Problems with neighbours and garden fence. What can you do?
Every person dreams of having a small (or big) house and a garden offering peace and tranquillity so needed after long working day in the office. Gardens are of special importance for United Kingdom’s setting since they represent one of the major characteristics people on the island are known for. Thus, it is only reasonable that people in the UK take special attention to their gardens, and dedicate multitude of their activities to making them as intimate and relaxing as possible. The perfect picture includes privacy away from neighbours’ eyes. However, this picture perfect is often disturbed with heated arguments and problems with neighbours next door. Reasons are numerous: one of the house-owners entered other one’s space, fence is too high or too low, one neighbour painted his/her side of the fence in the way that does not suit the person on the other side, and similar. If you do not want to face the court because of the fence, there are several things to be followed prior to putting or changing the fence.
Ownership of the boundary features.
When buying a property, a person needs to engage in researching the neighbourhood and legal boundaries of the property, which are strictly determined. Information available suggests that these boundaries do not need to be the same as the physical ones, so a person needs to inform himself/herself prior to engaging in building a fence. There are several ways one can do that, but one of the easiest and cheapest paths is through HM Land Registry (http://www.landregistry.gov.uk). There a person can find all the available information on the ownership of the boundary features. One needs to be careful, though, not all properties are registered. However, one cannot rely only on this web-site, but needs to be ready to go through all the documents received in the course of buying. Although people usually believe that they own the fence that is on the left side from their household when looking from the street, the truth is that vendors make these decisions when parceling the property. This information is usually found in the conveyance or transfer deed. If not, you should ask them to include the data in the document.Don’t throw anything away – it might save you from your neighbours some day!
Prevention is the key!
People usually assume that they have the worst neighbours, but this does not have to be the case. Sometimes, prior to putting a fence, the best thing is to talk to your neighbours and make joint decisions on the size, colour, or other fence features. All a person needs to be aware of is that this process requires a lot of patience and negotiation skills. In preparation, useful advice on dealing with fence problems can be found via www.boundary-problems.co.uk.
In addition, when thinking of putting a fence, one should take care of all the legislative bills that are putting the order in this area. In case of building a brand new fence that is over 2m in height, one needs to obtain planning permission. There are other issues one can come up with in this are, but there are sites like www.planningportal.gov.uk, which are of immense help for new or old house owners. You can visit https://www.fencing-london.org.uk for more details regarding garden fencing in London.
In the end: plan well, do a research and pray to God that you have friendly neighbours!
