Q & A Table of Contents
Good Fences Make . . .
From: Gema, Sacramento, California
Question: My father has a neighbor that never agrees with anything my father does to his own house or backyard. But now with the last rain storm we had here in Sacramento the fence between their yards went down. My father put it up temporarily, only changing a 4 foot section of the fence. The four feet of fence he put up are 6' tall and the rest of the fence is 5' tall.
We would rather have a 6' tall fence over the 5' fence but the neighbor doesn't agree. He doesn't want to negotiate any 50-50 agreement for getting the fence up. Should my father put the 6' fence up all for himself without getting the neighbor involved or should he try yet once more to get the neighbored involved.
Response: There are two issues involved. The first goes to the heart of good negotiation. If your father discussed the repairs he was planning to make with the neighbor ahead of time, then it is not unreasonable to hope they could have reached agreement on both the height of the fence — and the responsibility for paying for it. If your father fixed the fence first and asked the neighbor for a contribution afterwards, the neighbor was faced with a fait accompli, facts on the ground he could not change.
When you decide to do something without asking other interested parties, you are taking full responsibility for your actions. If you get them involved in the decision-making process, that doesn’t guarantee you’ll reach agreement, but it does increase the likelihood that the relationship will be seen as involving some degree of mutual respect. As the late Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill would say, “People like to be asked.”
The other point is found in the line by the poet Robert Frost: “Good fences make good neighbors.” Drawing a clear line reduces the likelihood of confusion or miscommunication. It simplifies the issue when a fence is either a joint project of the relevant neighbors or the individual project of someone who undertakes the effort and who’s not asking for after-the-fact payment.
Good luck,
Steve
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