Legal Question in Construction Law in California

We live in an area where yards are divided by fences deemed community property. A few weeks ago, our neighbor told us he was painting the fence on his side & was going to replace 2 posts the next day. Obviously, the contractor had to cross the property line to replace the posts. But we didn�t agree to anything else.

Yet, without speaking with us & asking our permission, the contractor did almost all of the construction on our property. It didn�t look like hardly any work was done on the neighbor's property even though they were the clients. The workers dismantled the fence & strewn it across our lawn along with piles of dirt, pieces of cement & splinters of wood. They also poured cement in much wider holes in our yard, installed the 2 posts a couple inches into our property & busted our sprinkler pipe.

The following morning, we spoke to our neighbors & the foreman who agreed to make changes. Instead, the workers simply put back the rest of the fence with the bottom slats missing & several pieces of wood damaged on our side. A friend who's a landscape architect said most of the cracked & broken pieces couldn't be restored & advised us to replace the sections of the fence which the contractor had pulled apart then fix the sprinkler pipe & re-grade & re-sod the lawn.

Before we made any repairs to our property & the fence, we checked our CC&Rs & spoke to the HOA. They said it was completely between us & the people with whom we share the fence. According to our neighbors, they did not know the workers were going to alter the configuration of our property & not make the changes we all had discussed. They thought the fence was going to be put back the way it was before the workers took it apart & were unaware that whatever got damaged would be left in disrepair.

Unfortunately, our neighbors didn�t examine our side of the fence before completion of the work & the contractor left the premises.

Nonetheless, the neighbors aren�t going to pay us for any of the repairs we made as they already paid for work which turned out to be for naught. We suggested they contact the company for reimbursement but they don�t want to hassle with it.

We really don�t want to get into a war with our neighbors over this. It appears that their contractor was not totally forthcoming with our neighbors & certainly didn�t get our consent. Since the contractor did not have authorization from us to do what they did on our property & lied about the work which would be done to rectify the situation, what, if any, recourse do we have against the company?

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