Boundary Fence

[sue11]

Just wondering if anyone has every come across this situation before?

My mother had a small fence at the bottom of her driveway which adjoined another neighbours land which was laid to lawn.

She did not particularly maintain the fence apart from necessary repairs to keep it from falling down. The neighbour decided to remove the grass from his adjoining land, laid down gravel and turned it into a parking area. 

During the recent storms, he wrote to my mother (she is 93 and housebound) to ask if she could repair the fence to ensure that it did not fall over and damage his cars when he parked them in the new parking area.

We decided the easiest way to deal with this was to remove the fence completely and have nothing in its place. However the neighbour was not happy with this and wanted a new fence put up to mark the boundary between his and my mothers land. 

He first asked us to install a new replacement fence on my mothers land and when we refused, he offered to pay half the cost. We refused again (on my mothers behalf) but advised him that he was welcome to put up a new fence on his own side of his land.

He has put up a new fence, but in exactly the same place as the old one... on my mothers land!

The new fence is of good quality and will have no impact on my mothers day to day living, however she does not want to be responsible for the maintenance of a fence she did not want there in the first place!

I am pretty sure that we are within our rights to take it down and hand back the fence panels to the neighbour, but we dont really want to take this action and destroy what is left of my mothers relationship with this neigbour.

I have sent a letter to the neighbour, advising that my mum is not going to maintain the fence in any way, can anyone advise if there is anything else that we need to do to ensure that she does not have responsibility for the new fence?

[FoxLee2]

I understand that there is no legal requirement to have a fence between neighbouring properties - people do it for privacy.  Your mother doesn't want the fence, the neighbour does so I think you have done exactly the right thing in informing him that it is up to him to deal with any problems arising.

[sue11]

Thanks FoxLee, hopefully I have handled it in the best way.

Regards

Sue

[cassa333]

Hasn't the neighbour in effect gifted your mother a nice new fence!

And if it is a good fence and built properly I doubt your mother will ever actually need to do anything to maintain it.

In this situation, and this is only personally, I would just shut up and walk away.

[Peter Pedant]

in my opinion - there is nothing further to do.

[sue11]

Thanks everyone for your answers. 

Yes essentially we have a nice new fence gifted to my mum. My only concern was if a few years down the line, the neighbour started to hassle her for any repairs that may have arisen, he is the type of person that thinks he knows all the answers and can demand action. However we will cross this bridge if we come to it, as said the fence is of good quality and unlikely to fall down for a good few years yet!

Thank you for all the answers, I just wanted to sense check myself!

Sue