A fence has got damaged in the wind and according to my deeds it is not mine. My fence is the one at the end of my garden and to the left as I stand with my back to the house. I believe this is a convention.
I want to tactfully tell my neighbour that I will not be fixing it (I get the impression they are waiting for me to do something). I don't see them very often and they feel I am opting out of my responsibilities.
Any suggestions - is the boundary "to the left and at the end" a formal convention?
There is no formal convention John. The subject has, and remains, a real pain for everyone but the lawyers and surveyors who profit from sorting out disputes. This page is a good point of reference.
Wouldn't it be more likely to be as defined in the deeds?
Our house was the first one built on this plot of land, then next door down a few years later, and a self-build on the other side later still. Our deeds state that we own both fences, (presumably because we were the first to have fences).
MY neighbour claims one hedge, because there is a ditch inside it.. I remarked he owned that too, and would he care to maintain it? I haven't heard since, and I have been maintaining them both.. I guess I DO own that ditch now, since he hasn't touched it in 12 years and I have been maintaining it.. ;) Common law and all that.
On the other side he couldn't work out who owned it..no ditch. Looking at a very old map reveals that part or the garden is probably post 20th century addition anyway and a plot of land was added to the original field boundaries..the house was originally a dairy in the corner of one field..on a large estate..at some point it was sold off and a line drawn roughly to the other side of that field and that became attached to the property. There are no deeds that clearly mark out anything. We could spend a fortune deciding. I deliberately left in some trees that were along that boundary as old stumps in case anyone wants to argue the toss at some later date.
There may be 'conventions' but the reality is it is entirely down to who put it up on whose land. If deeds don't say, or conflict, its anybodies guess. Best advice is ask neighbour to fix his broken fence...if he says 'its not mine to fix' get that in writing, and fix it yourself. You are now the proud owner of a fence.
|> Wouldn't it be more likely to be as defined in the deeds? |>
|> Our house was the first one built on this plot of land, |> then next door down a few years later, and a self-build |> on the other side later still. Our deeds state that we |> own both fences, (presumably because we were the first |> to have fences). | |My deeds state that I own all fences around my garden, but so do those of |the neighbours either side.
In our case the gardens C1950s house were divided by a post and single rail on top fence, these were jointly owned and have been replaced by walls/fences/nothing, on the original line, by successive owners, by mutual consent.
The ditch/hedge rule stems from the days when landowners were required to identify their plot by digging a ditch. The assumption is that you would have stood on your own land to dig and thrown the soil back to your own side, creating a bank. Commonly a hedge would be planted on the bank.
This only works if subsequent sales have not been by some other feature. My fields all have ditched and hedged boundaries but, in fact, were sold away from the estate by *the fences*.
IANAL:-)
With a fence it is usual to have the supporting posts on the *owners* side.
If the fences have a flat side and a structure side, and they all have the flat sides facing the same way, then in the absence of any other indicators, you own the fences with the structure side on your side. The reason being that the boundary is a straight line, and your fence must be on your side of the boundary, so the flat side buts up against the boundary. If the fence was the other way around, it would prevent you accessing all your property. In boundary disputes, the orientation of fences has been use to decide the outcome, and there are probably cases where someone who has put a fence in the wrong way round (quite common, because they want to see the flat side) have lost the fence and the land it stands on.
AIUI; there isn't _ a convention_. The ownership of fences _is_ specified in the titles deeds to the property. A 'convention' has arisen whereby developers assign 'ownership' of fences to one 'holder' of each property they develop: Thus; imagine house A-:f1-B-f2-C-f3 .... et seq ... Holder of A 'owns' fence1; Holder of B 'owns' fence2; et.seq. Such a 'convention' will be stipulated in the title deeds for Property A along the lines of ' .. and the fence on the (compass orientation) side.
Frequently the developers assign 'ownership' of the fence to the property which has the fence posts and/or rails on it. This has _misled_ some folks to inferring a general rule that if the posts and rails are on _your_ side, the fence belongs to you - but this isn't the law.
In my particular case; the property _jointly_ shares two fences (either side) while the property 'owns' the fence along the rear of the garden. it's all stated very explicitly in the Title Deeds.
I found my plans - which have the "T" symbols. I showed this to my neighbour who now accepts it is their fence - however, as I have the time and inclination I am going to fix it as they are very nice people - but I wanted to ensure that ownership was understood by all parties.
you will find that it is not nearly as simple. In fact nothing to do with boundaries ever is! The site above is the best I have found so far and is well worth bookmarking for future reference.
Related query - what happens if the owner of property A assumes maintenance of a fence - ie replaces it when it's knackered - does that affect its "ownership"? ie, if a future owner of property A digs out the deeds showing that the boundary is in fact the responsibility of property B, and asks him to repair it, can the owner of B say 'no, it's A's fence, not mine'
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