Shared garden fence broken who pays?

[edmondo93]

This involves 3 properties, mine A, my neighbours B & their neighbour C. A few years ago the fence to my right started to fall down. I was told by neighbour C that it neighbours b fence next door to me. I spoke with her that it was her fence & if she had it done asap I'd pay half towards it. She agreed & we had it done. A few years later she moved abroad & let the house out. All was ok until the fence on my left started to come down. So I spoke to the woman who lived there & I said I'd put a new fence up. She then told me it was her fence. I said it was mine but she disputed it.I got in touch with the council & she was right, it was her fence. So she had it done. This meant though, that the fence on my right was mine & I'd wrongly told my neighbour years ago it was hers & she in fact paid half towards it . Anyway, it didn't matter as she was abroad. I live on a hill so I am up higher than my neighbours. When the fence was put up it left a big gap under the last fence panel between me & my neighbour & my earth was going into hers. I got a large sheet of rigid plastic & slid it down flush with my fence to stop the earth going into hers. This had been there for years & worked fine. A few months ago new noisy tenants moved in & they went to the plastic & broke it so all the earth is now falling into their garden. We actually say him doing something that day but didn't know what until a few weeks later a big hole appeared. I got intouch with the landlady to have it fixed as her tenants broke it, to place a board there as originally there was a boards there to stop my earth falling there. That's vanished. She has told me the fence is mine & I'm to do it & from my garden. As I'm higher up this mean digging up tons of earth to put a board there, whereas from her side its all paved so you can just slide a board there & attach it to the fence. But she is being awkward deliberately. So who is responsible for filling this gap, its my side but we both paid for the fence so in my eyes, its half her responsibility, or am I wrong.

[rheged]

This is the kind of good-neighbor problem that keeps law firms happy. You did say that she shared the cost of the fence in error because it's actually your property, didn't you? So therefore it's not half her responsibility as far as I can see. Instead of using wood, might it not be cheaper to get an appropriate length of steel sheeting and drive that down into the ground on your side of the fence?

[bachir93]

Your question is so convoluted that I got tired just trying to read it. Sounds like you may need an attorney or maybe small claims court.

[andor25]

It is irrelevant whether you shared the cost of a repair to make your field of vision look good or not.
The boundary and the responsibility of maintaining that boundary is on the deeds of the property. The deeds or plans show which fence is yours to do as you wish and to maintain.

By sharing costs it simply complicates the matter later on as you have found at when problems arise.

We have three boundaries adjoining our property and one fence is ours and our responsibility. The house that side was bought by someone who spent a huge amount developing it and then he wanted a decent fence visually from his side. He spent thousands replacing our fence with Jacksons Fencing and our approach was that under the circumstances it would have churlish to refuse. But the fence is technically ours and our to maintain in the future.

The other side the neighbour is a noise intolerant miserable .... so we simply put our own fence inside his boundary and left three inches of no man's land in the middle. Annoyed him like mad and nothing he could do about it. But we put in concrete posts and just slot in new panels when they weaken.

At the back we simple live in disorganised chaos with the neighbours and a large and messy hedge which we trim jointly together once a year.

It really depends on how big an issue you want to make, but it is never wise to use money jointly and to complicate things.