Puzzling questions on property boundaries

[Rusty]

Some expert help and/or opinion on garden boundaries would be appreciated. I am replacing posts and lapped fences (6x6 panels) in the back end of the garden of my Victorian terraced house. Mostly the fence posts are so rotten there is nothing left in the concrete founds so it is easy to replace them re-using the original concrete. Due to accumulation of leave litter/garden rubbish over the last 4 decades or so, the ground level at the fence seems to have raised about a foot. So I am building up the top of the foundations with more concrete, after abrading the top surface away a bit to get good adhesion, to get them up to the new ground level. The problems are:

1. I assume the fence has its external side lined up with the back end of my property boundary. However the concrete founds for the posts, being 1 foot in diam. stray into the next property underground, in this case a communal garden area for a newish development of 8 houses. It this OK or is my new concrete trespassing. The old concrete always was.
2. At the back corner of the garden there is a three way join between the above communal land and my next door neighbour which I have been excavating to see what is recoverable. The builder who did the fence originally, just about within living memory, seems to have measured the side boundary with string and an iron stake. And forgot to remove it so it's still there, now a bit corroded. He dug an 18" deep hole with a vertical side to my neighbour exactly on the side boundary, put the fence post in flush with that side, then filled in with concrete of poor quality (it has the odd lumps of pure sand but is mostly OK). Therefore the concrete doesn't stray across the side boundary underground, but does stray into the communal land at the back. And the post only had concrete on three sides. Is this a normal way to handle this situation?
3. He then attached the neighbour's 3' high back fence panel to this one post, and probably installed it too, as part of a deal. So the one post is supporting fences belonging to two houses but the concrete is all on my side. I would now like to put in two fence posts side by side sharing the same enhanced concrete foundation so my neighbour has his own 4' post on their side of the side boundary. The present neighbour will be amenable to this as their fence has collapsed too, but is it generally a good idea ? It might lead to replacement difficulties some years down the line, but I won't be around to worry too much.
4. Trees. A very twisted Y-shaped hawthorn (15' high approx) straddles the back boundary, or at least it does at ground level. Its forks grow up away from me to about 3' height then one curves back over my boundary fence at

6'. It must have been growing toward the best sunlight for many years. When it was just a little sapling it would have been a couple of inches outside my garden but now it's got bigger, a fraction of it is inside at the ground. This causes a bit of difficulty with the fence panels which can be got round with some ingenious carpentry. I don't particularly want to trim it at the top and as it's a conservation area I would also need to apply to see if planning permission if needed. Its roots, now 75mm diam, are all over the place and will probably disturb the above corner foundation when it grows much more. Does a fraction of this tree belong to me for the purposes of maintenance, ie. the fraction at ground level.

Many thanks

rusty

[Peter Crosland]

Take a look here which may help you.

Crosland

[Rusty]

Thanks, these discussion groups are a very interesting read and answer some of the questions. I thought *I* was having a bad day but some of these folks probs are a lot worse.

I haven't run into any actual disputes yet, just trying to steer the line to keep out of trouble in the future, such as the likely event of new neighbours moving in. Keep talking to the neighbours seems to number one priority

rusty

[Peter Crosland]

Communication is the name of the game in so much of life!

Peter Crosland