fence question - who owns it? (mortgage, house, purchase)

[willc86]

Hi all who can I hire to find out where a split neighbor fence is on which property. Even though the pickets are facing me, she swears its her fence. I want to add new pickets and she keeps saying no. (colorado springs if anything)

we had an issue not too long ago where she threaten to sue me because one of the post gave out (dumped some decorative gravel for land scaping)

which i fixed anyways.


but the fence is old and I want to change the pickets. She keeps saying no that its her fence...so just to be 100% sure on what property those pickets are on just to have written document from a professional saying...yes thats my property so i can start changing them dam pickets because they are cracking and old

[SkyDog77]

You need a surveyor. It's not cheap to get a full survey done. An Improvement Location Certificate is the cheapest and will probably serve to determine which side of the property line the fence is located on.

[Vision67]

Did you get a copy of the survey when you bought the property?

Perhaps the property markers are buried.

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by Vision67

Did you get a copy of the survey when you bought the property?

Perhaps the property markers are buried.

Surveys are not always done upon purchase unless something major is in question, but ILCs are often required by the mortgage companies. There may be one on file.

[MsMetal]

You hire a surveyor. It was around $300 last time I hired one, but it's been awhile.

Which way the pickets face has nothing to do with who's fence it is. I have built many fences with the pickets facing outside. Including one in COS. All I had to do was get my neighbor's ok. In other states, with no HOA, I just did it, no approval necessary.

Ownership would come down to who's property it is on & also who put the fence in. Maybe your neighbor built it, in which case, it would be her fence. Now if she built it on your property, that gets messy. We've had that happen several times & I've had to have neighbors move their fences.

Also in COS, last house, we had 2 side fences that were on the property line, but our neighbor's put them in. One rear fence, inside the property line that we put in (pickets & rails facing out) & on the shared side fences especially, we all just talked to each other about fixes. Everyone got along, so sometimes my DH would swap out pickets, sometimes one of the neighbors would do it. We'd only stain our side of the fences.

[MsMetal]

p.s. Many developers here in COS, like to put a fence right on the property line.

ETA: If there was an encroachment of her fence onto your property, it MAY have come up in the title work when you bought your house. I had a neighbor's monument encroaching 2" & it showed up in the title work. As did a temporary vollebay court, which they ultimately tore down. I bought the property, forgot about it & didn't remember til 13 yrs later when the encroaching neighbor's were selling their house & tried to make it MY problem LOL.

The ideal situation would be to just to talk to her, it's so weird that she won't let you make it look better, even if it's her fence. If my neighbor wanted to fix my fence for free...I'd let them LOL.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Most jurisdictions require permits for fences. You could check with your local building department and see if a permit was pulled.

When you told her that you wanted to replace the pickets, did you offer to do it all (labor and materials) at no cost to her? Does she understand that you are not moving the fence at all or replacing the posts?

[TCHP]

Originally Posted by Dreaming of Hawaii

Most jurisdictions require permits for fences. You could check with your local building department and see if a permit was pulled.

COS is not one of those jurisdictions unless you are building one over 6' tall.

[Vision67]

When my house was built it was the first one put up. I had the original survey and I had the fence positioned 6 inches inside my property line.

My intention was to give me control if I later had to deal with a recalcitrant neighbor wrt maintenance.

Common courtesy would have neighbors sharing the expense of maintaining a common fence. But sometimes peoples finances deteriorate and fixing a fence doesn't make the priority list.

[beezle1]

Perhaps you could put up your own fence right up against her old one?