Posted on 20th May 2022 @ 10:34 AM

English law and conventions for boundary walls and Fences.

There are numerous circumstances where the law requires that fences are erected. These are usually related to safety and include:

• alongside railways: Railways Consolidation Act 1845;
• around disused mines: Mines and Quarries Act 1954;
• around building sites adjacent to highways, both road and path: Highways Act 1980;
• to prevent livestock from straying from their fields: Animals Act 1971.

A conveyance deed or a transfer deed may include a covenant requiring the purchaser to fence the land and for him or his successors in title to forever maintain the fence.

The height of fences permitted is governed by the LA planning office. As a rule, garden fences have to be less than two metres high.

There is no general rule about whether you own the fence to the left or right of your property. Boundary responsibility is determined by the vendor who originally divided the land in to smaller parcels before selling them individually – usually the property developer. The conveyance, or, transfer deed should define the boundary and fencing responsibility of the individual purchasers.

Consider the picture left: it shows four houses, numbers 32, 34, 36, 38. Notice that, between them, they have five flank fences (shown in red). One of these four houses, therefore, must be responsible for both its flank boundaries.

This might mean that all of the houses are responsible for the boundary on their left and one of them is also responsible for the fence on its right; or, it might mean that they are all responsible for the fence on their right whilst one of them is also responsible for the fence on its left; but it doesn't tell us which house is responsible for the boundaries on both sides; and who owns the rear boundaries? Numbers 32 to 38, or the houses in the parallel street behind?

The conveyance deed (or the transfer deed) may express in words the boundaries for which the owner of the property is responsible.

If it does not then the conveyance (or the transfer) plan may employ the convention of applying a T-mark to those boundaries for which responsibility rests with the owner of the property (as in the diagram at right). If responsibility for the boundary is shared (for example, in the case of a "party fence wall") then an H-mark (effectively two T-marks mirrored on the boundary line) is the conventional symbol that is used.

If the deeds are silent on the question of responsibility for the boundary, then you may have to work on the basis of the information given in the Seller's Property Information Form by the vendor at the time you bought your property.

It is sometimes possible to infer who is responsible for a fence by establishing the pattern of fence ownership along the same side of the street.

When the time comes to sell your land, or for your neighbour to sell his land, you (or he) will be asked to answer the question on the SPIF that asks who is responsible for each of the surrounding fences. The vendor then has a legally binding, contractual duty for accuracy, the failure of which might lead to liability for consequential damages.

Fences, appearance of: Must the smooth side of my neighbour's fence face towards me? My neighbour is in the process of erecting his new fence, and he has started putting it up so that the smooth side faces towards his own house. Is he allowed to do this?

There is no law that says the smooth side of the fence should face the neighbour. Consistent with the  Party Wall etc. Act 1996, there is, however, a usual, polite convention that the smooth side of the fence faces the neighbours’ property, or publicly adopted roadside.

If your neighbour pays for a fence that he erects on his own land (even if he builds the fence so that the outer face of it, as seen from his land, runs along the boundary) then he is entitled to choose the style and colour of the fence, as well as whether he places the smooth side of the fence to face in towards his own house or out to face your house.

• Fences as supports: Can I hang things on my neighbour's fence? 
• Fences as supports: Can I use my neighbour's fence as a support for my own plants? 
• Fences, appearance of: Can I paint my side of my neighbour's fence?

Only if your neighbour gives you permission to do so.

Leaning things against your neighbour's fence, hanging things on your neighbour's fence, even using your neighbour's fence as a makeshift retaining wall, will place a much heavier burden on the fence panels and supporting posts than they were designed to bear. The consequences of such actions are easy enough to predict and you will be liable for the cost of any repairs. On top of that you will still have to do, and pay for, the work that you did incorrectly and which resulted in the damage to your neighbour's fence.

In short, anything you do to your neighbour's fence without your neighbour's permission, including staining, painting or applying preservative to your side of your neighbour's fence, amounts to criminal damage.

Fences, appearance of: What can I do about the unsightliness of my neighbour's fence?
Unless your neighbour agrees, you cannot: paint, stain or varnish your neighbour's fence to make it a more attractive colour; affix close boards or panels to your face of the fence in order to conceal the support rails, or, attach trellis or some other system to support plants that you wish to grow up your side of your neighbour's fence.

What you can do is: plant free standing shrubs or a hedge to conceal the fence from your view, or, erect your own fence alongside your neighbour's fence.

Fences and boundaries 

It is normal practice when using a fence to mark a boundary to place the outer face of the fence along the boundary, so that the posts stand on the land of the of the fence's owner.

There is a big variety of styles of fence, and the positioning of the fence relative to the boundary will depend on the style.

post & wire fence: if the posts are of metal or concrete then it is usual for the outer face of the post to be placed against the boundary and for the wires to be threaded through the centre of the posts; if the posts are round timber then it is usual for the outer face of the post to be placed against the boundary and for the wires to be stapled to the outer face of the wooden post; with wooden panel fences and close board fences where the panels/boards are wholly contained between the fence posts, it is usual to place the outer face of the posts to be placed against the boundary; some close board fences have flat rails attached to the face of the posts and the boards attached to the face of the flat rails: in this case it is usually the outer face of the boards that is placed against the boundary.

If a fence post requires a footing, for example of concrete, to secure it into the ground then it is normal to allow the footing to lie partly beneath the adjoining land. In keeping with the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, this does not give the neighbouring landowner the grounds for a claim of encroachment.

If the description of the boundaries in the parcels clause of the conveyance, or on the conveyance plan or transfer plan, is so poor that you have difficulty in interpreting the boundary's position on the ground then it is tempting to use the position of the fence as an indicator of the true position of the boundary. If you are confident that you are dealing with the same fence that was in place at the time of the original conveyance, or at least with a fence more than twelve years old, then you could fall back on the self-evident truth that the boundary follows the outer face of the fence but this is not necessarily conclusive.

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