your neighbours.

Agree.

No, that is not necessarily true. There is no law governing this. It is courteous to put the smooth side on your neighbours side, but not legally binding. It is up to you

Really, Andrea? I'm staggered - they even told us it had to be done that way on my RHS training. I personally dislike intensely staring at the side with the arris rails!

I only knew from 'hearsay' but I'm glad to be wrong as both of mine are smooth-side in. There is one advantage of 'in' as it's easy to nail the boards on. '

Yes, Andrea is right, there is no law about this, but it is usually polite to do it. If you have good panels both sides are almost as good as each other.

I thought the same as you Bamboo and Heron. When I placed my fence up some years ago, I too placed the smooth side to the nieghbour and glad I did, as it stopped the child from climbing up and the mother too from looking into my garden to try intimidate.

my house deeds have a statement saying ...'replacing boundary fence with the smooth side to the neighbours.'
bonus is i can easily tie in wires etc for my plants. couldnt if it was smooth side facing me.

so it may be legally binding depending on the deeds.

having said that the fence on the north side of the property has the panels smooth to my garden. one smooth fence the other to my advantage. i will check my deeds again for this one.

Well that makes sense, Seaburn - you're usually only responsible for either the left or the right boundary in terms of fencing

we are responsible for the left hand one starting at the top of the street. :o)

I always understood that a fence belong to, and was the responsibility of, the landowner who had the support posts on his side of the fence. So, if you are putting up a fence the smooth side should be to the neighbour.

You're right there, Bulbaholic, that's often the way I've had to make a judgement about who the fence belongs to when it needed replacing.

Yes, you are all right, deeds may have conditions placed on them by previous landowners which are binding under current Land Law, however generically there is no binding law that dictates anything about the side of the fence that faces you or your neighbour. Unless you have a condition in your deeds then it is up to you. It is pretty easy to attach conditions/restrictions to your title plan these days as the Land Registry is online, you can fill in the forms and send it back with payment. Most conditions do not need the permission of a judge. I have changed the ownership details of all my properties online regarding Joint Tenancy and Tenants in Common to change the way you can leave your property if you die (good thing to look into Saga did an article on it not so long ago).

A very interesting question and very helpful answers.

We are about to replace a bit of fence which is 'owned' by our neighbour who is 91. If we had not taken out the escallonia hedge which had been there for umpteen years it would still be standing but, when we ripped the hedge out, the fence fell down. As a result we have offered to foot the bill.

I suppose, according to the guidance above, we should put th new fence up with the smooth side towards us, to indicate to future owners that maintenance of the fence is their responsibility. What do you think?

Yes, I reckon you should Claire

Interesting scenario Claire. The legal responsibility for a boundary is shown on the Title Deed as an inverted 'T'. If your neighbour has the legal right, then it is really his responsibility to maintain the boundary whether it is fence, hedge or just a wire indicating the boundary line. As you have offered to pay for the fence, this does change things slightly, the fence is your property(on someone else's boundary line) and as long as you live in the house and your neighbour lives in his then the agreement you have with him will stand. This makes things difficult for futire owners of your neighbours land that may want to replace the fence you have put up, it is their boundary. You really should erect the fence you are paying for about 6 inches in to your side, then the legal boundary line will be ready for maintainence by future owners of the property next door. As I said in an earlier post, it isn't binding which side of the fence faces you or your neighbour. The inverted 'T' on the Title plan is the only indication who has the legal responsibility for the maintainence of the boundary.

Thanks Andrea.
Unfortunately, there is no T visible on the documents we received when we purchased the property 18 months ago and the questionnaires filled in by the previous owner were filled with 'don't knows'.
Having chatted with 'he would like to be obeyed' about this, this morning, we have decided that we will put the fence up, inside our property line with the smooth side out and use the supports to attach wires, etc.

Don't forget to let any new neighbours know that the fence you have erected is not the boundary line, but your fence on your property. They will need your permission to paint it, attach anything to it (like trellis)on their side and they will need to give you permission (right of way) to maintain it. However they have the legal right to erect a fence or plant a hedge along their boundary line as well just on the other side of yours.

Will do Andrea. Thanks again.
:-)

When we built ours we thought that it would deter people more from climbing over if the smooth side was out (we were thinking of kids).
We've also built horizontally between sections with boxes to plant in (3 boxes fit nicely evenly spaced) on a 6 ft tall fence. We made the sections 2-3 feet wide. The boxes are only about 6" deep.