Neighbour has levelled their garden against my wooden fence

If fence is owned by you they have no right to potentially ruin it with their soil. Could cause significant damage to fence and also soil will spill into your garden. Neighbours responsibility to build retaining wall.

With the weight of 3ft of soil pressured against your fencing and with the wet weather conditions adding considerably more weight on your fencing this is a no no for sure, the soil against a wooden fencing will deteriorate the fencing at an alarming rate, we at Kernow Landscaping would use a retaining wall or concrete kick boards when a project like this is presented to us’ the Neighbour should be responsible enough to protect your fencing.

If they have put soil against your fence without any membrane or protection against water, this will likely cause the fence to weather and rot quicker, decreasing the life span of your fence. As I understand it under these circumstances, it will be the neighbour’s responsibility to put right and make good should this happen. There is also a possibility that the weight of the soil will cause your fence to bow.

There are a few things to consider here: Any substantial changes in height (especially 3ft raise of lawn/floor against I guess a 6ft high fence means that you are substantially overlooked. This would likely be a planning issue. (If we build a deck we can't just put it up to any height for this reason). Investigate this with your council. Aside from planning, your neighbour is responsible for suitable retention and any drainage implications arising from works in their garden. A retention of under 4ft/1.2m can be undertaken without a Structural Engineer, but they need to address that issue. A fence is not designed to retain soil/water weight. Google 'Angle of Repose', and the weight of a m3 of dry topsoil vs wet and you will see a significant difference. The fence timber used will probably be a Class of treatment designed to be clear of soil (this is what Gravel boards are intended to do, keep the fence panel above soil/water, and splashback, similar to a Damp Proof Course on a house. https://www.thewpa.org.uk/make-sure-it-s-4 Also, by raising the soil height by 3ft (allowed by Council or not, soil retained suitably or not, provision of a decent air gap of 15cm from the retaining structure to your fence, or not), the next issue is drainage of this higher soil. Under SuDS (2008) regs, any water that falls on that property cannot be allowed to pass onto a neighbours property or the highway. This is why you should see a Drainage channel at the pavement edge where a hard driveway slopes to the street. This has to go into a soakaway on that property. Otherwise it would be a Tresspass or other Tort. Apologies it is quite wordy, but it is definitely worth discussing further with the neighbour and/or council Good Luck