Fence Protocol

[cougarfreak]

My neighbors on both sides of me have fences, and my back property line backs into a farm which has a fence as well. Anyone know the protocol if I put up a fence that ties into theirs? Basically it would just be a short line on each side of my house. I'm not sure what to do, they both have put them up in the last year, and I had no intention of getting one. But now, I'm the only one w/o one so I kind of feel like I should. Should I pay them 1/2 of what the sides cost? Nothing? I have no clue.

[Carman Bulldog]

I think it might depend. Did either approach you before putting up their fences?

[Lathum]

We redid our fence a while back and were in a similar situation. I just asked each neighbor if we could tie ours to there's. Neither had a problem with it.

[cougarfreak]

No I haven't talked to either of them. I guess I'll approach them before I seriously consider it.

[CraigSca]

Yep - just talk to them about it. When we put up ours, we "borrowed" one side of a fence and our neighbors "borrowed" one side of ours a couple years later.

[Suburban Rhythm]

I am sure it varies by state, or even municipality, but when put ours up, we were told the fence needs to be 1' back from the property line.

Only on one side, where the fence already in place actually crossed the property line, did we tie into.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Lathum

We redid our fence a while back and were in a similar situation. I just asked each neighbor if we could tie ours to there's. Neither had a problem with it.

Both of our neighbors had fences up before us. They talked to us before putting it up. When we put up our fence, used both neighbor's fences as our sides.

[sovereignstar v2]

I knew there would be a thread for this! I don't have much to add, but I just bought a house (close in December) that is fenced to the left and right by neighbors and I'm pretty sure I will want to play connect-a-fence as soon as this summer. First order will be some buttering up, which might consist of some tactful shoveling of some of their portions of the sidewalk.

[Drake]

I just had a conversation about this with a buddy who has suggested that (in Indiana, at least), he can build a fence and charge his neighbor for half of it since they both get the benefit.

I said, "I think you might be misinterpreting the intent of that statute."

I guess we'll see. :P

(For the record, if a neighbor did that to me, I'd just take my half of the fence down.)

[tarcone]

Thats what you hope for. The cost is dramatically cheaper.

[spleen1015]

I don't think I have ever seen houses next to each other with fences where they didn't share fence on the property line they share.

My only on hands experience with this was about 15 years ago when I had a neighbor put up a fence. They asked if we were cool with it and they said we could use it if we wanted to put up our own.

Currently, both houses on each side of me have fences but I don't. Every time I trim down those fence lines I think to myself that its their fence, they should be trimming it on the outside.

[Lathum]

I have been through this a couple times without issue. Remember your new neighbor also doesn't wanna come off as a dick.

Congrats on the house!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

I don't think I have ever seen houses next to each other with fences where they didn't share fence on the property line they share.

If it wasn't dark outside, I could shoot you a pic of my rear property line.

They had an existing fence, relatively short, when we bought the place. We wanted something higher since the pool we put in is probably closer to their fence that it is to our house. That made putting up a new fence our responsibility afaic, their fence still exists afaik, but it'd out of our view so I couldn't really tell you for sure.