What is the etiquette when it comes to painting/treating a shared fence?

16 comments

1. Good opportunity to speak to your neighbour(s) to help with the decision. Might also be affected by knowing who owns the fence.

2. Is theirs a hideous colour or something? But generally speaking I *think* one person generally owns the boundary line so it depends if it’s your fence or theirs

3. I paint my own side careful to not get it on their side. All my neighbours do same

4. The rational thing to do would be to have this conversation with your actual neighbour, rather than a bunch of internet randoms who are not your neighbour.

5. In our garden only one of the sides fences belongs to us so might be worth checking if it’s theirs or not

6. Wait for them to paint their side, when they’re out slide the panels out and turn them around.

7. If their fence is a different colour to yours, I think you have your answer. Just make sure you don’t dribble onto their side. Then again, nothing wrong with offering to do theirs.

8. Talk to your neighbour and agree who does what, I have a 60′ run of 5′ high solid board fence which I’d carefully stained when I built it and treated with clear preservative since. it had aged to a natural looking green with a hint of silver shade. I came home one evening and discovered a mustard yellow fence covered in a thick layer of goopy garden paint and a badly trampled bed spattered in the same crap. The idiot new neighbour kept telling me he’d ‘done me a favour as it looked so much better now’. it took me 3 days with an industrial steam cleaner, scraper and obscenely expensive amount of preservative to restore the fence I’d built entirely on my land. Thankfully he didn’t come near while I was restoring the fence as the temptation of a high pressure steam cleaner may have overcome my usual tolerance.

9. I just do my own side. Not a lot dribbles through in practice and looks fine unless you were to paint your side of a white fence black or something.

10. How about just talk to your neighbour instead of asking Reddit

11. If possible, lift the panels out and turn them upside down to paint them 🤷🏻‍♂️

12. One of you legally will own the fence, depending on where it is on the boundary. You can’t own one side and them the other. Whomever owns it is responsible for the upkeep.

    If you are both unsure your land documents should make it clear.

    However, the easiest thing is just to talk to them and work out between you what to do. It is what most do. But do not paint it, if it is theirs, without permission otherwise that is damaging their property.

13. If you’re going to spray it and your neighbour’s car is close to the other side please tell them as it can cause the plastic headlamp covers to cloud.

    But typically, do your side and if the neighbour want to refresh theirs they will.

14. I think the rule is that your are responsible for the left side (if you are looking down the garden away from the house)

15. If you are in a shared boundary situation there is usually something about ownership in the deeds, so you should probably check there first. We are in a terraced situation and everyone owns the fence to their left as you look down the garden from the patio. That said in most rational situations people treat their own side and the legal stuff is more relevant and practical for ownership around funding replacement panels or general repairs

16. We share one with our neighbour that they bought because the old one was so small and we had moved in about a year previous with cats and their dogs kept coming in our garden.

    They painted their side and we left ours put up some metal grate and have climbing plants that get cut so they don’t go through, if you want to do anything just ask them unless you both fully share it then do whatever on your side so long as it doesn’t affect theres