Apparently I was the only one thinking this thread would be about fencing, you know, with swords and stuff.
it depends which you value more - the fence or your land. If you value your fence more, build it 4 inches inside your property, but you risk losing 4 inches of your land. Build it 4 inches on your neighbor’s property and you risk losing your fence. Most folks prefer to own/control the fence and lose the use of the land.
Seems like it would be best for the neighbors to simply get some railroad ties and dump them in the 4-inch space. That way, the swatch doesn’t need to be maintained and doesn’t look bad.
K, I’m confused. Duckster built a fence 4" from his property line leaving a 4" strip on the neighbours side.
Why on earth would you CARE if the dirt from their garden spilled onto the 4" strip? It’s certainly not big enough for you to plant anything on. Maintaining grass or somesuch will require you to access your neighbour’s property, which they may not be crazy about. Them haveing a bit of garden spilling onto your property, behind the fence that you built, that you don’t even have to see seems like a really odd thing to threaten to sue about.
Perhaps someone could enlighten me?
Depending on local laws, you may not be able to do that.
Here in Minneapolis, city ordinance requires that the ‘finished side’ of the fence be on the outside, with the posts, etc. on the inside. And if you don’t do it that way, they can force you to tear the fence down.
But what if the neighbor’s yard is directly behind mine, so there isn’t really an “outside”? Is there actually a law that says that you have to look at the ugly side of the fence you paid for, while giving the neighbor the nice side facing into their yard? That doesn’t seem fair to me.
As I’ve said before, I prefer looking at the structural/inside/ugly side of my fence, but I can easily imagine that people may differ.
Think of it this way, winterhawk. If you are putting up a fence and consider one side ugly, why should your neighbor have to look at that side?
BTW - I just checked my village’s code. It specifically provides that Exposed structural elements shall face towards the property on which the fence is constructed.
You can try to get all cute interpreting that, but I tink the plain meaning is pretty clear.
Well, it’s a city, so most houses have public alleys behind them.
Yes, there is. Also a law requiring me to shovel snow off the sidewalk in front of my house, for other people to walk on, even though I mostly use the back sidewalk leading to my garage. May not seem fair, but I guess that’s just part of living in a community, and treating each other nicely.
Also, fence builders are well aware of this, and can build you a fence without any ugly side. For example, a design I’ve seen recently has fence posts in line with the fence, and pre-made fence panels hung from the posts. This looks completely identical on both sides.
This is pretty typical of my experiences. I just ask my neighbors if they want to split the cost of redoing the fence, they say “Sure”, and off we go.
In reading over some of the posts here I have to wonder what, if any, price people place on peace of mind and good neighbor relations. Building a fence with a 4-inch buffer that you “vigorously” defend just seems to me guaranteed to create acrimony. It is the nature of fences that they are shared - if only visually - with you neighbors. It seems to me that you will have better luck entering into the whole affair in a spirit of cooperation and friendship rather than an adversarial posture.
Yeah, I thought it was going to be about the legalities and etiquette of moving illegal goods.
Why? That sounds really petty.
I think you answered your own question.
If my neighbor purposely poisoned my plants just because I tied them to the side of his fence facing me, he’d better be prepared to protect more than just his 4 inches of turf.
I know you have to be able to stand on your property to wash your windows and paint your house. Do you also have to be able to stand on your property to paint or repair your fence?
DS-
I’ve never heard of any laws regulating from where one must wash windows, paint a house or paint/repair a fence. If there are such, they are probably bylaws for specific subdivisions such as gated communities, which can have some pretty restrictive codes.
Because in some communities if you allow a neighbor to use your property for a long enough time, it becomes the neighbor’s property instead of yours, lowering the value of your property. Or maybe the neighbor’s a jerk. Or maybe Duckster doesn’t like gardens. Or…
Weird.
As far as I know, the general case here in the UK is that the fence marks the boundary line (i.e. they are built exactly on the line) - land registry plans mark the fences with a little perpendicular ‘T’ to show which property has ownership and upkeep responsibility. The non-owner must permit the owner reasonable access to carry out maintenance.
That was certainly the case when I lived in the UK. Each homeowner owned one side, and the back fence (which just backed onto fields where I lived).
It is very unusual in the UK not to have a boundary fence or hedge. Where I live in the US, nobody has fences at the front (many subdivisions don’t allow it), and maybe a third do at the back. Installing a fence is therefore a personal decision and I would not expect a neighbor to contribute. The neighbour might not even like the idea of having a fence - it is going to be more difficult to mow the lawn. Up to now, we each end up mowing up to a foot of each other’s property just to make sure we covered our own. When I install the fence, they will have the problem of how to keep the area close to the fence in trim as you can’t get a mower right up to the fence. Although 4 - 6 inches of it will be my property, I would expect them to do something with that strip to make their life easier - and I wouldn’t object. Strictly speaking, I suppose they can ask me to maintain that strip, and I will do so if they do.
I spoke to a fencing company this morning and they recommend putting the fence 4 - 6 inches onto your own property to ensure no boundary disputes. They didn’t mention any issues over who maintains the 4 - 6 inch strip.
Our lawyers can probably clear this up, but I think that you have a right to keep others off your property. If I am a big enough um, ah … (I can’t think of the exact word but it rhymes with “trick” or “crick” or something similar) and my neighbor can’t wash his windows without standing on my property, he is SOL.
If you build a fence which is not exactly on the property boundary:
there’s a legal doctrine called “Adverse Possession”, which says that if you physically occupy someone elses land, then you acquire ownership of it, after 10 or 20 years of continuous use. (and assuming the true owner never notifies you that he objects to you using his land).The idea is that if someone abandons his property for a long time, then he loses the right to use it.
So if you build a fence and leave a small strip of land “outside” your fence, you still own that land, all the way up to the property’s boundary line–but if you deny yourself access to that land, and freely allow access to you neighbor, then after 10 or 20 years, he can claim ownership of it.He used it, he maintained it, and you never did.If he goes to court, he can win ownership of it.
Whether it’s a strip 4 inches wide, or 4 feet or 40 feet is irrelevant. If you dont maintain it, you could lose it.
Personally, I’d prefer to give up 4 inches in order to avoid hassles. If the neighbors pay half, you have to get them to agree on color, height, type of wood, who will repaint it 5 years later, etc.