How do you solve a boundary problem in your back garden? That’s what Bristol vet Alison Pullman asked herself when her neighbours refused to fix their broken fence.

“We share a long boundary down the side of my property at the rear of my house,” she says, “but it was far from clear where it lay. I had completely redesigned my garden, but my gardener could only work on half of it until the fence was back in place.”

A year passed, and Alison gave her neighbours some spare fence panels of her own. They put them up, but they didn’t last, and she lived through another four seasons of effectively sharing a patio with her inconsiderate neighbours.

“I couldn’t put up a fence myself because it wasn’t my boundary,” she says, “so I did the only thing I could: I invited my girlfriends round for a bikini party. The wife next door didn’t like that, and the following day that part of the fence was back up.”

Sadly, the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the boundary, which remained vague and unmarked.

Bubbling tensions

Things got more complicated when she took delivery of her new Jacuzzi, by which point the neighbours had put up a three-foot fence. They claimed not to have the £7,500 they wanted to spend on the full-height panels they really wanted, and pointed out that the shorter fence was more ‘neighbourly’, as they and Alison could pop their heads over the top for a chat.

Fortunately for Alison, who didn’t feel like being neighbourly, she had 120ft of garden to play with, so she positioned the Jacuzzi at the furthest end, well away from the house. This gave her a degree of privacy – but not for long. A few days later, the husband next door moved his kids’ trampoline from the middle of his lawn to the end of his garden, right by Alison’s new Jacuzzi. He also developed a new-found interest in using it himself.

“That was the final straw,” she explains. “I pointed out that I didn’t want to take the legal route, but would if I had to, that I had been incredibly patient over the last two years, that I had not been able to finish my garden, and I didn’t feel I had any choice but to tackle the problem from my side. I put up six-foot screening right along the border, being careful to keep it just on my side of the line. Now he can bounce as much as he likes on that trampoline – and never see me in my Jacuzzi.”

Money well spent

The incident has soured the neighbours’ relationship. Alison no longer asks them to feed her cat when she’s travelling, and she found herself £1,000 out of pocket.

“But,” she says, “I’ve got the privacy I wanted, been able to complete my garden and finally have closure. I ended the situation because they weren’t being reasonable about it. It has given me peace of mind and I will never again have to knock on their door and ask what they’re doing about that fence.”

Crucially, she’s also avoided the cost of solicitors and the stress of heading to court.

“If I knew someone with a similar issue, I would advise them to do the things they know they can and to understand where their tolerance level lies. When it gets to the final straw, they should do whatever they can within the law. Sometimes, there is just no point putting things off any longer.”

If you have problems with a boundary issue, you may find some of these services useful: