Wind has brought the fence down

[vag-com]

The recent high winds we have been having in Yorkshire has brought down a fence at the bottom of my drive. Trouble is I am not sure who the fence belongs to. It is not a usual drive where it is adjacent to your house, but we are the middle house in a set of 3 town houses. The drive ways for houses 1 and 2 run parallel to the houses. House 1 has the left hand side, we have the right hand side, see cobbled diagram below

Z Z Z 22222222222222222 Z 11111111111111111 Z Z H1 H1 H1 H2 H2 H2 H1 H1 H1 H2 H2 H2 H1 H1 H1 H2 H2 H2

Z = the fallen fence

2 = My driveway 1 = Neighbours driveway H1 = Neighbours house H2 = My house

I have asked my bank for copies of the deeds but was told they are copyrighted documents and as such cannot be copied. I can request my local bank "borrow" a copy but this may take several days. Is there anywhere online I can view the deeds or find out who owns the fencing in question. To the left on the fencing in my diagram (the Z's) there is a row of older terrece houses which run in parallel with the fence.

Would appreciate any comments?

Thanks and apologies for the makeshift diagram above, I realise it may not display properly if viewed with proportional fonts.

Thanks

[Farmer Giles]

If your property is registered - as it should be if bought or sold in the last 20 years or so - then you can obtain an office copy of your property document from the Land Registry for a few pounds. You may also be abler to view it online.

[Martin]

Ask "house 1" who owns the fence. They may have documents.

Or do what we all do round here - ignore legal ownership, and share equally all costs of repairing dividing fences etc. Works well, costs the same overall, and is always an excuse for a pi**-up...!!

In your case, suggest you split cost 3 ways.

If you don't like any of that, call council, claim it's their responsibility. Then when they deny it, ask them to prove who does own it.

[vag-com]

Had a look at the Land Registry but have to pay anything from £20 - £90 depending what you want. Will just have to wait for our local branch to get hold of these deeds and take it from there.

[Andrew Gabriel]

If the property is registered, the deeds became worthless on

1st January 2005, as the information held by the Land Registry is all that counts from that date. Most lenders are more than happy to send the deeds back to you in this case, as it avoids having to store them in very expensive document storage facilities.

The deeds can make quite interesting reading too, if you like that sort of thing (mine trace the land ownership all the way back to 1654, although the current house is only 1909).

[km]

Challenge whoever spun you the yarn at the bank. If necessary go above their head to Regional Office or Head Office. Be prepared for a fee to be charged and this may be disproportionatly high as they will claim it to be a lot of inconvenience to get out the deeds and search and copy the required document. They will more than likely have a leaflet giving details of costs.

The plan is necessary as it will show responsibility as a T on the boundary facing towards the house owning the fence.

The other issue is that the eventual owner may choose not to put a fence back up and leave the area open. Unless there are covenants forcing this on the owner you may not get what you want. Of course open plan may be a good option. km

[John]

Depends what you mean by deeds. Actual proof of ownership used to require production of a Land or Charge Certificate which is no longer necessary as you rely on the info held by the Land Registry. With this though used to be kept other deeds and documents which are not included in the registration but can be very useful in relation to various title matters - because lenders don't want these any more they tend to get lost. Guarantees etc also used to be kept with the deeds although not of course evidence of title.

Cheers

John

[Gio]

Just for the thicko's like me, when you say the 'T' facing towards the house, what part of the 'T' do you mean ? Is it the bottom of the vertical portion or the horizontal portion ? I assume the 'T's are marked along the boundary centre line drawn.

[km]

The T is placed on one side or other of the boundary line. The responsibility is with the owner of the land which contains the T. It will look like a T with the top running parallel to the boundary with the tail running into the boundary.

There may of course be no markings on some plans.

km

[km]

Just done a Google. Look at:

about half way down is a section "Whose Fence Is It" with a sketch.

km

[Gio]

Thank you for that pointer KM. All is clear now :-)

Gio