Fences n jobby

[Donald]

So another contender for most boring thread of the year.

It's a Sunday night and I'm here listening to Sheryl Crow and I've just eaten some sausages over a week past their date.

Then I got thinking...

I have this ongoing problem with one of my neighbours. Basically they're student renters on one side but wont contact their landlord because they're too busy I guess. I know they're busy because I hardly ever see them, their curtains are always shut and and their back and front gardens are some Fanghorn Forest jobby. They don't even use bin bags for their house rubbish. Just goes straight in the wheelie bin out front and stinks. Seemingly they don't care about much because look at what one of them did to their car:



Anyway. Basically their fence (?) fell over a bit some months ago and when I was out someone used some dodgy bright blue washing line to tie it to a plant thing in my garden. Not sure what kind of plant it is but it's fairly hard because it's supporting 2-3 panels.

This is where the problem is. Who owns this fence? I know the renters themselves probably don't but are they responsible or is it up to their landlord? I've had a look on my deeds and plans and I can't actually see any mention of a fence and the only in depth info I have is on the original manuscript which is from 1875. Don't think this is the original wooden fence.

I thought it was one of those things where if you look at the house from the front, you take care of any fence on the right hand side of the property? Does that ring a bell with anyone? Also the posts supporting the fence are on the inside of their garden and the panels are on the boundary line I guess. Logic would dictate (to me anyway) that you can't put a fence up and expect your neighbour to look at the shithole fixings. Also having the posts on the inside of your property makes the fence harder to climb from the outside? I suppose if you put the fence up you'd want to see the best side, but the posts are in their property so surely the whole fence is theirs?

To further complicate this fence drama, the neighbour on the other side want to do something with that fence, which they think is theirs, but the fence posts are well within my boundary so surely that is my fence?

I know the easy way to sort this is to look at the property paperwork but I can't find anything. In theory I could claim I don't have fences if it's not stated on the deeds/I can't find it?

TL:DR, my neighbours want to play with the fences but the one that I think is mine I want left alone but they want to play with it, and the one that I don't think is mine I want something doing to.

[Kawa]

My house - I stand on the front pavement and turn around to look at my house. My fence is to the left. Same with my mum's house. Both are ex council properties.

[jjmartin349571]

Or failing that, I'd contact the planning department of you local authority. They should be able to determine who owns what. My girlfriend's brother works in this area, all the time he deals with people on the verge of putting shears through each other's hearts over who gets to decide how tall the hedge is

[Dbo]

have checked with a m8 who does fencing and here in hampshire, as you look at the front of your house the border to the left is your responceability

[Donald]

Motherfucker. I refuse to believe that it's illogical that the fenceposts in their property belong to me.

Plus I have just found this:

If the deeds say nothing, as unfortunately they all too often do, then in the case of fences with posts or struts on one side, the law presumes that the owner on that side owns and is responsible for repairing the fence.

What law says that though I am yet to find.

[Sailor]

Normally, if the posts are on their property, the responsibility for the fence is theirs. Yet it's not always the case.
Do you have any plans with the paperwork? If so, one or more boundaries might be marked with a 'T'. The text should describe what this means, but it's normally used to mark which boundary the property should be looking after.

Finally, it doesn't matter if the students' landlord owns the fence. There's usually no statutory obligation to have one, or to keep it in good repair - as long as it's not dangerous.

The neighbours on the other side might be more problematic unless you can solve this.

[rob quilter]

Go round and slap them and tell them to stop smoking weed and being doomers and fix the fence and sort their garden out. Then slap the fence panels for falling over, then slap that Ka parked out front.

You can do this in a reverse order, but you don't want to look too strange.

[Sailor]

Motherfucker. I refuse to believe that it's illogical that the fenceposts in their property belong to me.

The boundary isn't necessarily where the fence is! Things change with successive fencing over the years.

[Donald]

Cheers Sailor.

Yeah I've read of the T things but I see none.

This just found on http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/public/f ... a-property

Even if a register refers to boundary features, these may have changed since the land/property was first registered. For example, new boundary features might have been built and the owners at that time might have agreed who was responsible for them.

Beliefs about ownership of boundary features

There are lots of different beliefs that the way a wall or fence is constructed can suggest who the owner is, for example:

ownership is always on the right or left when you look from the front of a property
that the posts and arris (horizontal) rails of a fence are on the owner's side.

But there is no legal foundation for such beliefs. Deeds may contain wording were one owner covenants (promises) to maintain a wall or fence but such covenants do not necessarily mean they own the wall or fence.

So it looks like I'm stuck. I guess at best I can hope that when I eventually get in touch with their landlord they're not a total rhubarb and accept logic and 'common belief' as being fact.

[Sailor]

So another contender for most boring thread of the year.

I forgot to say "well done, Donald" for a nice try.
But it's not boring enough, apparently.