All land and property owners are entitled to fully use and enjoy the entire extent of their property. However, in rural and urban settings it’s more often than not difficult to determine where your property ends and your neighbour’s begins.
The boundaries between any two properties mark where a landowner’s rights to that property end and the neighbours' begin.
In the event of uncertainty whether a boundary wall, fence or hedge is entirely on one of two adjoining properties, it is presumed to be half on one property and half on the other. Each part is then separately owned by the owner of the property on which it stands, but there are “reciprocal servitudes of support”. This means that neither owner may, without the consent of the other remove, raise or lower the boundary wall or fence and tamper with it in any way except where there is an emergency.
As a property owner dealing with an emergency situation, you are entitled to re-erect a boundary wall destroyed by the forces of nature, such as a fire or flood; however the other owner would have to contribute half the cost - if he or she will derive any benefit from it. This duty of support also has the effect that both you and your neighbour are obliged to contribute to the maintenance and repair of the wall. Where your neighbour’s taste is slightly more extravagant than your own however, this is limited to some extent so that you are under no obligation to make unreasonably expensive repairs to a wall that was simple to begin with.
The Fencing Act of 1963 regulates the duties of landowners with regard to boundary fences in agricultural areas. The Act divides the country into proclaimed areas in which contributions to the cost of boundary fences are either obligatory or non-obligatory.
If you are a farmer whose land falls under an obligatory area and you want to build a boundary fence, you have the right to demand a contribution towards the costs from all the landowners whose properties border your farm. Your neighbours may in turn object to the proposal you give them and have one month in which to lodge such objection. Should there be no objections, you may go ahead with building the fence and claim a contribution from all those neighbouring farmers you gave notice to.