Fencing

If you own your own home and the neighbours next door to you are renting. Who do you get in contact with to discuss the fencing between boundaries ? This is being asked for my mum. The fence between her and her neighbour is 40+ years old and is on a significant lean being old wooden rails and post. My parents footed the bill to have termite treatment done to it, but can't afford the full cost to replace the fence with steel posts/rails. She has asked inspection people if it could be discussed but they never turn up after the inspection is over.

I would suggest a letter to the real estate asking to speak with the owner.
I doubt there is much the renters could do anyway. Could she maybe go into the real estate & speak with someone in house while they draft a letter to the owner (or even better while they call them)

It doesn't really concern the renters, I would draft a letter and get it passed on to the owners. They have a legal responsibility to pay for half of the fencing, but there are a few steps you need to go through first. If you don't have contact details for them I'd be passing the letter on to the property manager. Good luck!

Get a couple quotes and along with a letter hand theses to the agent. Also keep a copy of all correspondence.

It will cost them half of everything. To save them a bit if money they can remove half of the fence. also if a higher fence is wanted etc then the person wanting the extra has to foot that part of the bill.

When we rented I organized quotes for the landlord (but he was a friend).

A bit of a side track here but when we wanted to replace our boundary fence the neighbors wouldn't pay half. :-( we just paid it ourselves cause we needed a new fence.

Yeah my parents are pensioners and live week to week. Unfortunately they can't do it off their own back.

Nah, I didn't mean she should pay for it all I meant more that we were silly for not taking it further and getting them to pay their half.

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A bit of a side track here but when we wanted to replace our boundary fence the neighbors wouldn't pay half. :-( we just paid it ourselves cause we needed a new fence.

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Was the fence needed or wanted? I am under the impression that if its a need (ie no fence or old one damaged) both have to pay half. If one side just want one but its not needed the other side don't have to pay (but can be asked to).

When a storm blew over our fence a couple years ago, we spoke to the tenants and got their landlord's details, and then just went straight to him. If it's no fault damage, like storm damage, then both sides pay half. In our case the storm damaged only about half the fence, but it was old asbestos fencing. After chatting with the landlord, we all decided it would be better to replace the entire fence on that side with Colourbond. I don't know what we would've done if they'd disputed it - just replaced the asbestos I guess.

Do your parents have insurance? It should cover it if it's damaged.

We just recently went through this - back fence was ancient, holes and significant lean. We asked the tenants the name of the real estate agent and then asked the real estate to get the landlord to contact us. You can also provide quotes to the real estate agent and they'll pass them on to the landlord.

We did it direct with the landlord and the process was easy and pain free - I got all the quoting and basically organised the whole shebang - just let the tenants and the landlord know when it was happening. Good luck!

Thanks girls. On your advice she ended up ringing the agent direct. I will chase her up in a week or so to see if she has had any response.