Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

Re: pay half for fence repairs

If it's HIS fence, on his land, and you had nothing to do with the damage, it's HIS responsibility.

Look into whether you've got a homeowner's or community association that says otherwise, but basically, it's his problem.

Still, sometimes the neighborly thing is to help out, if you can.

Re: pay half for fence repairs

California has a very old statute on the subject, certainly in need of updating to make sense in an era where most of us live in cities on small lots and don't grow crops or raise livestock, and hence don't often fully enclose our properties with fencing. Civil Code 841(2) says "coterminous owners are mutually bound to equally to maintain the fences between them, unless one of them chooses to let his land lie without fencing....."

This law, enacted in 1872 and never since amended, has been held to mean that unless you put a fence around all the rest of your property, you are excused from participating in the cost to build or maintain a boundary fence with one neighbor on one side.

Further, I don't think it's necessary for the fence to be, or to have been, exactly on the property line. If it serves the function of a boundary fence, dividing the properties, the fact that it is a little on his side, or a bit on your side, is immaterial.

Finally, the 1872 law gives no guidance as to the quality of fence or limits on cost. Do you have to pay half the cost of two strands of barbed wire on tee posts, or half the cost of a six-foot old-growth redwood fence on treated timbers set in concrete?

Anyway, except for possible local ordinances or neighborhood CC&Rs, that's still today's law.