Boundary Wall question

[Paul5454]

Hello!
My garden is about a foot lower than my neighbours.
There are the remnants of an old stone wall level with his lawn, but on my side of the boundary.
I want to put a fence up, replacing the existing one, which was put up by a previous owner of my house on my neighbours side of the boundary, temporarily, before he moved in... which he's complained about.
I want to put the new fence on my side of the boundary.
If I remove the wall to dig for posts and his lawn collapses into my side, am I liable for damaging his lawn?
I just know I'm going to have problems with him, no matter what.
Thanks.
Paul

 

[ban-all-sheds]

There are the remnants of an old stone wall level with his lawn, but on my side of the boundary.

Do you know who owns the wall? Usually (Often? Sometimes?) when there's a row of adjacent gardens each occupant owns one boundary fence/wall. In which case that wall will be his, or yours.

If it's on your side of the boundary then if it's his you could ask him to remove it, unless he has permission to have it there. But disputes between neighbours over fences, hedges and walls etc can become as intractable as those in the Middle East - you only have to read some of the tales of woe on the gardenlaw forum - so you'd do well to avoid any conflict if you can.

Are you absolutely sure that the wall is entirely on your land? And you can prove it?

I want to put a fence up, replacing the existing one, which was put up by a previous owner of my house on my neighbours side of the boundary, temporarily, before he moved in... which he's complained about.

Fair enough, possibly. Is the fence on his land? If it's still on yours then there's not much he can do about it, particularly if it was there when he bought the house.

But if he doesn't like "your" fence being in his garden, then he ought to understand why you'd like to do something about his wall being in yours, if it is his. If it's yours then you may replace it if you want.

I want to put the new fence on my side of the boundary.

But on which side of the wall? Comes back to exactly where the boundary is. A valid technical and legal solution might be to build a new wall on his side of the existing one, putting in fence posts as you go, then erect the fence and remove the old wall.

Or as a last resort, just put a fence up on your land - there is absolutely nothing he can do about that as long as it's no more than 2m high. Let him deal with the fence already there - you didn't erect it and he knew it was there when he bought the house. If it's on his land he owns it.

https://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/fenceswallsgates/

If I remove the wall to dig for posts and his lawn collapses into my side, am I liable for damaging his lawn?

Yes.

I just know I'm going to have problems with him, no matter what.
Thanks.

You really do need to establish exactly where the boundary is, and who is responsible for maintaining any fence or wall, and out of that will come who owns the existing wall and whether it should be on your land, if it is.

Once you've got the facts agreed with him you'll be in a better position to decide what you can/may/should do.

It might turn out to be to your advantage for his garden to have strayed over the boundary, as that would mean you can erect a fence which is 2m high from that, and get you more privacy.

 

[rjm2k]

Check your and your neighbours deeds re this boundary and obligations

 

[Paul5454]

Thanks for the replies.
It's definitely my wall as it says so in the deeds. The previous owner took the wall down intending to rebuild it, but didn't.
In the meantime, he erected the 'temporary' fence on my neighbours side of the remaining wall.
My neighbours house is rented, but the landlord doesn't have a problem with the fence, so long as I maintain it, and I have this in writing from him.
It was the bit about the lawn collapsing I needed to know about, because I just know whatever I do and no matter how careful I am, he'll complain. The neighbour that is, not the landlord.
Anyway, you've answered that query, for which I thank you very much.
Paul.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

It's not the neighbour's lawn, it's the landlord's. Establish (if you haven't already, sounds like you're well on the way) a good relationship with the landlord, and agree with him where the boundary is if the deeds are not clear, and exactly where the wall & fence should go.

I suspect you will need both, not just a fence - they aren't that good at retaining.

I don't see what the neighbour can do to interfere, no matter how much he wants to. As long as you respect his privacy, and don't do the work at unsocial hours, or store materials in "his" garden, just deal with any complaints by pointing out that you've agreed the work with the owner of the property.

 

[Georgie73]

We had an identical problem of this. Its a nightmare.

What we did was to erect a new fence on our side. We pulled away all of the broken crumbling wall and thankfully, next doors lawn did not subside. But what we did was to erect the fence posts but on the back of them we placed two gravel boards on top of each other to hold back 'their' garden. We then mounted our fence panels on the front side of the timber posts.

Three years on - all is still fine. The neighbour is still a pain, but the fence and gardens are still in tact.

 

[rjm2k]

A foot of lawn isn't much, a single gravelboard and concrete posts should be enough for it, you could always use 2 gravel boards on top of each other if you want to make sure the lawn is kept away from the actual fence panel.

If the wall is yours I would build on the far edge so the new fence face is at the same position as the original wall face. You could always leave the wall there, remove enough to put in concrete posts and sit the gravelboard/fence on top of the wall slightly, again with the new face where the old was.