Unknown rear garden hedge responsibility

[Dagz]

Hello, I have a little query about how to approach this. We have a mature laurel hedge at the entire rear of our garden which is becoming a burden. I would like to remove it. However, the neighbour, of whose fence is adjacent by their left side and shares borders with other neighbours on my left and right, only has there some low metal mesh fence on their side. If I remove the laurel hedge we will be looking into each other's garden and I can guess they won't like it. But they are going to replace part of a proper fence bordering with my neighbour on the left, which I found out just recently and haven't had the chance to speak to the neighbour at the back yet. Also on my deed it says that the responsibility for this hedge is unknown, but I am almost confident it is all ours as its trunks meet the earth on our side of the mesh fence and we were looking after it for years.
I am willing to get a lawyer involved to settle for sure whose responsibility it is if necessary. I have looked to some online solicitors that pride themselves to be cheaper than high street, but I am not sure I can rely on them as much. What do you think? Can I trust those lawyers or I better pay the higher price if it comes to this stage? I will firstly try to talk to the neighbour, maybe she will be easy, but maybe she won't. It isn't cheap to put the fence up, especially if it involves higher concrete posts than those that are there now. She is redoing the part with the other neighbour (it was getting rotten) so I would guess she would eventually have to fix our shared bit. In my view I have the right to do with this laurel hedge what I want and not pay to fit a fence instead if that whole side is the neighbour's responsibility as it is on their left? She has been having an advantage of that hedge to be there for years and somebody else dealing with it. I am tired of maintaining it.

 

[StephenStephen]

If it were me, I'd start by thinking about what I want to end up with, what would also work for my neighbour, and then think about how to get there...
Whenever I've wanted or needed to change the nature of boundaries with neighbours, I've done it by having a conversation with neighbours, taking a relaxed and generous approach. I've never needed to establish who has legal responsibility for what...

Do you want to end up with a fence between the two gardens? If so - why not have that conversation with your neighbour, and see if you can agree on what kind of fence, and offer to share the cost...?

 

[Diver Fred]

Of you are on 'friendly ' terms with the neighbour, don't bother with a lawyer, use the services of a chartered surveyer instead. They will help you come to an amenable solution. Both of you should get a letter to attach to your deeds ( legal paperwork for the properties). Cost will be about the same and less if a solicitor has to engage a chartered surveyor.

Certainly worked for me when I had a similar issue.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Try speaking to her and explaining your problem and what you would like to do about it, much cheaper than involving the legal profession and likely a much more satisfactory outcome all round. If there is fence and the trunks are on your side, it is a reasonable assumption that the hedge is yours. If you have tended it for years, that further confirms it, so really you could remove it and there is nothing she can do about it in the end.

 

[Dagz]

Thanks all so far, that was what I was going to do, to talk to her first (she is difficult to get in touch with, no doorbell and my knocking on the door of a large house goes unanswered most of the time, but I will keep trying.
That hint for a chartered surveyor was helpful, thanks a lot. I am completely lacking knowledge in this area.
And yes, we are friendly with the neighbour so far. Although my other half removed a couple undesirable remnants of trees in the corner (on her demand) and he removed more than she liked, creating about half meter gap there, but it is boarded up from her side now. I thought I would peek in and catch her in the garden but now I cannot see there LOL. I will keep trying.

 

[Old Salt]

Why not write her a letter and drop it through her postbox. Just say you would like to talk about the hedge and she what she says/does.

 

[Why Not Indeed]

You don't want to be too conciliatory and come across as if you're asking your neighbour's permission to remove your own hedge.
From a strategic point of view, I would let them do what they're going to do with their fence before you remove the hedge, otherwise if you remove the hedge and they erect a fence in its place, you've lost access to a strip of land [although you might not be bothered].

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

You don't want to be too conciliatory and come across as if you're asking your neighbour's permission to remove your own hedge.

Yep - I would begin the letter by stating that 'I am considering removing my hedge and would like to discuss it with you.'

 

[JohnD]

Work out where the boundary is.

If the hedge is on your land you can do whatever you want. If not you can cut any part straying onto your property.

Most likely the old wire fence marked the boundary.

Photograph it thoroughly just in case something happens to it.

Amazingly, the Land Registry plan for my house includes a small rectangular piece projecting at the front. It is a small planting area with a bush on it. Which I prune when the fancy takes me. Must have been there before the road was adopted.

 

[JohnD]

BTW, in England nobody is obliged to put a fence up, so no-one can make you build or maintain one

Though if you have animals, you have a duty to prevent them straying onto your neighbour's land.

And it is considered good neighbourly practice to maintain a fence on one side of your property

 

[Diver Fred]

Work out where the boundary is.

If the hedge is on your land you can do whatever you want. If not you can cut any part straying onto your property.

Most likely the old wire fence marked the boundary.

Photograph it thoroughly

Think the problem is - is the fence on the neighbours side or the centre line of the hedge the boundary?
It would also seem that the neighbour wishes to retain the hedge for unconfirmed privicey reasons.

Certainly a photo or two on here would help with the community advice.

 

[Dagz]

It looks like that the other fences with my side neighbours are in line with the concrete posts with this mesh fence at our back. The hedge trunks entering the soil are towards our garden so I am almost confident the hedge is ours. We have been trimming it on our side and the top as well, a lot of organic matter to deal with for weeks if using the subscribed garden waste collection service (at our expense, again). They only needed to trim their side if it was growing too much, but that is obvious, I would not expect them expecting us attending that part also.
I am aware that they don't have a duty to elect the fence there, but from a swift boarding up that little gap I guess she definitely wants one to be there and she also has a dog I often hear barking when I am in the garden (unless it is when a family visits) so I know for sure she will want to keep at least that meshed fence there. If she doesn't want to erect a solid fence I think I will be OK with that, her garden is nice and my fruit bushes would get a bit more sun first half of the day.

 

[Min]

Don't overlook the cost of removing and disposing of the hedge. You'll need to dig out the roots - if not the laurel will just keep growing back.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Don't overlook the cost of removing and disposing of the hedge. You'll need to dig out the roots - if not the laurel will just keep growing back.

Aren't their substances you can use, to just allow you to cut them flush with the ground, then kill off the roots?

When I took two of the willow trees down, in my garden, one of them absolutely massive - the advice was to bore holes into the stub of trunk remaining of the bigger one fill with diesel and cap. There has been no regrowth and the trunk has gradually been rotting away. The smaller one I decided to try to actually dig out it took three of us most of a day to just get the stump of the tree out of the ground - roots were left to rot.

 

[StephenOak]

Aren't their substances you can use, to just allow you to cut them flush with the ground, then kill off the roots?

Indeed there are. I wrote a bit about this here.

the advice was to bore holes into the stub of trunk remaining of the bigger one fill with diesel and cap.

Well I don't think that was good advice. Doing that (or using old sump oil as wood preservative) has been an offence for decades. You are in effect dumping a hazardous / toxic substance on the ground where it can affect wildlife, other peoples' gardens, watercourses, etc.

Specifically it has been an offence (since early this century) to use anything as a herbicide that has not passed modern testing and been approved as such. That is why, for domestic use, basically the only weedkiller you can get is glyphosate. All of the older products were no longer under patent and no-one was willing to pay the cost of the testing.

For example, it used to common to use ammonium sulphamate as a stump killer but that was banned. Despite the fact that it has been used in that role for many decades.

The smaller one I decided to try to actually dig out it took three of us most of a day to just get the stump of the tree out of the ground

Yes, it is incredibly hard work to dig out even quite a small stump.

If you want to dig a stump out, do not cut it off at ground level but something like four foot up. That way, when you have dug out soil and cut roots you have some leverage with which to try and loosen it further and eventually pull it out.

roots were left to rot.

To be clear, that is what you do if a chemical stump killer is used. It does not destroy the stump, it just stops it from regrowing. Then the roots will eventually rot but that will take years, until that happens whatever stump was left will remain.

We had an oak tree in our garden that was c. 2' at the base and 18" at the top, 30' in the air. This was dead when we moved in but seemed solid. The roots must have been slowly rotting and after a storm seven or eight years later it fell down.

The root part was wider than the base, 3' to 4', but the crater this left was no more than 2' deep in the middle.