Damage caused by construction from neighboring property
 

I've been away from home for a while, and come back to see that the house beside mine has been taken down and being re-built.

They have taken down the fence, and also damaged part of my garden (including putting up temporary fence that intrudes onto my property)

I tried searching and couldn't find any bylaws that protects me as a neighbor from these sort of damage.

The builders have not approached me regarding any of the damage, and I'm not sure if they will.

1. Are they legally responsible (partially or fully) for the damage caused to my property?
a. If yes, who and how can I approach this in a civil manner (it looks like
they are homeowner, not developer, so they might be future neighbors)

2. If they are not legally responsible, what can I do to recuperate part of the cost to fix the damages?

Again, the builders haven't approached me, and I haven't approached them either yet, so I hope to solve this with the least amount of conflict between both parties.

Thanks!

I would begin by talk with your neighbour or the builder and see what their attitude towards the matter is like first. If they're planning to put up a new fence when they're done so it shouldn't matter too much.
In terms of legal liability, I would take pictures of the damage and hopefully you have some pictures of what your garden looks like and if worse comes to worse and they don't want to owe up to their damage, you can always take them to small claims. The key is you have to show that they encroached onto your side of the property line without your permission and based on a balance of probability that they had caused the said damage.

when you build a new house, shit happens. The issue is, how to deal with the shit that happens. The fence, when a new house is built and the fence is taken down, is extremely likely that once the house is built they will build a new fence. A temporary fence intruding on your property, if it actually effects how you use your property then yah say something but if it doesn't then leave it. It's temporary, not permanent. Damage to your garden, I would expect that to be fixed and dealt with when they are doing their landscaping after the house is built. Are you currently using your garden? maybe they assumed it's not a big deal since it's winter and thought it wasn't a big deal. If it's not a builder and a home owner, I'm sure they'll deal with it properly if you talk to them properly. Last thing anyone would want is a neighbour that hates them. My family built the house i'm living in. We talked to our neighbour before and throughout. Had to use his driveway for access for a dump trunk one time, had to remove the fence and put up a temporary one, a lot of his grass along the fence line/property line was removed. We even took down some shrubs for him that he didn't want any more. All of that stuff was fixed by the time we moved in.

I think you're getting ahead of yourself thinking about legal responsibility and seeking damages. If it's just a homeowner building for himself, i'm sure he'll take care of it. Just speak to the dude and let him know what happened. I bet he'll tell you he knows and will take care of it. If he's a prick about it, then yah, you'll have to do something. But keep this in mind, so far they just tore the house down. There's going to be a lot more going on over the next few months. It's his job to clean up the messes. Even if you decide to try a civil claim, which based on what you said is unnecessary, it won't be resolved till after they finish the house. Just keep your pictures if he's a prick. Other than that i wouldn't worry about it.

I'm asking about legal responsibility not because I eager to sue, if anything, I rather not have anything to do with the court. However, I think it is important for me to educate myself before hand who's responsible for what and how etc. Rather get into a situation knowing what I can expect than not being prepared.

So the house is actually being rebuilt already. Anyhow, I got a chance to speak to the neighbor on the other side of the property. Heard positive things about the builder, and how they owed up to the damage and paid for it. They even got a letter from the builder introducing themselves. I didn't get any letter so I assume I lost it or didn't paid attention to it.

My intention is to talk to the builder, but like I said, my purpose of asking these questions before hand is in case it doesn't get solved in a positive way.

I'm still curious, as a general question, as to is there any bylaws to protect neighboring homeowner, or what they can do, in the scenario that damage caused wasn't recuperated it?

TIA

Every construction project carries atleast a few basic forms of insurance. The most basic and mandatory form is Commercial General Liability (CGL) Insurance. CGL is specifically tailored to respond to liability resulting from damage caused by the insured to third parties.

You can try speaking to the builder, see if they want to pay/repair the damage themselves, otherwise just go through insurance, and get it dealt with.

CGL coverage is remarkably lenient, I have seen some pretty vague claims, and in general they have been covered. We had to do some blasting on one site, and a neighbour who lived a substantial distance from us, complained (successfully i might add), that our blasting caused a crack in her concrete garage floor. The best part was that she wasn't even the closest property to our site, and she was the only one who claimed for any sort of damage.

Take pictures to document everything just in case.

A little update. I talked to the owner and he's willing to accept responsibility for any damages caused.

One question though. I asked him about the fence, and he said that if I wanted a fence, we (the owner and I) can split cost of the fence. I'm confused about this because I didn't ask for the fence to be taken down, and he took it down because of his construction. My question, shouldn't he be the one fully responsible for putting up a fence since he took it down?

Unless the old fence was a rickety POS and he's planning to replace it with something really nice...

If your fence was fine and he took it down, he should put one back up IMO.

If your fence was due to be replaced soon, perhaps throw in some $ for the upgrade. I still wouldn't go 50/50 considering he just took yours down without talking about it.

use pallets for fencing, guarantee neighbor will replace it asap

if he still has fence posts
http://cdnpix.com/show/imgs/f0479d62...584f0e52c7.jpg

FYI, I don't recall anything about the owner approaching me about taking down the fence (it might be my fault that I forgot about it). Either way, nothing's been written down, and I have no recollection of the owner asking if it's ok to take the fence down.

There was nothing wrong with the fence prior to being taken down. Reading from the posts, it seems that the responsibility should fall on the person taken it down.

The only problem right now is I started off asking IF a fence would be put back, and he suggested that if I wanted one we could split the cost. I'm not very good with words, and I don't want to sound offensive to him and say, "hey you took it down, so why should I pay for it?" kind of thing.

edit:

On the other hand though, if the original owner of his house was the one who paid for 100% of the original fence, technically, would the new owner be entitled do whatever he wants with the fence (since in that case, it would be his)?

Of course, it's also hard to prove how the original fence was paid for.

Who's fence was it?

In my past experience the fence is normally on one individuals property by a little bit. For example at my last home, the fence on my eastern property line was mine, I put it up on my own property when I bought the lot.

The fence on the western border was most definitely on my neighbors lot by a couple inches (I surveyed it).

Kinda important to know, cause you are going to look like an idiot if you accuse him of taking down your fence, when it was actually his, and he had every right to do whatever he wanted.

If the fence was indeed yours I would just tell him straight up:

"My fence was perfectly fine, you tore it down, you better put it back, or something equivalent."

I get not wanted to piss off neighbors but you need to be firm with what you say.

^Yup, that's exactly the thing I added to my post above after some consideration. Unfortunately, the fence was taken down already, so I'm not sure if I will be able to tell whose property is it on more.

I guess at this point then, I'll just wait when it's time to put up a fence and see how it goes.

If you don't mind me asking, how did you determine that the fence on the western border is on your neighbors lot? I know there's a website that allows you to see the actual lines, VanMap? but it seems very rough.

I had an internship at the city where I lived for a short period, so I could look at the city surveyors datum points....:whistle:

I also have had some training in surveying, and I have access to equipment. So it was just a matter of going out and laying out everything. My property also already had two pins which I found with a bit of bush wacking.

There should be some pins located on your property which identify the boundaries. If not you can pay to have someone come out and resurvey the lot from other points, and they will charge you to do this. That surveyor will then drop a series of pins to mark the boundaries of your property. It's useful to have for things like landscaping and building fences or for additions to your house (making sure you don't encroach onto setbacks or easements).

take a look at the front and back of the property. usually before you start the build, you're required to mark the line with a big metal pine and red ribbon. They still might be in the ground. Walk to the front of the property and it should be in the corner of the front and side property line. I can't remember when they get removed but might as well check and see if there is anything there

Usually, the side of the fence with where the stringers are visible is the side whom the fence belongs to.

http://www.pattern-making.com/info/w....-21-13.24.jpg

So if you can remember what side that was before it was taken down, you'll have your answer

What if his fence looked like this?

http://www.razorbarbedwirefence.com/...-fencing-2.jpg

The fences on both sides of my place have alternating stringers, sneaky SOB's

I would say that since he took the fence down, he is responsible for covering the cost of replacing the fence.

if i'm building a fence like that i'm not leaving the stringers visible on my side.....also that would mean i'm nailing the verticle plank boards from my neighbors side which doesn't make sense either

also most fences these days are full panels nailed between posts so they look the same from both sides

Good point.
That's just something a builder told me once, as a common courtesy it seemed legit.

I built my fence that way because I didn't want my frames visible from the street. (even though I wanted to show off my really awesome mortice & tenon skills)


http://www3.telus.net/bryster/IMG_20141115_150331.jpg

it really could go either way lol....looks good though, nice work

Who has a connection for a good fence contractor?