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• Neighbor agreed to share cost of fence, now refuses to pay
• Sharing cost of a fence?
• MOre advice about Fences
• More Advice about Neighbors

Neighbor agreed to share cost of fence, now refuses to pay

About a year ago, an elderly neighbor died. A few months ago, her son (over getting the house ready for sale) agreed to pay for 1/2 of a new fence, providing that he only pay for the backyard portion (we are extending the fence to the front of the houses). I mentioned that a contractor friend would be helping us, and would charge for his time, but that my husband would do the majority of the work at no cost to him (which he did). When we got to his gate, and asked about preferences, he insisted that we pay for half of HIS gate, which I thought was unreasonable, but went along with it. He was very happy with the result. When we gave him the bill ($500), he became difficult, saying that he shouldn't have to pay for either our friend's time, the cost of having the materials delivered, or the rental post hole digger (his portion of the latter 2 was $30!). Mind you, he witnessed the fence being built, so he saw that we had help and that we used the rental item. He demanded receipts, so we politely put them together, cross-referenced with the bill. Even without the charges he objected to, the materials still came to almost $400 of the $500 bill. Another month has gone by, and still no reply. I am temped to write the entire episode off, but on the other hand, I don't want to be taken advantage of. We are not made of money, and it will clearly improve the value of the house he is about to sell. If he doesn't ever pay us, do we have any recourse? Could we put a lien on the house? Should I just move on? anon

Sharing cost of a fence?

We are having a contractor rebuild the fence around our yard in a couple of weeks. Can we expect our neighbors to contribute some if we share the fence? Anyone have experience with this to share? Thanks! - Madeleine

On the flip side, a different neighbor approached us with a bid from a contractor to fix a retaining wall and build a new fence from scratch. We thought the bid was very high and encouraged her to get some others.

She got a few other bids but really wanted a first class job and we could only pay for a budget one, so we offered to pay 1/3 of the cost and she seemed fine with that. -Sharon