Q & A Table of Contents
Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors
From: Arnie, Sausalito, CA
Question: My father is being sued by his neighbor for what the neighbor says is "half" the cost of the 6ft tall wood fence and a 3ft tall retaining wall he put up ( 30ft long and total height of 9ft). There was an existing 4ft tall wood fence and a 3ft tall retaining wall, but the neighbor decided to tear that down and put up a new one.
He and my father talked earlier about sharing the cost with the condition that my father wanted to be there to negotiate the pricing with whoever does the work. What the neighbor did was hire day laborers without my father's consent and did the negotiating by himself.
Later, the neighbor went to my dad and gave him a bill for $1800, which he claimed is half of the total cost. My dad refused to pay him because he had no knowledge of who was being hired and how much it cost. In addition, the retaining wall the neighbor put up has no value to my dad. What it is doing is adding to the neighbor's property by enabling him to flatten out his lot.
Moreover, the neighbor is charging my dad $18/hr. for the neighbor's efforts.
My question is who is responsible for the cost of this fence and retaining wall and what about the ridiculous charge for the neighbor's own labor?
Response: It sounds as if your father is well-served by the existence of a barrier between his neighbor's property and his own. The neighbor you described does not sound like a very honorable person. If the two men shook hands on a deal that included your father in the hiring decision, the neighbor breached that agreement. Moreover, under common law in many US States, any agreement with a cash value of more than $100 dollars must be in the form of a signed contract to be enforceable. You should check to see whether this is the case in California.
If your father feels that he has indeed benefited from the erection of the fence and/or the retaining wall, he may want to make a friendly gesture and pay for some of the costs. It depends on his long-term interests about his relationship with the neighbor.
It may be that the neighbor presented an outrageous bill with the expectation that he and your father would settle on a different figure after negotiating with each other. You or your dad should explore this possibility before simply walking away from the situation -- and risking long-term negative feelings across the fence.
Your father should be given the opportunity to review receipts for payments made by the neighbor for both labor and materials. Since your father never hired the neighbor to do any of the work, even the negotiating with the day laborers, there does not appear to be any justification for paying the neighbor anything.
In this situation your father -- and you -- should consider the long-term consequences of the choices you can make. When a fence between my house and one of my neighbors' needed replacing, I paid for the whole thing because I wanted to protect my privacy with the fence, control its design, and strengthen the relationship. With another neighbor I did the exact opposite; they created a barrier between our properties which I had no involvement in designing or planning. Since it was their project, I had no reason or obligation to pay.
It sounds as if your dad's neighbor is trying to take advantage of your dad. I cannot see any contractual obligation on your father's part to pay anything for this project.
Good luck,
Steve
| 
