Input Request: Repairs Affecting Your Property and Another Property

[JC]

Anyone had anything like this before and have any advice?

1) Fence between my yard and my neighbors yard is about to fall over. They have small kids. I have dogs. I dont want anyone to have an unhappy incident. The tenants are awesome and agree we should do something.

2) Property management company gave me misleading and wrong info for 3 weeks. I finally cornered the girl who works on repairs and she said this is between you and the homeowner. (Ok, fine. Why not just tell me that from the get go?) They refuse to give out owner’s name and say they have emailed him twice with no response. (Oh, and tracking this lady down is no easy task. She told me she tries not to take calls becuase she is too busy since they manage 500 properties. What a gem).

3) Owner’s are obviously public record and I have already gotten their out of state mailing address.

Would you continue to try to work with the property managment company or do they have no responsibility if a fence comes down? Seems like a safety issue to me?

Would you just hunt down the owner? I am fine with paying for half of the fence. I just cant get anyone to talk to me about this and that fence is coming down.

Thank you for any input!

[all]

I fixed our wood fence myself. Asked the neighbors if they are ok with me crossing to their side when needed. They all said yes, one guy came out to help while I was working on his side and his wife brought doughnuts, one guy offered to split the cost of material (I said no since material alone on his side was $100) and the third guy did nothing, but they all like me better now.

Materials are cheap (try pine tree lumber, especially if you have a contractor friend with an account there). In my case the posts were fine and that helped with keeping the cost down.

[UCGal]

That’s probably outside the scope of the property management company.

I would approach it as follows: –
Send a letter to the owner, offering to split costs of the common fence. Explain that it needs to be fixed because of liability issues (neighbors kids) could open him up for a lawsuit.

If that doesn’t work – unfortunately, changing out a fence w/out sign off from the person on the other side means you need to be careful to make sure it’s 100% on your side of the property line. If you take down “his” fence, he could get icky.
(assuming he, could be a she.)

We get along with our neighbors. We’ve always split the fence bills – and we provide the labor. (Neighbors are older.) It’s an easy enough DIY job.

[sdduuuude]

Not sure who owns and who rents. Are you renting and your neighbor owns ? Do you own and your neighbor rents? Boh rent? Single family houses with no HOA? Or is there an HOA. Need more info, please.

[CA renter]

Call me crazy, but this is not your problem. As the tenant, this is well beyond your scope of responsibility (though you should try to keep it propped up until it’s fixed since the dogs are your responsibility).

Write a letter (certified mail) to the management company and the owner, ASAP. Tell them about the dogs and small children, and let them know that you’ll be happy to deal with it, but will be deducting the cost from your next rent check. Give them a date by which they need to respond before you take corrective action, maybe 15 days from the date you send the letter.

Be sure to include contact information for yourself and let them know what transpired with the management company (they should indeed be responsible for these repairs, IMHO, or at least they should be responsible for communicating with the LL if you were never given the LL’s contact information). Tell them that you need the LL’s contact information since the management company is not cooperating on repairs. Send the same letter to both the mgmt. company and the owner and “cc” it so they both know.

Hire a licensed fence contractor so that the owner cannot fault you if the fence isn’t fixed correctly or if it comes down again, prematurely. Let them know that you will be hiring a licensed contractor if they don’t take action to fix the fence immediately because of the liability issue.

And yes, the cost of fence repair/installation should be shared between both owners unless the fence is entirely on one side of the property line. In that case, it’s the owner of that property’s responsibility, but it is also 100% their fence. You cannot attach anytlhing to it, cause damage to it, etc. I would not recommend going this route. Try to do a nice “good neighbor” fence directly on the property line and have the **owners** share the cost with one another.

Best of luck!

[spdrun]

Licensed contractor my left ‘nad. Why should the homeowner pay extra for a neighbor’s screwup? Fix it yourself, or build a new one on your side of the line.

[JC]

oops. i did not provide enough info. here goes:

* i own
* my wonderful neighbors rent (i will hate it when they move. love them).
* the owners live in another state and apparently do not respond to the property management group.
* a property management group “manages” the propery next door. they have a horrible reputation. (and as i read the input here this fact is not relevant).
*i am not handy enough nor do i have the work schedule that allows me to build my own fence.

dumb question — how do you determine where your property line starts and stops as i dont expect to ever hear from these folks. i guess if you are out of state you dont have to respond or care. 🙂

[spdrun]

Look at the survey map and measure from a known point.

[JC]

hello! i am probably embarassing myself but what survey map? how does one get a hold of one of those? thank you!

[Coronita]

delete

[CA renter]

Whoops! Forget what was said in my last post, then.

Okay, this is a sucky situation for you, JC. Sorry to hear about the horrible *owners* of the house next door.

From what I understand about fence laws (had to deal with a messy fence issue before), they are obligated to share costs of fence repair, but getting them to do it is another issue. I would still try to send a certified letter stating what was said before, but maybe change the wording to: “If we don’t hear from you before xx/xx/xxxx (date), it will be assumed that you agree to the fence repairs.”

Document, document, document…take pictures, videos, etc. of the existing fence. Maybe send another letter just before you take action to fix the fence, and send all letters and photos to the owner and the management company.

I am not a lawyer, and this is just personal opinion based on an experience with uncooperative neighbors, so if anyone else here knows more about fence laws and how to handle this, please chime it.

[JC]

Thank you so much for the input. That sounds prudent and fair. And, I dont honestly know if the property management company really contacted the owner of the property. (The comments on this property management group online are scathing and the folks that rent next door are beyond exasperated with them and they are not the type to get exasperated). And, I would really prefer that the owners pay half and will document and suggest but I care most about having a safe fence. My dogs receive top notch professional training and I do what I can too so they are not a menace but they are big and could accidentally knock a child down.This is fixable and there is no reason for anyone to get hurt.

[NotCranky]

Maybe I missed it, but are the tenants helping put pressure on towards getting cooperation in fixing the fence? Seems like they would have some leverage if they are as good of tenants as they are neighbors.

[Coronita]

…well, when one of my neighbors and I disagreed on how a particular fence should look, he ended up constructing a fence on his side of the property line, at his cost and left the shared fence intact.

I think in your particular case, if the only thing you’re worried about is your dogs, that would probably solve that particular issue.

But if it’s just a repair thing, might as be better off just finding a handyman and doing the repairs, and then sending the repair bill to the property management company (1/2 of it anyway)

[UCGal]

[quote=JC]hello! i am probably embarassing myself but what survey map? how does one get a hold of one of those? thank you![/quote]
In our neighborhood there are survey “pins” in the sidewalk on the property line.
Then comes the tricky part… depending on how the lots work. There should be a pin/post/etc on the back corner of the lot… but these can be very hard to find, buried, or removed.

You could hire a survey company. They would establish the corners, and possibly stake out the property line. But that costs $$$. You’d have documentation, though, if a neighbor ever sued you for putting the fence on their side.

Look for a small metal disk in the sidewalk between your house and your neighbors house… that will at least give you an idea of a point on the property line.

[Author]

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