Good luck
9mac
We had to upgrade our fence when we got the pool. In NSW, this is the obligation of the owner of the pool by law and you can not get a contribution from your neighbour.
Browse Forums General Discussion Re: Fence costs and neighbours 21Mar 26, 2011 7:18 am 9mac I totally get your situation. We have bought an old house with a 40 year old fence. Currently it is held up ON OUR SIDE by wire and steel pickets. Our pool goes in on Monday and there is no adequate side fence. Our neighbour, who is lovely, says we don't need a new fence as I think she doesn't want to spend the money, justifiably. However, it is a retaining wall divider fence and is going to cost $1000's!! I have been looking into regulations and they somewhat state that whoever has to retain their land pays unless the other property cut into the land. This makes it confusing for us because we have to retain and they cut in! I am not sure where to go but in all likely hood, I am going to go with the contribute a certain amount approach rather than half - just to maintain neighbourly relations. HOWEVER - I will be choosing the fence! Good luck 9mac We had to upgrade our fence when we got the pool. In NSW, this is the obligation of the owner of the pool by law and you can not get a contribution from your neighbour. Re: Fence costs and neighbours 22Mar 26, 2011 10:39 am We were in exactly the same position with another neighbour who had filled their block and the 40 year old fence went along our ground level. The top of the fence at the rear was level with their ground level on their property and was being used as a part retaining wall. They claimed the fence which was being held up by trees next to it and had rotting posts was in good order and served its purpose and removing it might affect the stability of the soil. We pointed out to them that stability of the soil was the job of a retaining wall not a fence and as they were the ones who had filled and changed the lie of the from its natural contours that they were solely responsible for the costs of construction and maintenance of the retaining wall. See below; http://www.lsc.sa.gov.au/booklets/fence ... 24Se226697 As a gesture of good will I offered to make a contribution to the cost of the retaining wall on the proviso they agreed to pay 50% of the costs of the new fence. I also suggested that as we were contributing to the cost of the retaining wall that we had no legal obligation for that we also pick the fence colour. Prior to contacting me they spoke to the legal services commission and readily accepted our offer. Crow Slab Down: 2/6/11 Moved in 13/3/2012 Current Status : Waiting for the garden to grow. My build thread : viewtopic.php?f=31&t=47031 Re: Fence costs and neighbours 23Mar 28, 2011 10:29 am There is 2 ways you can go about this. Looks like you pulled the fence down because your build required it due to it being ugly, in the way or needed replacing. 1. Ask the neighbour for 50%. 2. Pay 100%. I am in a similar situation. The way I see it, the aingst of it all isnt worth the money. I just told the nieghbours I will be paying for the replacement fence. Although the old fence was ugly, lopsided and due to my build, about 5 metres of the fence needs to go, you cannot force your neighbours to pay for the fence if they didnt belive the fence needed replacing. Its not about laws and such with neighbours...especially when your the antagonist. You need a new fence. The neighbour doesnt need a new fence. You shoul dpay for it. Re: Fence costs and neighbours 24Mar 29, 2011 7:15 pm vlt, I'll be taking the advice of fellow builders here from this forum and will be doing this the legal way - covering all my bases, should things go pear shaped. The old fence was a disgrace and had almost fallen over. It could've been partially destroyed by anything and the neighbour still wouldn't have been of the opinion it needed replacing. Neighbour's just not willing to part with money! Still - I'm sure she'll be more than happy with a brand new fence someone else paid for! Re: Fence costs and neighbours 25Mar 29, 2011 7:44 pm borrow a large scary lookig dog from friend for a few weeks and let it roam around her yard!!! When she complains explain that you understand the need for a fence however you can only afford to pay half of it. I am sure she will come up with the money then. Or have a few big parties! [i][b]Krissy & Dave Re: Fence costs and neighbours 26Mar 30, 2011 4:31 pm Put up a chicken wire & star picket fence, that what we did when the neighbours didnt want to go halves in the fence as they were selling. Cheers Lou http://take2-customdesigndownslope.blogspot.com 07-10-09 omg they have cut the block 14-05-10 we finally have the keys Re: Fence costs and neighbours 27Mar 30, 2011 4:44 pm We had an old fence at our last home, our neighbour told us he couldn't afford to have it replaced and when he could he would let us know. We were there 4 years and it never got replaced. Worse thing about it was, it was such a short fence, he would stand there thinking we couldn't see him and would be watching us over the fence. We went to Bunnings and bought screening and put it up, and guess what, it conveniently got pulled apart in one corner so he could look in. If someone asked me to go halves in the new fence, I would feel that I had to, there is no way I would say no. We are building and will soon have to go through the process of asking the neighbours to pay half, hopefully they have thought about the costs of the fences in their budgets. Re: Fence costs and neighbours 29Apr 01, 2011 8:34 pm deb17 We had an old fence at our last home, our neighbour told us he couldn't afford to have it replaced and when he could he would let us know. We were there 4 years and it never got replaced. Worse thing about it was, it was such a short fence, he would stand there thinking we couldn't see him and would be watching us over the fence. We went to Bunnings and bought screening and put it up, and guess what, it conveniently got pulled apart in one corner so he could look in. If someone asked me to go halves in the new fence, I would feel that I had to, there is no way I would say no. We are building and will soon have to go through the process of asking the neighbours to pay half, hopefully they have thought about the costs of the fences in their budgets. deb17 If you are building on a new estate, probably not a problem If you have bought a house next to an old couple who may not have much money, then it becomes a problem. They may be quite happy with their old fence. You may want a new one to match the new house. Re: Fence costs and neighbours 30Apr 01, 2011 9:26 pm Yes, we are building on a new estate, so I don't thing we will have a problem with the fence. Like I said the guy that lived at the back of us for 4 years said he couldn't afford it, so we didn't worry about it. But if he had said yes to getting a new fence and then refused to pay his half, I wouldn't be to happy. Re: Fence costs and neighbours 31Apr 02, 2011 12:47 am Yes, a very touch subject indeed.... We are currently building a new home (in WA) and we decided that with a new house, we wanted new fencing. We approached the neighbours to let them know this was going to be the case, but didn't ask for any money, which we made quite clear, and we had 3 different responses. One was a young girl on her own, first home buyer, and had absolutely no money left to spend. Another stated that according to the council it was a 'satisfactory fence' and therefore wouldn't be paying anything towards the new fence. The third was happy for us to pay for a new fence, but wanted a say in what colour the colourbond fence was to be. The main problem with our existing surrounding fence is that it is asbestos, and costs approximately $35 per sheet (each sheet is 1m width) to remove and dispose of, so before we pay for a new fence, we have to allow approximately $4000 just for this. Also on one side we had to have a retaining wall as part of the site works, and the neighbour had to be approached by the builder to get permission to have the wall built, and on that form he put a condition that it had to be limestone. When we approached the council to see if the limestone was mandatory, they said no, but with the boundary fence, he could dispute it over the colour. We just told him it would be a choice of 2 colours, cream or green, and he wanted the cream, but we told him that because he wasn't paying any money, we would decide the colour at the time, which he sort of conceded to. Good luck with the outcome. Jim Knock Down/Rebuild building the 'Colorado' by New Generation Homes WA Build Thread:https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43283 Re: Fence costs and neighbours 32Apr 02, 2011 7:58 am It's only law in vic that you pay half if there has never been a fence.If one exists you then need proof that it is not doing what it's designed to do [keep animals out etc] Re: Fence costs and neighbours 33Apr 02, 2011 10:48 am yes, it's a touchy subject and if the other party states up front that they dont have the money, theres not much that you can do. I just hope that when we contact our new neighbours they would have added the new fences to their budgets. We have a dog and a ten year old and I know that when we move in we will have to find a home for our dog for a while until the fences are all up. We have put the money aside for the fences, our builder actually took the cost of the fencing off, of our final price. it depends on the natural ground level, if they excavated their boundary wall needed to be built as a retaining wall. If you filled, which sounds like the case then you… 1 7084 The only thing to add to these comments is that where possible it's always good to try and work with people than just say "no" because you can. Having someone… 4 17149 4 11208 |