Browse Forums Outdoor Living 1 Jan 02, 2014 12:08 am In June / July we cut down 2 trees on our block and the stump ground out. During the cutting process the already damaged fence was damaged further. One of the large roots of our tallest tree (25m) had been lifting the asbestos fence and when the stump was ground out, it wasn't done to the fence line due to health and safety issues with grinding the asbestos as part of the root had started to swallow up the asbestos. I eventually managed to start getting people out to quote and we both work so Husband wasn't out there often moving woodchip alot due the the rain we had in September (too much rain), illness and assisting my parents with their housing issues. It took nearly 4 months to get the quotes organised. I found it very hard to get people out to quote for the fence because it wasn't an insurance job and asbestos removal is involved for 40 metres of fencing. No one turned up that I rang or returned my calls. Eventually we managed to find a website where I was able to do a request for quotes and got a host of people who wanted my business. My neighbour commented in August about the delays in quote and I invited him to also provide quotes if he could find someone to help. He didn't and we managed to get the quotes together at the end of October. We finalised decisions in mid December after the neighbour took six weeks to get back to us on price, colour, and then asked us to get people to provide photos and references and agree to extending the fence length down to the front of the block... Now I got a nasty email from our neighbour who accused us of being too slow, if we had removed the woodchip earlier we would have figured out the stump issue and had a solution and he was angry about the loss of privacy and has now refused to pay money towards the fence until we fix the stump issue and kill off the stump on both sides of the property line. *I accept we could have done things much sooner and I'm sorry about his perceived loss of privacy - but the section of the fence he is upset about is not the section he is paying for, we are. *We can only remove up to our boundary line which we are dealing with, which we will. *Stump grinding could not have gone much further due to the asbestos embedded in the tree. *The tree we removed has a root spread of in-excess of 6 meters on both sides of the stump (Liquid Amber). It hasn't thrown up any shoots unlike the other one. I've asked the fence guy to come in and provide me some advice on what to do next but how do I resolve this without causing more hostility? Re: Fencing - how not to be *that* neighbour.. 2Jan 02, 2014 9:11 am Often the "whinger" is looking for a reason not to pay his share. Get the quote - give him his share - and then give him the right to get a cheaper quote. Be nice and hint at being good neighbours etc etc. Allude to stories you've heard about fences leading to court cases etc and you don't want to go down that path. But - ask him for his advice. Explain why you took so long - play the sympathy card. But be firm. Give him a copy of the quote and set down clearly his part of it. Finish by asking if he'd like to give you a cheque or put it in your account or if he'd like to pay the contractor direct. Make sure you send him the quote -to his address - in a "tracked" envelope. This helps later - but makes him know you mean business. We had a very nasty episode once - ended in small claims court - we won. But not nice. Fence was falling down and the guy wouldn't pay his share. After saying he wanted extras ec etc - we went along -then he refused to pay. Finally got the money - but he never spoke to us again - which was a blessing in disguise - a real Bogan !! Re: Fencing - how not to be *that* neighbour.. 3Jan 02, 2014 5:13 pm We did do the quote thing and the fencer chosen was the cheapest and oddly enough, the better quality fencer. I'll need to send my husband out to talk to him, if I talk to him, I'll be inclined to re-educate him on what he thinks his rights are. I know what we need to do and what we need to pay for and I won't be as diplomatic as my hubby. I'm due to get the rest of my bonus at the end of this month and I'm wondering if I should sacrifice fixing my hot water system with just getting the fence replaced and paying the full cost (including asbestos removal). Then putting a caveat on his property so if he sells, he pays us for half of the fence... He had ample opportunity to talk to us face to face last week, all of us have been on leave so at home at the same time but the couple of times he's been chatting to husband, he's not mentioned the stump problems. He knows I deal with the correspondence, so he's chosen to be a keyboard warrior. He won't talk to me directly so I suspect he thought he could bully via email. This shocked both of us when we got the email and whilst I am used to being stressed about my job, I'm now stressed about home and that's not how it's supposed to be. The tree root is huge, if we got a tape measure, we're looking at it being about 60cm at it's widest point. I can't see how it's going to be safe grinding it since we don't know how much of the asbestos fence was munched up by the root. The Fencing guy does do asbestos removal so I'll see what our options are. When I spoke to him last night, he sounded as unhappy as I felt. update: Must grind the stump it's too big for a chainsaw, the section with asbestos is fine, but the rest of it.. Need to remove glass panel out of concrete without wrecking the glass to get the spa room in, any recommendations on how to do that. Thank you 0 39049 We are at the stage on our build in Kilcoy, Queensland where we need to get our fencing installed but we cant get any contact details for our neighbours to give them… 0 6173 The HIA contract, in the term & conditions section states that "Commencment" is deemed when the drainage is started or the piers are dug or the slab is formed up (incase… 2 6183 |