailed onto are on your side, then its your fence.

My parents house only has one fence to mind - the back one. The side fences are taken care of by their neighbours. The back fence, strictly speaking wasn't theirs to mind but they chose to replace it a few years aso as the yobs immature children in the flats behind had broken the previous fence by playing football against it and often climbed over it. They lost about a foot of ground since they set it inside the old fence (without bothering to pull down the first fence - the neighbours at the back had that trouble) but it was worth it since the new fence has gone unmolested ever since. No law against setting a new fence inside the old one.

My new neigbours have been doing some building work and have driven a mini JCB through the fence that separates our gardens. It's their fence (well, the Council's actually as it's a council house - we own our house (although most of it's owned by the Halifax . . )and I went round two weeks ago to ask them to fix it as a) we have a dog and she can now escape b) it compromises the security of our house. Have they done anything? Have they heck! Husband wants to fix it ourselves but I really don't see why we should as it's not ours (and anyway, even if it was ours they've done the damage!)

OK - rant over - but very cross about it . . .

SCotsLassDownSouth - if it is causing a safety/security breach for you you have to fix it - they have no pbligation apparently - we are at the moment going through this - have a very old house and the boundaries do not belong to anyone - alothough neighbour says he thins our side wall is his - his tree is pushing the fence and our electric gates out causing us huge issues everytime we open them worrying that the wall is just going to fall down - are on our last chance of getting him to sort it out by getting a builders report and then the local council round to deem it a health and safety risk - then it will have to be taken down whilst the man from the council is here and we will be left with no wall - we will then have to replace it and submit to the insurance company the report from the builder detailing that his tree caused the problem upon which or insurance company will sue his for the dismantling and the building of a new wall.

There are no hard and fast rules at all to who owns what fence and if you have a house like ours built before 1600 there will be no record as to who owns what!

it is also a myth that you have to show your neighbours the good side of the fence.

Good trust me if we have to rebuild the wall they are getting the very shitty side!

If you have the rails on the outside of your property it makes it easier for anybody to climb over. I think that's why the rails usually go on the inside.

scotslass your neighbours aren't obliged to fix it, and you are obliged to keep your dog under control. That means you may end up having to fix it. It isn't fair (went through same scenario so had to find out) but that is the law.

@ evenhope - seems very unfair! I was thinking of contacting the Council as the other house is Council owned but I really don't want to cause trouble with the neighbours. I just know that if I had gone through the fence and caused damage then I would have had no hesitation in repairing it, no matter to whom the fence belonged!