Fence installations & neighbor potential problems

I live in the middle of nowhere, and most of my neighbors are related, so this is not a problem I should ever have.

I think you would most likely want to keep the fence back a few feet from the property line, instead of putting the fence right on it. That gives you clear ownership of the fence (neighbors do not have a say in it), and you have some area that is yours to be on to mow, and do repairs if necessary.

I believe there have been a few threads here about nasty fence and neighbor issues. You may want to do a search for them. You may also want to check what local laws and regulations are concerning ownership, boundaries, and such.

Good luck!

I think in the end, it's your yard and your fence.  Our neighbors have a fence running between our two side yards.  we are also all very friendly, but one day he calls me and asks if I want to have my side of the fence stained.  It would cost me about $750.00.  I just said that I wasn't aware that I had a fence...  Something else to think about, "Their" side of the fence..

Good luck..

I develop projects in the middle of nowhere for a living (Transmission, Wind, Solar Energy, etc).  You'd be surprised what happens when we survey for a project and find out that 100 foot/10 foot corner actually belongs to the cousin who owns the plot to the north.  We see some huge fights break out.  Our leases usually resolve the issue pretty quickly.  The surveyors are almost never wrong.  They have to find a marker that was put in to identify the points.  Sometimes a tree, sometimes a metal marker.  Depending on where you live, the parcels could be irregular shaped or could be geometrically shaped and there's an absolute reason for the line to be where it is. 

If you allow them to keep "using" their 3 foot wide area, they may be able to claim some sort of "squatter's rights" over that section because you knowingly allowed them to use it. 

In my estimation, you can do one of three things:

1) Build the fence where the line is and p-off your neighbors.

2) they can buy the area in dispute from you for fair market value (otherwise, there's tax implications for you both). Or they can lease it at $1 per year.  They admit it's yours, they pay a nominal amount.

or 3) you can set the fence back and allow them to use the area.  Check with an attorney about the rules surrounding their "use" and some eventual claim.  You never know when someone's going to want to place a Natural Gas pipeline under your neighborhood and those 3-6 feet could be really important because the gas company was told to place the line 1/2 on one parcel and 1/2 on the other.  It happens enough to be aware of it.

Interesting off-topic-side-note on surveying...  There was a story when I lived in Maryland of a guy who we'll call Bill.  He wanted to put in a fence so he figured instead of hiring a survey company, he'd try to find the markers and use a plum line.  His property abutted some old-growth forest and was on the edge of the township so he figured this would be easy.  He found two markers buried in the ground, one that had markings identifying the Surveyor: George Washington, 1750.  "Bill" measured it out and went to a machinist to find a similar piece of metal that he could place in the ground and replaced the GW marker with a new one. The old marker now sits over the fireplace in his house... No idea the validity of that story, but the marker looks pretty cool...

You should really try to negotiate with your neighbor for two reasons.  The first, good neighbors are priceless.  The second, while they can't "technically" stop you from building a fence one foot within your property, they basically can.  Pretty much every local code in the US will require that you build the fence with the clean side out (posts and rails on your side of the fence), and to build that you will need access to the outside of the fence.  If they really want to push the issue, they can deny you permission to step on their property to build the fence.  Then your only option would be to move the fence far enough in that you have a strip of your own property to stand on during construction.  Maybe 2'?  After that, as already mentioned, if they're ticked off enough they can turn that 2' of land in to a real headache for you.

Go out and get estimates of both a cedar fence and either a decorative steel or aluminum fence (wrought iron is way too expensive to build and to maintain) and show it to them.  Steel is going to cost about twice as much, so if they're willing to pay half of the whole fence then you're not out anything.  Conversely, they might understand how expensive what they asking you to do is, and come to the realization that cedar isn't so bad.