Fences...

A little bit late in joining this party but will give my view.

Moved house last year into a 44 year old property, open plan at the front and totally fenced at the rear.

The deeds were quite clear and from the original developers. Any fence marked with an inwards facing T was our responsibility which in my case was one fence out of three. As it happened all the neighbours replaced all the fences prior to moving in. Happy days. It should be noted that in the past the property has lost an area of 3 foot x 18 inches at the rear of the garage but this looks to be historical and is nothing to worry about as long as \i have access for any maintenance.

If your property is registered (i.e. at the Land Registry) with a title number finding out what boundaries are yours is relatively easy. Anyone can log on to HMLR and order office copies and a title plan cost £6. The title plan will usually show "T" marks within the boundary line (usually edged in red). These are your boundaries. Reference to left and right generally means looking at the property from the front. If your property is not registered at HMLR then you need to look at your title deeds and maybe ask the advice of a Solicitor. Voluntary registration of your property at HMLR is not expensive unless the title to the property is complicated. This would also then determine your boundaries and makes life a whole lot easier if ever you should sell. One word of advice, DON'T get into a dispute if you can avoid it, neighbour disputes can be extremely difficult, lengthy and costly. Good luck!

It's not a matter of left and right,but more likely of which house was built first. The boundary generally belongs to he house that was there first, for obvious reasons. The boundaries you're responsible for should be shown on your Land Registry documents.

Being responsible for a boundary may not be the same as owing the fence - you can put up your own fence or wall or hedge inside your boundary and do what you like with it.

The Land Registry only holds the property information submitted to the registry. It does not make the decisions on boundaries, etc. The deeds are the definitive record and corrections can and are submitted to the LR.

That's the question I was going to ask, it's all very confusing!!

We have been in our semi about 32 years. Our original elderly neighbour replaced her boundary fence 4 inches into her garden with the support posts our side.
This was fine until we had a new aggressive neighbour who accused us of stealing her land when we wanted to build a sun room. We ended up with a party wall dispute and planning objections. It took 18 months and a lot of hassle to resolve.
When she sold her house about 6 years ago we expected lots of queries from our new neighbours. They have been so laid back about it and just accept that we have several iron bases from the original boundary fence incorporated into our herbaceous border.
We have told them they are quite welcome to erect a new fence on the old boundary but they don't want the expense.

Standing in the front garden and facing the house, the boundary on the right side at the front and back is our responsibility, this applies all the way along our road. When the young man in the house behind ours mentioned removing the hedge I claimed the hedge was ours because our house has been here longer than the ones behind and the hedge must be the old field boundary but it is not marked on the deeds.

The best thing to do is phone your solicitor, they should be able to tell you what you need. They should have copies and, usually they will have sent you a copy, but not always! Never assume anything with fences, what is right for one isn't always relevant to you. Our fence is owned on one side by our neighbours and the other side is shared! I worked in a solicitors office and that was always the best thing to do, then you have something to show your neighbours.

You need to check the boundary plans with land registry for a definitive answer

Rules on boundaries and fencing are many and depend on different criteria. The original deeds might provide an answer but the Land Registry detail is unlikely to.

If there was no fence to start with then the boundary is shared. If one party erects a fence on the boundary line they should put all the posts on their side which then makes the fence their responsibility.

If there is a fence already there then whoever has the posts on their side makes it their responsibility (maybe both sides). If the fence is your responsibility then that does not entitle a neighbour to demand you mend it UNLESS it is becoming a hazard for the neighbour.

There are many mistakes made about responsibility. Where a line of attached housing (terrace) stands there is a clear line of responsibility stretching along all the houses. Many disputes arise when a new build sits next to existing housing and the owner erects fencing with the posts outside the new fence. That is incorrect and should be challenged immediately.

Tegan2 I think you’re right and should get this sorted ASAP. Our neighbours on both sides are lovely and we have no problems at all with them. But they might not always be there and to avoid any ill-feeling in the future we are going to get the necessary paperwork. Hope you get it sorted to your mutual satisfaction.

When we had our slatted wood fence we came home one night and couldn't work out why we couldn't see anything; that was the day the farmer put up a 6ft fence without asking/telling us. Have to say it has saved me a lot of money over the years, even though he did complain about me putting trellis on it. Interesting about the squatters rights.

One day I returned home to find my neighbour to the back of me hammering in 6' posts about one metre into my garden on our side of his garden wall. His garage wall which had a window formed part of this garden wall boundary. He told me that he'd been told his boundary should be one metre beyond any window ! His posts would have taken his 'property ' beyond the back door into our garage. I rang a local solicitor who asked me how long our garage was up, it was up over 15 years. Solicitor said, tell him to get his posts out now. Regardless of neighbours opinion, there is a 12 years squatting ruling and the original boundary and our garage was safe. I spoke to the neighbour and he simply removed the posts. Glad to say.

I had to pay the [millionaire] farmer £200 to cut down a sycamore tree that was overhanging my garden. Trouble is there are hundreds more of the little blighters springing up in it's place...

My paperwork from buying my house five years ago state that I am responsible for the fence on the left hand side as I face the house from the road. However, in all my previous houses we tended to ignore the legalities and simply go halves with our neighbours - but then I have always has great neighbours! My problem is the boundary at the back which has three over grown leylandii trees and a high laurel hedge. They are all planted in the garden of the house at the back, so not mine. I did persuade them to chop off some off the height a couple of years ago but I had to pay £200 to a tree surgeon to cut off some overhanging branches this year as they made that part of the garden very shady.

That's an idea; ask her to show me the proof that she owns that part of the fence. We are really good friends/neighbours so I don't want this to be an issue. Also, neither of us are getting any younger and we need to resolve this for when one or other of us wants to sell. I know already I'd have problems selling because of the huge trees that are next to my house!

As someone on here has aready said, the only certain way in which to check your responsibility is to check the T marks on your Transfer Deed.....if you have a mortgage the deeds may well be with your lender's solicitors ....you could ask if they can find out (the may be willing, as for insurance and lending purposes they must be sure which is the boundary belonging to the property) If you have no lender, you could ask your solicitor who dealt with the Conveyancing ....ask first how much he would charge to do this Not sure but don;t think, your local council would have anything to prove it ...but it costs nothing to ask ...otherwise you could try the CAB ....sometimes they have a free consultation with a solicitor at the law centre if you have one ......OR you could suggest to your neighbour that she lets you have a copy of the deeds which shows who has which fence ....thereby co operating with her wishes, and saving you money ....good luck

Sorry Tegan I got distracted when I was typing my post and missed your latest post! Sounds like a good good idea just to give you peace of mind (if that's possible with your neighbours).

The side the fence posts are on does not indicate who owns fence, we recently erected fencing all around our property, we were told it was our choice whether posts were on our side or neighbours, we believe right fence boundary looking at house from road belongs to us, we also replaced left boundary as it was an eyesore, trees next door and few houses on a court complex. We asked the neighbours permission to replace their fence, they eventually agreed once they realised that we were not trying to grab a bit of their land and overcoming their disbelief that we would pay for the fence.

The title plan held by the Land Registry does NOT normally show T-marks.

Usually your solicitor marks them on the map at the time of the sale. Sometimes the title registers will quote a portion of a conveyance deed that refers to T-marks shown on the conveyance plan. It will look something like this -

"NOTE: T-marks affect the eastern and southern boundaries of the land in this title".

Tegan you need to dig out your copy of the deeds.

Because we have neighbours who on one side think they own the road and on the other side is a man who pop's out to talk and talk about his ex wife 'having hundreds of lovers' at every opportunity when we are in the garden we decided enough was enough and have had a new fence erected inside the existing fencing all round the garden left side right side and back. We now have a 6ft 6in fence with trellis on top. We have lost [at the moment] about 6 inches because the old fence is behind the new fence however it has given us extra security and privacy we are not now over looked and we know that all the fencing that we have around our garden is all our's. If we decided to sell at a later date I would have the fence removed leaving the original one.

Well, at least I've located my house deeds [with the solicitor that I used for my divorce]. Shall also find out about the boundary. Have given up on the fence idea for a while. It was a shock to find how disgruntled my neighbour was about the attachments to the fence, though [especially as we had erected and paid for the fence in the first place . Another one of my neighbours will know exactly where I stand with regards who is responsible for what, but he's not in at the moment. When we first moved here we only had a trellis type fence and the farmer put up a better one because of his cattle. When we asked if we could take down the original fence as it looked a mess he said we would have to pay for the 4 inches of land that we would gain, even though he owns most of the land between our village and the local town [that's why he's a millionaire and I'm not!]. He did change his mind as long as my ex rolled up the fence and delivered it personally to the farm cap in hand.

Unusually the fences on both sides of our garden are joint responsibility... so you need to be sure if yours are the same ~ I guess it's no good asking your neighbour to see her deeds? Hope you manage it sort it out Tegan2

The fence belongs to whoever it belongs to. Or it may be jointly owned. Depends what the deeds say. Obviously, if the owner replaces a fence, he'll put the posts on his side. But this doesn't PROVE anything.

On our deeds the responsibility of fence us in left ...which is great as due to an easel ire extension there are only five panels to keep in good repair. Our right hand fence is the neighboured responsibility and that’s got eleven panels.