It doesn’t sound like the fence is in the wrong place. It sounds like your house sits right on the property line, which is no longer allowed in most places.
If it’s next to an existing fence, it’s a privacy shelter, and you should be careful to call it such, as they are usually governed substantially differently. However, he may not be permitted to build it so high, or to block your windows.
The only way to be sure is…
…go to the enforcement office, already, and talk to them!
(I am beginning to believe that the OP is in the witness protection program!)
Agree that the OP needs to get a survey done or in some way get the official records of his property lines. But doing that doesn’t mean he can’t answer our questions here at the same time. I would love to see a picture of the situation, too.
Adding to what others have said, code enforcement can help you. If I can find your city codes online, you are are in a better position to apply them to your concerns.
One wall of the house was literally ON the lot line. Legally. I used to freak him out by suggesting that a really creepy person could drill a hole into the neighbor’s wall for a peepshow. Me? I would NEVER do such a thing! I’m just saying that … someone could… ya know?
Those are not necessarily accurate representations. Go to street view and you can see that there is plenty of room to walk between the houses. Not saying it’s an ideal situation, but this is pretty common in CA.
To me, it looks like those “houses” are more like condos, or apartments.
In an apartment building, you expect to have a common wall shared with your neighbors, and you keep your car in a large parking lot, so you don’t complain about it. Here, you basically a have the same situation, but with a few advantages: there is a small gap between the “shared walls”, you have your own lawn, and a private garage.
Not in fact, in this neighborhood. If there were no fences, you could walk between the houses. But all the yards are fenced (except for the section where a wall acts as a fence) so in order to paint the exterior of a house (for example) you’d have to ask your neighbor if you could step into his back yard for a while. Note my comment about drilling into the neighbor’s house. Because the ex’s home was slightly offset from his neighbor’s, he had fencing on two sides of the yard, his house one one side, and the neighbor’s wall on the fourth side.
Or to describe it another way, the path between the houses belongs to only one house. To walk between the houses on one side you go through “my” yard, to walk along the other side, you have to go through the neighbor’s yard.
And these are full, detached homes. I couldn’t live there either.
Please. I live in CA and see these types of houses every day of the week. What you are seeing as “fences” are gates. When you do the street view, hit the “+” button to blow up the image and you can actually see the hinges on the gates.
I said there is no problem walking between the houses, and that is a fact. Whether the property is owned in common or not makes no difference as to whether it’s possible to walk between the houses.
Heck, same situation in mile upon mile of Chicago bungalows. Houses on our block were 6’ apart on 30’ wide lots. Between the houses were “gangways” - a 3’ wide concrete walk, and a 3’ of dirt - usually w/ hosta.
With the overhanging eaves, there were only a couple of feet between gutters. As kids, we occasionally climbed out the upstairs windows and ran up and down the block across the roofs. How I made it to adulthood…
The gates are generally towards the rear of the “gangway”, but I could easily imagine a neighborhood where the convention was to place the gates at the front, essentially giving each homeowner use of a 3’ strip of their neighbor’s property. Yeah, I guess the folk on the ends could get screwed. Even with the gate at the back, we had a piece of our neighbor’s property about 3’x10’ inside our fences.
Cleaning out your gutters, you had to place your ladder on your neighbor’s property. Was never an issue in the 60s-70s.
If you have buildings built up to the property line, I’d imagine you would essentially have rowhouses, as are common in Baltimore.
If it’s put up on the property line, it’s a fence. Privacy structures are set well back from the property line. The builder can call it what he likes, but if he puts it on a property line, fencing regulations will apply.
You’re totally right about the local office, whether it’s county or city.
It’s also possible that the back yard fence was installed two or three feet in from the property line. A lot of people install fences with a setback (sometimes to save money on a survey) or just in the wrong place. Following an existing fence line is a chancy thing.
I’ll give you another reason to go down to the local Permit/Planning/Zoning/Code Enforcement/Neighborhood Services Office. They have maps. They might not give you a certified survey, but they can probably tell you about how many feet from the side of your house your property line is. They may be able to tell you where the last surveyor left a surveying spike. That’s usually as much proof as you need to tell the neighbor he’s on your property.
Assuming there’s an existing spike, if it were me, as soon as I found it, I’d use spray paint to draw a big X on the ground showing the location - just in case Mr. Privacy thinks it would be cheaper to move the stake.
This prompted me to check our local ordinances, just for fun. They do not apply to this case, of course. Feel free to ignore.
1 - I was surprised that fences can go on the property line with no setback from structures, but then there’s a three foot setback from the property line for installing structures. So unless a smaller setback got grandfathered in, all fences will be three feet back.
2 - Six feet high max, unless you’re adjacent to a levee or public park. Against a levee you can go up to eight. Against a public park, it’s eight feet minimum.
3 - Materials are specified.
4 - Exceptions to setback requirements will not be allowed if the fence impedes a neighbor’s view.
