UK Landlord Forum / Life

I wonder what you guys will make of this rather bizarre circumstance.

The house is rented to a good tenant, pays on time. And there's an agent who gets their 10%. They do an annual inspection and send me a document and I spotted something a little troubling in the most recent. It looked like part of a fence was missing, the agent hadn't noticed despite several inspections. So anyway apparently the fence was knocked down by the next door landowner as he was felling some trees. Tenant never said anything, agent never enquired why there was a clear view of the horizon all of a sudden. I don't know exactly when this happened but it could well be years ago.

So anyway, what do you guys suggest? I've asked my agent to investigate and my intent is to get the person who did the damage to pay for the repair but getting information has been a challenge and everybody is taking several steps backward. My approach is the the agent should be chasing down the information and asking them to pay the repair bill. Any thoughts?

If the tenant is not bothered, you could just leave it,  unless it could cause injury. If it was done by a contractor they would have insurance, but it sounds like this was the neighbour.  I read yesterday that the issue of who owns which fence is quiet complex in law.  If he won't ' fess up I would leave it or get it done myself. 

What difference would it have made had someone spotted it earlier?
If the tenant or agent think the fence belongs to next door why would they have said anything?
What makes you think it's your fence (did you put it up)?

Who owns and maintains fences is a nightmare issue, unless it's written into the deeds, and it very rarely is. People have all kinds of "rules of thumb" like which side the posts are on, what it says on the property information when purchased, who did something last time etc all of which is pretty useless.

Your agent is likely to do very little and achieve less. You're the property owner, you care most, you need to sort this.

Quote from: Spiny Norman on September 06, 2024, 08:53:39 PMI wonder what you guys will make of this rather bizarre circumstance.

It's a storm in a teacup, move on and look the other way, unless you're bored.

Quote from: jpkeates on September 07, 2024, 07:38:19 AMWhat difference would it have made had someone spotted it earlier?
If the tenant or agent think the fence belongs to next door why would they have said anything?
What makes you think it's your fence (did you put it up)?

Who owns and maintains fences is a nightmare issue, unless it's written into the deeds, and it very rarely is. People have all kinds of "rules of thumb" like which side the posts are on, what it says on the property information when purchased, who did something last time etc all of which is pretty useless.

Your agent is likely to do very little and achieve less. You're the property owner, you care most, you need to sort this.

1. we bought the house from new. Fence came with the house. The house borders land belonging to the Rivers Authority or whatever they're called now. Our contract refers to the need to keep the whole area maintained including the fence. There's a small stream the other side of the fence than on the other side is a farmer's field. Trees were felled in farmers field. Apparently they came onto my land and broke the fence.
2. Agent knows whose fence it is. I've written cheques to them for bring contractors in to make fence repairs in the past.

I don't think you should ignore it.

I doubt that the Agency Agreement requires the Agent to deal with the neighbour, just the Tenant and the Tenant is clearly not responsible, so no point in expecting anything from the Agent.

It is likely down to the negligence of the persons employed to carry out the Tree Surgery.

So contact the neighbour, explain that the contractor they employed damaged your property and ask if they can provide their details so you may make a claim the on insurance of the contractor.

Concur with David.  If you're sure it's your fence and someone else has damaged it, chase them.  Otherwise, you're going to have to fix it when your tenanats leave.  And give your agent/s a rollocking for not telling you earlier.