What's your fence like?

In a lot of places in TX, for example, you have two fences going down the same property line. One might be a chain link fence on one side, and there might be a 6' privacy fence on the other side. So it's obvious who maintains which fence.

Other times, if you look at the survey markings, you can tell whose property the fence is actually on, because it's often not down the middle-- but very clearly on one party's fenceline. I had one fence like that, where the owner of the next-door property (a vacant house) was soooooo hopping mad that I'd cleared all the weeds and vines off my fence. They were her precious grapevines... but it was my fence, next to a vacant property, so I'd never dreamed of communicating with anyone. :)

In other places, you can tell whose fence it is by looking at it. My personal residence, for example, is a corner lot, with an alley for a north neighbor and a house for my west neighbor, and the same kind of six-foot privacy fence all the way around the place. The "ugly" side of the fence faces inwards, on all four sides, even the only side that actually has another house for a neighbor. So it's pretty clear that that fence is my responsibility to maintain, whether or not the neighbor has any other fencing on their side of things.

Do NOT touch the fence without first taking to your neighbor. Get their cell phone number and send them a texted message after your conversation thanking them for permission to effect repairs on the fence.

I an a contractor and owner of many rentals. In at least 1 in 10 jobs or simple fence repairs I have issues with the neighbor.

One neighbor said, "The fence is on your property, not mine. I will not pay a dime towards the repair"! I then asked for permission to step a foot or two on his property while making the repairs. He said it was okay. I sent him a letter outlining the agreement.

As soon as I began to work on the fence the neighbor called the police that I was destroying his fence. The police came and handcuffed me. In the police's opinion the fence was on my neighbor's property.

I told the police that I had taken Land Surveying in school and I'm a designer, draftsman, building, Licensed Contractor, owner and manager of dozen's of rentals. The property was surveyed and the fence is 100% on my property. The neighbor has a narrow lot, that's why the fence was placed on my property and the neighbor knows it and told me such.

The police sent the case to the City Attorney who elected to file charges on me. I also had a licensed survey company survey that property line and they put down a marker on the sidewalk, in plain sight and one in the alleyway to the rear of the property. The fence was on my property but the City Attorney and Police didn't care. Why? Because I caused stress to my neighbor which is an actionable offense.

At a pre-trial hearing the Judge saw I had his contractor there in court to give him details. Such as the property was surveyed months before the fence was "damaged" and it was clearly on my property not the neighbors. Also the contractors talked to other neighbors an everyone said the neighbors I had issues with created problems will everyone on the block at one time or another.

When our tenants have dogs, our neighbors take advantage of that and not do any repairs. They think that we would have to do it, so they don't care.