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.

That's just a copy of the "plan" you've attached to the original post .You need to get a copy" of the register" for the property,from the Land Registry (see link below).This is the document showing ownership of the property,any mortgages and any covenants.The responsibility for a fence would usually be a covenant.

There's no general law about who is responsible if there is no documentation about who is responsible.

[Link]

Edited by legaleagle (10 Apr 2015 4.22pm)