Do not tear down fences before understanding your rights and responsibilities!

Ten years ago, my husband and I bought my parents' house out of probate after they passed away.  It is an old house on an acre in beautiful Fair Oaks California, and although it needed a lot of work, we loved it.

We had a lot of plans for upgrades and updates to the house with the proceeds of the sale of our Southern California home, but we had just started to work on them when the inspectors for our homeowners insurance company dropped by and told us that our drained swimming pool had to be filled with water or dirt, because someone could fall into it and be injured.  My dad had drained it when he became too ill to take care of the pool, and remodeling it had not been at the top of our to-do list.

So, the balance of our savings was redirected to the pool.  It was an older pool, 20'x40', ten feet deep, with a diving board and aluminum ladders.  There was no floor drain and only one skimmer.

$36,000 later, we had an 8 foot deep pool, with floor drain, extra skimmers, autofill, stairs in place of ladders, no diving board, all new pool equipment, and new tile and decking.  That made our insurance company happy, but also made us happy, as we started hosting neighborhood swim parties and had a lot of fun.

Since it was an older house, we have since had to invest in a number of fixes, such as a new roof, new appliances, new HVAC, insulation, etc.  What we did not need to invest in was a new fence across the back of our property.

Several years before, my dad had paid to build the fence.  He did not know the neighbors behind the house, and he did not ask them to contribute.   He had built the previous fence too without contribution from neighbors. 

The second fence was grapestake and the back of the property is nearly 200 feet long and forms the side fence for the folks behind, whose home faces a street perpendicular to ours.  It was an expensive fence and we had helped my dad, as he was on social security.

A few years ago, that other house was sold and the new owners thought our fence was ugly.  They didn't come and talk to us about it.  Instead, they simply knocked it down into the ivy we have planted there.  Since our house is on the top of a hill, the back fence is actually down a bit and we didn't notice it was gone.

We had, however, noticed that they had cut down most of the tall trees on their side of the fence that had provided additional privacy between our properties, and we weren't happy about that, but they were in their yard so we didn't complain.

Then came the day when their homeowners insurance inspectors came out.  They were apparently told that because they too have a pool, they needed to put the fence back up in order to get insurance.

What a way to meet our new neighbors!  The man came over and demanded that we had to pay half to build a new fence so he could get insured.  I refused, and since I realized right then that our fence was down, I suggested that he simply put our fence back up.  That is when he told me that he didn't want to because he thought it was ugly. 

First of all, it wasn't really ugly, although he didn't like the style.  And we couldn't even see it from our house because it was down slope from us and blocked by a lot of trees we have back there.

He insisted that it was the law that we HAD to pay for half of a new fence!

I explained that I am an attorney and real estate broker, and I know that I don't have to do anything of the kind, and that the old fence was serviceable and satisfactory to us. 

I told him that the old fence was fine and we had no budget for a new fence, which was true because we had just spent a ton on the pool.  Since he had decided to knock the fence down and break it up without talking to us first,  we actually had a claim against him, but we wouldn't file charges if he put the fence back up or built a new one.  He stormed off, furious.

A few days later he was back.  Since it was winter and we had experienced a few storms, he said we could file a claim with our insurance company and claim that the fence had been blown down in the wind, so the insurance would pay for it.  I had no intention of committing insurance fraud so that he could have a "prettier" fence, and I told him so.

He said he couldn't afford a new fence either, and he was really upset.  I suggested that it would have been a good idea to think about that BEFORE he knocked down a perfectly good fence.

Not long after that, he and some of his male family members who also lived with him were out there putting up a new fence.  It wasn't the grapestake that he apparently hated, but neither was it fancy - just a wood fence.  I was concerned that the fence was completely built with nails (we heard them hammering) instead of screws as we would have done, but at least it was a fence. 

We offered labor help, and did help them deal with some other trees along the fenceline that might have impacted on their ability to build a straight fence, but they remained angry with us for refusing to help them get the insurance company to pay for the fence and didn't even want to speak with us.

Meanwhile, our destroyed fence had become covered over with the ivy along the back part of our property, and due to a series of storms we hadn't tried to drag all the tons of lumber out of there, up the steep slope, and pay to have it hauled it away (which they should actually have done).  Since we could see it and had no easy access down there on our side of the property line, we left the fencing in the ivy.  It was completely invisible and formed hiding places for some of the small critters who live here.

After a couple of years, their home went into foreclosure.  They had meanwhile built a storage building, a workshop, and a homing pigeon coop, and raised rabbits and chickens in a fenced off area.  They also put up grape arbors, and the grandpa had built a sort of tree house way up high where he stored some of his things, reached by a very long ladder.

When it appeared they would lose their home, they began dismantling everything they had built and hauled all of the lumber and building materials away somewhere (probably sold them).  Next thing we knew, they had taken the fence too!  I was out back looking for one of our cats and noticed that the fence was gone!  They had taken it all, including pulling up all of the 4"x4" posts!! 

Taking the fence with you when you move is a new one on me. I guess they were punishing us??

My husband went out and tried to dig out our old fence and prop it back up, but it was difficult as it was completely covered over with ivy and there were sections that had been too broken up to fix. 

Since the neighbor house is scheduled for foreclosure sale this month, we figure we will make do with the patched up stuff we have (that now IS ugly) until we hear from the new owners. 

Hopefully, we will soon have new neighbors and they will be friendlier and more cooperative than the last ones.  And maybe we will be soon seeing the building of yet another fence.  So far we have helped build one, had that one destroyed, had another one built and had that one stolen.  Who knows what to expect with the next one.  I have to say that all of our other neighbors are wonderful, thank goodness.

It's too bad that our relationship with them got off on the wrong foot from the first, because I would have liked to get to know them, invite them to our neighborhood BBQ/pool parties, and even help them with a short sale or other remedy to avoid their foreclosure, but because of their anger toward us (which wasn't even our fault), we didn't know about their troubles until it was too late.

Meanwhile, I'd like to share our story to alert folks: 

Do not take down fences or trees on property lines, or otherwise do things impacting your neighbors before you check your legal rights and responsibilities.  And talk to your neighbors BEFORE deciding what to do about a common fence.

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Susan Neal
Broker / Realtor

Susan Neal Fine Properties
Century 21 Noel David Realty
Fair Oaks, California

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