Legal Advice on Fencing

Questioner

We have lived in a detached house for over 17 years, where a beech hedge has been planted next to our driveway as a boundary. This beech hedge was planted by the first residents, approx. 30 years ago. The beech hedge is pruned by us twice a year. The hedge is approximately 3 metres high and 80 cm wide. The hedge was a separation with a piece of building land for 30 years. This land was sold this year. Now the buyers, and therefore our neighbours, want us to prune the hedge back to 1 metre up to the front facade boundary (approx. 5 metres) and then to 2 metres high. They also want us to contribute to the costs at the land registry to determine the property boundary because they believe that the trunk of the beech hedge is exactly on our property boundary, which means that the hedge is jointly owned, or so they claim. When I asked the municipality, our municipality did not have any guidelines regarding the height/width of a beech hedge as a property boundary. Could you please advise us what steps to take. Thank you very much for this.

Lawyer

Assuming that the beech hedge has been there for 30 years and that you and your previous neighbours have always assumed that the hedge is the boundary of the property, then you must assume, unless there is evidence to the contrary, that the hedge is on the property line and should therefore in principle be maintained jointly. A height of two metres is then customary, certainly within built-up areas. See also article 5:36 and 5:49 of the Civil Code. If it can be demonstrated that the hedge is not on the property line / has been planted on your plot, then the maintenance would be entirely your responsibility and even then it seems to me that a hedge higher than 2 metres could under certain circumstances (particularly if there is a lot of shade) be unlawful towards your neighbours. You do not have to cooperate in advance in setting out the cadastral boundary in the field/terrain. The cadastral boundary is fixed and can therefore be made visible on site in principle even if you do not cooperate. If it appears from this that the cadastral boundary (which is also presumed to be the ownership boundary) runs differently than the actual boundary and if a party wishes to attach consequences to this despite the cooperation of the other party, the court can give its judgment on this at the request of a party.