housing issue: mending the fences - literally!

[network_engineer]

Hi all,

A bit of background: Last winter, the snow kept piling on, and moving it out of the way placed some weight on the wooden fence between our house and the neighbours (independent houses), and the weight caused it to lean over. The fence was initially put-in-place jointly by the previous owner of our house and the neighbour. The total distance is about 10-15 meters, the damaged part is about 3-4 meters.

Now, of course, snow from our yard caused the problem and we would be happy to get it repaired - to a degree. My own take is that I would be be more prepared to pay for restoration to the state it was it, not a premium to create a new one, e.g. to replace the whole 15 meters

Questions:

- What are the laws that govern this situation?
- What does the law say about my perspective?
- Do I have to simply restore it? Or pay a premium to create a new one?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

PS: Yes, the 'Housing in Finland' could perhaps been a better folder, but then I just realised that no posts have been made since Feb 2013!

[DMC]

No idea about the legal situation, but a couple of questions:
1. Is your neighbour asking you to replace the whole fence?
2. What if the whole fence were 150 metres or 1500 metres instead of 15? You surely wouldn't have to replace it all then, so why should the shorter fence be any different?

[network_engineer]

Hi!

To answer the questions.

_ No, not yet. Only that the fence would be repaired. Hard to do, a bit! Since the original fence wasn't done correctly in the first place, nor maintained well. I guess it could be restored to the previous level though.

_ No, I made a quick suggestion, that perhaps better to take off the fence and replace, e.g. with bushes. The fence extends towards the back of the property, and he was concerned that it might not look good!

_ If the damage cannot be restored to status quo, then he is interested in ensuring the whole thing has a consistent look, and then the whole fence means that it would cost me more - more than the damage and its worth. Not to mention the difficult prices.

[Pursuivant]

There is a law on "law on peculiar neighbour issues" from 1794 or so, which does state if you let the fence rot and your swine go to the neighbour's oats, the bridge-reeve will fine you a daler at the next spring assizes, so watch out!