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Our build is about 2 months in now. The other side and rear of our property is fenced. We need to approach our neighbors at some stage after both houses are built to erect the middle fence.
Hi Mark B, I’m finding this post more than a year later but in my view, for any other posters that find themselves in a similar position, just get along. You have to be neighbours for a long time. That is more important than saving $1000. You will mind each other’s houses and help each other out. We got “done” by one new neighbour when we wanted to build a (standard) 6′ high timber paling dividing fence. He contributed half of the cost of a chain wire fence (the minimum). Who uses chain wire fences these days? Anyway… he saved himself about $600 and we paid 3/4 of the price. When the shoe was on the other foot, and we bought a new house, and the neighbour wanted to build a fence, we were “wise” this time, and said we’d pay “half the cost of a ‘chain wire’ fence (they wanted timber) This was a BAD decision!!!! We have been their neighbours for 17 years now and I still feel bad about being mean… Fortunately the older and wiser neighbour on the other side actually said to me “pay half of the timber” – and we did. The neighbour was rapt. But the initial “being dollar wise” (ie mean) still haunts me. These neighbours have been so good, watch our house, loan us stuff, and I wanted to stiff them for $600??? Not worth it. You two families should get along. Family A thought “good, we’ve got the better side with the better fence” Family B thought “oh well, we got the worse side, oops, we’ve also got the worse fence, we didn’t think of that, Hey Family A, how about you put a bit towards the boundary fence, we didn’t think of that…” As Family A, you don’t “have to” contribute anything – but – based on my experience, I would make a contribution. Maybe a quarter of the cost, as a good faith payment? Or buy them a carton of bubbly or beer. Or something. To acknowledge you know you got the “good” fence and you want to do something nice for them. Life is too short to be mean and saving a few dollars now is not worth a fractured relationship, no matter how “unreasonable” you might feel Family B is being. Family B feels sad they got the less desirable block. Give a little. Family A got the best deal.
Thanks for the very good advice Beas! I know how important it is to have good neighours. Our current neighbours where we live at the moment are like family and it’s been great to be surrounded by people you can trust. It’s going to be sad to move once our house has been built
This is going back a long time now, so much has happened since I wrote this post. The cost of the fences on their side would be around 5-7k to erect all of them so it’s not a small amount to just split with them. We did offer to pay for the middle fence entirely which will roughly cost us around 3k. They declined the offer. I honestly wanted to make things good with them at the time but unfortunately the disagreement with how things should be done got in the way. We haven’t spoken to them since this has happened.
We have been building our new house now for the past 2 months and it’s coming along very well for us. No major issues for us so far which is great.
Family B have only just started leveling the land last week. Their levels are very low at the back and as a result they now require a considerable amount of retaining with their neighbour. Obviously this is something they didn’t predict because when they approached us to pay half of their fences over a year ago they wanted us to fix and erect all fences before building/leveling the land. If we did it their way and we did in fact pay half, all the nice new fences on their side would be pulled down because they now require retaining due to the level of their house.
I think they had their own interpretation of how to build a property and unfortunately due to their inexperience it has gotten them into a bit of trouble.
At the very beginning my wife and I wanted to work with them and give them help/assistance throughout the whole process as we have had experience with this before. Our intentions were there but unfortunately they didn’t turn out to be who we thought they were
Agree with Terry that there is no “correct” answer.
I can get the logic of family A but why does family B believe both parties should pay for all fences?
Did you guys happen to establish some dispute resolution mechanism? If not, is there a third party both families trust and can agree that her/his decision (after hearing both parties) will be accepted as final, ideally with no hard feelings?Family B believed that “sharing all fence costs” was correct and commonly used by property developers and had assumed family A was on the same page from day one. After the disagreement they also spoke with a developer who said they were correct and family A were wrong in thinking otherwise.
Family A have had experience with developing property on their own in the past. They know people that have done this before with friends and family using their method. They were never under the impression that fencing was shared. They believed it was common sense that all issues found on either side is the responsibility of the owner of that side.
Just an update. Family B stated that they would never had chosen the side they chose if they knew they had to pay for their own fences. Family A then offered to contact the conveyancer and change over the titles and they will pay for ALL fences on their side but Family B refused. Family B have now backed down unwillingly and have agreed to do it Family A’s way
Does anyone else have an opinion or advice on my post?
Gee, this is probably out of the conveyancers depth. Why didn’t you use a lawyer? Did you discuss the CGT and stamp duty, and GST aspects of transferring title?
If it is a valid partitioning of the land then you will each beneficially own the separate portions of the block and therefore family B should be paying for the fencing on their ‘lot’.
Didn’t think it was necessary at the time. We had a clear understanding of how it should work and the other family had theirs and unfortunately here we are.
Yes we have all the CGT and GST aspects sorted thanks for asking
So if you were Family B, would you expect or assume Family A is automatically liable to pay half of your fence?
No, because it is not on their part of the land.
Was the land partitioned at purchase or has it been?An agreement was drafted by the conveyancer stating who owns which side of the property based on the agreement made from the draw. We are in the process of getting the subdivision finalised.
So if you were Family B, would you expect or assume Family A is automatically liable to pay half of your fence?
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This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by
MarkB.
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