After visiting the site every day lately I was a bit shocked to turn up on Thursday and find that fence posts had gone in down the left hand side of the house and that fencing contractors were just about to add the rails and palings.
How can that happen without anybody consulting me?
And couldn't they at least have had the courtesy to let my builder know, with brickies hard at work on that side of the building?
This is my fence too. I'd like to have a say in it. What style will it be? What materials will be used?
I hadn't yet settled on a fence design but I have been considering something along the lines of a "good neighbour" fence, with palings on both sides and a capping timber at the top. Something with a little style, in keeping with all the other choices I have been making, and with the better fences around the neighbourhood.
How can that happen without anybody consulting me?
And couldn't they at least have had the courtesy to let my builder know, with brickies hard at work on that side of the building?
This is my fence too. I'd like to have a say in it. What style will it be? What materials will be used?
I hadn't yet settled on a fence design but I have been considering something along the lines of a "good neighbour" fence, with palings on both sides and a capping timber at the top. Something with a little style, in keeping with all the other choices I have been making, and with the better fences around the neighbourhood.
Now I know it's just a fence. A fence down the service side of the house. It pretty much can't even be seen from the road, due to fencing covenants. But this is what we'll see from the bedrooms. I want it to look nice.
And then there's an issue of consistency. Have you ever looked at a property with different styles of fence on every boundary and wondered how that could have happened? I didn't want it to happen to me.
My builder confirmed that if I hadn't been consulted I couldn't be obliged to pay for it. That added to my confusion. Why would the neighbours proceed, knowing they couldn't claim back half of the cost? Perhaps they didn't know and their builder had just bundled up the full cost of the fence in their contract?
Thoughts were swirling in my head. If it wasn't going to cost me anything I could put the savings toward upgrading the fence on the other side - the more-used entertainment side of the house. Again, on the plus side, the neighbours have a pool and they were proposing to put the palings on my side to prevent climb-overs. This would give me the more attractive side to look at.
My builder confirmed that if I hadn't been consulted I couldn't be obliged to pay for it. That added to my confusion. Why would the neighbours proceed, knowing they couldn't claim back half of the cost? Perhaps they didn't know and their builder had just bundled up the full cost of the fence in their contract?
Thoughts were swirling in my head. If it wasn't going to cost me anything I could put the savings toward upgrading the fence on the other side - the more-used entertainment side of the house. Again, on the plus side, the neighbours have a pool and they were proposing to put the palings on my side to prevent climb-overs. This would give me the more attractive side to look at.
But I'm still left with a sense of betrayal. Isn't this something I should have had a say in? Isn't it an act of arrogance on the part of the builder next door to proceed in this way?
What have I learned? Time to start negotiations with the builder/owner on the other side to ensure it doesn't happen there too!
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