When we moved into our house the fences were just three-foot posts and rusty wire. Our neighbours were about to move, so I built a new fence on my side of the boundary. The new neighbours are now claiming that since it’s a “party” fence they own half of it. Can you advise?
If the original fence was a party fence the boundary will have run down the middle of it. So if you’ve built the new fence (including the footings) on your side of the boundary then it’s on your land and the fence belongs to you. (It would still belong to you if you’d built it along the old boundary, but you’d have to be able to prove it by producing a receipt for the materials, for example). Ideally you would get your neighbours to pay half and move the fence back to where it was.