Good afternoon esteemed & wise members of the HOL. I come in peace, seeking advice & I know Somebody on here will be able to help.

Here's the story:

-Last year, we bought a semi detached house from a family who owned BOTH our house, and the attached house next door. They were selling both simultaneously.

-Because they were one family living in both houses, they didn't have a fence dividing their gardens- it was one big space.

-Before we moved in, we insisted they install a fence. Unfortunately (and we were a bit stupid to not stipulate this) they put up the most basic "fence" you could imagine. Basically some 4ft wooden posts with some chicken wire running along them. No height, no privacy. It's piss poor and it might as well not be there.

-We are the right hand side house and the garden "fence" is to our left.

-Our adjoining neighbor has made polite/tentative inquiries about the fence situation, in a tone which suggests he thinks the fence is our responsibility.
This is fair enough, it may well be our responsibility, but I don't particularly want to shell out what's probably going to be a grand for a fence just because he thinks it's ours.

-"What about the deeds? Look at the deeds" I hear you cry. Well, attached is an image from all the official documentation/title plans that we got when we purchased the house.
I know normally it should be marked on there which fence is whose, but there are no such markings on our plan.
There's a red line that indicates the general boundary of the property but that's it.

-Some people say the rule of thumb is that it's the fence to your left, but others say the opposite. Again, I'm happy to claim responsibility if it is mine, but I'm not going off a general rule of thumb.

-His house is the last house in the run before a block of flats so I'm assuming the fence to his left belongs to him. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the right one isn't his, because whichever way you play it, somebody at either end of the run will end up having two fences that are their responsibility.

Sooooo, does anybody know how I can find out through official means as to whose is whose? I've paid for a second copy of our title plan in case there was something missing from our hard copy. But it's just the same OS map with a red line around it.

See attached, and thanks in advance for any help.

Yours, always.

'bert.

Attachment: Screen Shot 2015-04-10 at 11.52.15.png (75.68Kb)

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"You don't own a dog & bark yourself, do you?"

The fence between you and No 41 may give you a guide - if the arris rails are on your side then it would be assumed to be your fence, which would make the other one 37's responsibility. If you have the 'plain' side of the fence between you and 41, the left hand fence should be yours.

If it's a brick wall then who knows!

Edited by becky (10 Apr 2015 12.46pm)

A stairway to Heaven and a Highway to Hell give some indication of expected traffic numbers

Not an easy one...at my previous place it was on the left looking at the house but in my current one its the right. Unless its clear in the legal documentation its going to be a hard one to prove either way....have you asked to see their deeds?

The Voice of Reason In An Otherwise Mediocre World

Offer to go halves on it?

Pride of South London
Upper Holmesdale Block P

The general rule is that when you look at the fence, if you have the "good side" then it is your respnsibility. So if on the other side of your garden you are looking at the back of a fence then the one in between is probably your responsibility. But even then it is a general rule.

Unless there are legal documentation stipulating exactly who has responsibility then you are going to have to come to some legal agreement.

"It's almost like a moral decision. Except not really cos noone is going to find out," Jez, Peep Show

I did a lot of reading on this subject when we bought our house. The fence between ours and one side had blown down and they weren't exactly quick about fixing it.

Our deeds looked the same as yours and were less than helpful. I think the conclusion I came to was that there was no way of concretely telling. Thankfully, they accepted it was them and fixed it mid-summer.

Maybe discuss it with them and agree to go halves?

I'm not sure how well the left/right thing would work, as in any row of houses, one poor sod at one end would end up with responsibility for both wouldn't they?