So the lady next door thinks the fence between our houses is ours. If it is, then fixing a fence post would require digging a hole in *her* lawn. Which would leave us open for costs of damages, IF she allowed us into her garden in the first place.

This can’t be right, surely? It’s bonkers. But there appears to be no way of verifying ownership of the fence.

Have you looked at the plan on your title deeds that show your boundaries?

They are marked with a “T” on the side who owns the boundary.

Good luck. Fences and parking are the root of all neighbourly hatred. Arguments never seem to end well.

havent you been baffled by this before? has it fallen down again?

There is naff all on the deeds. No T markers, just a line.

I did post a thread before, but now she’s got a contractor in to fix the other side of her garden, what she thinks is hers.

We’re the only ones in this end of the street who bought a house from the builders, and we cannot find our documentation.. we only have memories of paying for a fence on one side.. but we can’t remember which.

Which side shows the “good” side?

Which side shows the “good” side?

That means nothing, apparently.

anything in the deeds say that boundaries are shared/party walls ?

mines does.. (12 or so year old house though)

and yes.. rear fence backing on to neighbour is bone of contention here. guy behind is retired, and if he weren’t so fond of powertools i wouldn’t be shocked to see him out there with scissors cutting the lawn. prev owner of our house planted against it, and its pushed slightly. nothing wrong really, but they get twitchy every time there’s a bit of wind.

prev owner of our house planted against it,

You should have put him under the patio instead.

Right. Found the actual transfer deed we originally had, and that shows that she’s correct, and it’s our fence.

However, we also have the list of stuff that we paid Wimpey for, and a fence isn’t on it. I think the Wimpey sales lady is the one who had it wrong. When we asked about fences, she told us that we’d have to hope that next door ordered a fence or put one in ourselves later…

So that puts us in the difficult position of having to dig up her garden to fix our own fence. Which is a bit ****ing stupid. It could be that Wimpey had it wrong all along, which is why it was built essentially backwards.

Looks like you got a free fence, Bonus!

molgrips – Member
Which side shows the “good” side?
That means nothing, apparently.

It does actually and is the “standard” used to denote who it belongs to.
It’s not always correct but is far more accurate than which side of the property you look at is.
As has been seen on here before for example – my other house my “side” is the right as you look at the front of the property.
Where I am now only half of the right side is mine because of how the properties are laid out the boundary covers 2 others.
However others here own the left side but the practice is that you always show the “good” side of your fence to the neighbours as they don’t have a say in it.

So that puts us in the difficult position of having to dig up her garden to fix our own fence. Which is a bit ****ing stupid. It could be that Wimpey had it wrong all along, which is why it was built essentially backwards.

how long does it have to be before you can claim the land as yours…

Am confused why you need to dig a hole in her side, if the fence is yours then the land its on is either yours or the boundary, and a post hole is only slightly bigger than the post surely. If its on her land gift her the fence or remove it if she doesn’t want it. No obligation on you to provide a fence, call her bluff.

Have you ever dug out a fence post? You need to dig quite a big hole to get all the concrete out.

Which side shows the “good” side?
That means nothing, apparently.
It does actually and is the “standard” used to denote who it belongs to.

Google does not agree.

And in this case the two conventions contradict. It’s on the left side, which according to that convention makes it ours; but it’s also got the good side facing us*, which would make it hers.

What’s weird is that we had the conversation about ordering the fence with the rep, and we remember the price for the fence being about £630, but we apparently didn’t actually pay it.

*hence needing to access her garden to fix it.

Google comes back with lots of contradictory results.
Every property I’ve ever owned (7 to date) has been this way.(good side to us)
2 have been left hand sides all the others have been right hand side.
All bar one have shown on the deeds whose ownership/responsibility it is.
The one that didn’t the neighbours asked us if we minded if they replaced “their fence but obviously we’ll put the good side on yours”.
We actually told them we didn’t mind as they were paying the £1.5k to do it.

Get an updated registry print out, ask them and if there’s nothing there then you may well find its shared and a party boundary

Pulled up plety of fence posts, usually just dig away one side and pull it over if the post is still in tact. But I didn’t say dig the old one out anyway, just stick another post in near to it, bit of postcrete and no more wobbly fence. You can even do it from your side.

You’ve found out you own a fence you dont want, why restrict yourself to solutions that only involve digging up the neighbours garden to fix it.

hammyuk – Member

Google comes back with lots of contradictory results.
Every property I’ve ever owned (7 to date) has been this way.

My Neighbours just had a new fence built between us, they did it the other way round. So can I now go tell them I own it?

Ours is the ‘wrong’ way around too, there’s a much newer house on the side we own, so the builder was responsible for putting in the fence, but we own it, but they got the ‘good’ side.

Is it on your deeds Stato?

Surely if the fence is on the boundary, then putting in a post will mean digging a hole that straddles the boundary. Or you put the fence well inside your side so the hole is 100% on your land, which is a bit daft.
As is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ sides of a fence.

The information is not shown on the plan that’s registered with LR. In our copy of the plan from Wimpey though it shows a map of the whole development, and that does show the T markers.

You’ve found out you own a fence you dont want, why restrict yourself to solutions that only involve digging up the neighbours garden to fix it.

Because I want a) a neat fix not a bodge and b) I want to do a neat fix without taking the whole lot down. If I do it from her side I can simply pry the fence off the wobbly post, move the fence panels a few feet outwards, dig, then nail the panels back onto the old post.

Surely if the fence is on the boundary, then putting in a post will mean digging a hole that straddles the boundary

Yes but I’m not worried about my side.

I spoke to her, she said that she didn’t mind me digging on her side. I’ll do it of course but I don’t really feel comfortable about it. I think Wimpey got it wrong tbh which annoys me.

hammyuk – Member

Is it on your deeds Stato?

No, there was a massive hedge there previous (ours). They got sick of cutting their side so told me they were putting a fence up on their side against the hedge, I took advantage and paid the builder to dig out my hedge so I had more space and didn’t have to cut the bugger either. Builder then put the fence up with the nice side facing the neighbours, no idea why but given how perfect their garden is they probably wanted to look at the nice side themselves, ive not asked as I dont care.

Our 30’s house has the fence with posts on our land being our fence. Good side faces the neighbours, this may be the English, “good fences, good neighbours make”.

If you own the fence it should be wholly your side of the boundry, not on it so the posts should also be on your side of the boundary, which ever side of the fence they are.

The convention of putting the posts your side is nothing to do with pretty it’s to do with not leaving some of your land on the other side of the fence.

I doubt your deeds will be acurate enough to tell within a fence post width where the boundary falls. If they are that makes life easy, measure it and find out.

If they’re not and the fence is yours and the land is yours (bear in mind the fence could be hers and on her land even though the boundary is yours.) fix it and turn it round so your land is all enclosed on your side.

If she thinks the land is hers but the fence is yours, tell her she is welcome to remove it. Do nothing.

(I believe, unlike a wall, hedge or trees, a fence can’t actually constitute a boundary from a legal point of view so can’t be shared, this is internet knowledge though so take it with a pinch of salt.)

I’m going to go over and fix it. I’ve got concrete, just need a couple of £10 posts and an afternoon working outside. Given the meal the contractor is currently making of replacing the entire fence on the other side, this’ll be easier.

bear in mind the fence could be hers and on her land even though the boundary is yours.

That’s interesting – we didn’t pay for the physical fence, so the original purchasers of the fence presumably did.

Most likely that then Stato – but no, you don’t own it.

Mols – FYI the house I’m in now is a Wimpy build and every property on the development has the “good side” to the neighbours.
The posts on the section I own are on my side, on my property.
The good side of the fence denotes the boundary line.

If it is, then fixing a fence post would require digging a hole in *her* lawn. Which would leave us open for costs of damages

I spoke to her, she said that she didn’t mind me digging on her side. I’ll do it of course but I don’t really feel comfortable about it.

Some people really do worry over nothing…or have an irrational need to post questions on the internet.

She’s asked you to fix the fencepost that she believes you own. What on earth makes you think she’s going to sue you for digging a bit of soil up?

I’m guessing you’re both reasonable people.

Christ, is this a thing people actually argue about in the real world?

Last year both sides of my back fence was damaged in a storm, left side blew down, right side leaning badly

Neighbour on the left knew a fencer. Organised for the work and we both paid half.

Neighbour on the right said “Can we use the same guy to fix our fence” So this time I organised it and again paid half.

No one at any time mentioned deeds or ownership of fences, life is too short to argue about who owns a fence

Christ, is this a thing people actually argue about in the real world?

No, no arguing has been done whatsoever. She claimed it was mine, I doubted that, checked, turns out she was right.

The posts on the section I own are on my side, on my property.
The good side of the fence denotes the boundary line.

Looks like someone made a mistake at some point.

Some people really do worry over nothing…or have an irrational need to post questions on the internet.

Not really irrational – I started the thread before I’d found the relevant information, and I couldn’t figure out how it could be mine when it was erected the way it was. But we’ve figured it out now, without any arguing or worrying.

No, no arguing has been done whatsoever. She claimed it was mine, I doubted that, checked, asked the internet , turns out she was right.

FTFY 😀

Not really irrational – I started the thread before I’d found the relevant information

I didn’t quote the bit where you were asking about ownership, I quoted the two times you’re worrying about being sued.

That was hypothetical. I was wondering how I could have ended up in this somewhat strange situation. But given the discussion and my memories and documentation it looks like a mistake has been made which would explain it.

It may well be that the previous owners of hers paid for the fence but that’s something that she either doesn’t know or perhaps more likely doesn’t want the £ implications.
Whilst your paperwork is showing that it’s yours someone in the site office quite probably didn’t tell the labourers hence it being “the wrong way round” and next door footing the bill.

I have an “issue” with one fence post that is in my paperwork yet the neighbour whose good side of the half fence believes is his. Hence he takes to removing anything attached to it. This is despite him receiving legal letters from the previous owner before and the council issuing him with a prohibition notice(all pre dating me)
The fence post directly behind it is his but he will regularly start off about it.
The most recent being a drunken tirade at 1am after asking him to turn the music down (along with neighbours either side of him – bearing in mind this is a 50 something year old plumber not kids) because I had done the neighbourly thing and pinned a board back on that had come off into my garden.
So instead of him saying “cheers saved me the hassle of arranging to access your garden, etc” it turned out I’d used the wrong nails and had no right to touch his fence.
Next time I’ll just post it back through his letterbox for him.

Molgrips, top tip, dont try and prise the old panels off the knackered post, just cut the nails with a hacksaw blade between the panel and post (either hold it in a tough glove or use one of those single ended blade holders). Whenever I’ve tried to removed nailed in panels with a claw hammer it always ends up a swearing match and mangled uprights.

….or spend about £5 and buy a flat pry bar which will do the job quicker and with less damage than either a hacksaw blade or a claw hammer?

Hammyuk – sounds most likely. The labourers forgot plenty of other things, including two windows in our house 😯

bigyinn – will bear it in mind ta. I’ve done one before, on the other side, and I think I just pried it off. The wind had loosened it quite a bit already.

Built to a price as fast as possible Mols
God knows who designed the one I’m on but I beat his wife hates him going by the kitchen layout 🙄

I beat his wife

Good lord. Does he know?

Built to a price as fast as possible Mols

Tell me about it.

On the plus side, I found the NHBC certificate, so let’s see if I can get someone to fix the leaky windows.

Had a good look at the line of the fence vs the house division (it’s a semi, each side on slightly different levels so you can see the dividing line). The fence is entirely on her land by about six inches.