Fencing

Can my neighbour force me to move my fence which is about four inches over his side

Anonymous user 01/03/2024 - 2.56 PM

Down the decades, since 1937, the front divide between my semi and my neighbours has been wire fencing and then various forms of hedging ie privet etc. I have lived here since 1965 and the hedge has been mainly privet which we individually tended and a strawberry tree which I planted a bit my side of it. In 2014, due to the poor state of the hedge, I asked my then widowed neighbour if she would mind if I resolved it with a close boarded wooden fence. She agreed to that and it was then installed. A year later she passed away and d new neighbour took residence and tore the house apart , extending up and out amd now is turning his attention to the garden When he had the front of his house re rendered he noticed that the post for the fence fixed to the house wall was about 4 inches his side and it looks, on examination, as if the fencing people had used the position of an old fencing post that had been there before. There was also the issue of my Tree stump and other roots from the old hedge affecting the line of the fence. I wasn’t aware of all this until the new neighbour under cut some of my fence posts and it tilted over in a gale. I had the fencing people back to put extra posts in. He told them he wanted the fence moved over but they said it would mean a new fence as you cannot dismantle the fence without causing damage to it. That was about three years ago but now he’s brought the the subject up again. He said he needs to take it down to render the bit of wall behind the post and to lay tarmac up to the boundary line. He would then rebuild the fence in its new position. Tne new position would mean me having to remove some of a small rockery I had built and disturb a length of gravel filled border. The question is - can he insist on doing this or can I refuse him permission. Where do I stand legally ? I have a feeling he will replace the fence with one of his choice and will then change the look of my garden.