Boundary Fence Dispute

chelle72

Years ago a dividing fence between mine and my neighbours home fell onto my garden due to being rotten. I had this replaced slightly further onto my boundary. Approx 18mths ago she built a 4ft fence on what I believe is the true boundary line. In recent months I had the rest of my fence replaced and took out the said fence., again as this was rotten. I have not replaced this as she has a fence in place a foot higher than the original. My neighbour now states this was her fence and i have stolen her land. I believe i have done nothing wrong. My deeds do not state who owns which fence. She says hers do which I have asked to see a copy of. Can you tell me my rights. Do I need another boundary fence in place? I have offered to put markers in the ground if she can come back to me of where she thinks the boundary line is.  I believe the  boundary is shared and upkeep and or replacement is the responsibility of both parties? Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Hostafan1

Call her bluff and tell her to sue you. She hasn't got a leg to stand on

Pete.8

There's some easy to understand info here - I can't vouch for its integrity though, but it may help
https://www.inbrief.co.uk/neighbour-disputes/ownership-of-fences/

I do know that often the boundary you are responsible for is often marked with a T on your deed plans.

Best of luck!

wild edges

Rik56 said:

So, let me understand this right... your neighbour builds a new fence in addition to the one you built. So now we have two fences.. one is the assumed correct boundary (your neighbours) and your old one, not on the correct assumed boundary but within your property. You demolish your fence leaving your neighbours newer one.

This happens more than you'd think. The guy next door to me backs onto another property and there's a tidy 6' fence between them. On my neighbour's garden side though there was a rotten 4' fence maybe 1' away from the new one. He took it down because it was about to fall down anyway and the gap was full of weeds and the other property owner accused him of stealing that 1' of land. Apparently he'd put up the new fence inside his boundary but still insisted that the 1' of ground was still his despite not maintaining it. So my neighbour has to put up a replacement post and rail to mark the boundary and maintain the bit of land to keep the weeds down.

KT53

Once a second(ary) fence is erected it can make it difficult later to prove which is on the original boundary line.  The bottom of our garden is delineated by a chain link fence.  Some years ago the people behind us erected as concrete block wall about a foot into their garden, and more recently still a timber panel fence was erected even further into their garden.  For that reason I have left the remains of the posts for the chain link fence so that the true boundary can always be seen.

Lizzie27

The usual convention was that boundaries marked with a 'T' on your conveyance maps were yours. In the absence of any marks, the boundary on the left was deemed to be yours in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. Moreover as the 'posh' side of a fence used to be erected on the outside of your boundary (i.e. facing your neighbour), the posts were usually erected on your land i.e. inside your boundary and therefore the fence was clearly shown as belonging to you.  However, in recent years that convention seems to have been ignored by some folks who prefer the 'posh' side facing them!

@Chelle 72  I would just ignore your neighbour if you can. She's very unlikely to take the matter further. 

chelle72

Thank you all for the responses. I await my neighbours response to my reply letter stating that I believe I had done nothing wrong. I was curious as to why she had left the fence I had erected and placed her new one approx 2 inches away from it. I know the answer really...she knew it was my fence. If I believed it was hers in the first place why would I have forked out the money years ago to replace it! She didn't complain then. I have no T marks on my deeds and I  don't believe she has either (unless she can prove me otherwise. She sent me photos of the 'original' fence..these were actually of my replacement femce. Nothing is ever good enough for this woman. 

mrtjforman

hard to understand the situation but it sounds like fence was an eyesore, she couldn't tear it down so she built her own fence around it to give more privacy. 1.5 years later your fence falls down and reveals a 2 inch gap. She is now annoyed you are trampling on her 2 inches of land because your fence is gone?
If it was me I would offer that she can gladly move her fence to reclaim her 2 inches which nobody in their right mind would do but she couldn't argue about it further either cause the solution is in her hands then.
It is and always will be her fence though. She decided to build it, nobody forced her to and she had a choice and decided she wanted a fence. So many times will annoying people try to charge you for things that have nothing to do with you - don't get roped into her fence maintenance

. A neighbour's kid once mowed my lawn without my permission hoping for some extra pocketmoney. I appreciated the gesture - but not a cheeky bill from the neighbours for work I hadn't even requested. I flipped when that happened. Left things sour between us after that but I didn't go round and clean their car and make up a bill for it when I needed some spare cash... I thought the whole situation was ludicrous - they were strangers to me.

Fairygirl

There's no end of sorry tales about neighbours and their peculiar actions here on the forum. 
You have my sympathy @chelle72. I think you're tackling it the right  way. Ball's in her court now, as they say. Good luck with it 

K67

https://www.gov.uk/your-property-boundaries and https://www.gov.uk/search-property-information-land-registry
You can get a title plan from the land registry for £3 for your neighbours property.

KT53

Land registry maps may indicate who has responsibility for the boundary but won't be of a scale to show if a fence has been erected a couple of inches from where it should be.

This so called convention of putting the 'good' side of a fence to the neighbour was presumably dreamed up by the person who didn't pay for the fence.  I have always worked on the basis that if I have paid for something I want the benefit of it.  Therefore the 'good' side is facing me.  Neighbours in the houses both sided of me have always done the same thing.