Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Fencing Act 1978

Liability for work on a fence

14: Provision for doing work

You could also call this:

“Rules for doing work on a fence with your neighbour”

When you want to do work on a fence and you’ve told your neighbour about it, you need to wait 21 days before starting. If your neighbour doesn’t reply with their own notice during this time, you can begin the work. If they do reply, you’ll need to sort out any disagreements before starting, either by talking it through or going to court.

Once you’re allowed to start, you have 28 days to begin the work. If you don’t start within this time, either you or your neighbour can do the work within the next 90 days.

If you start the work but then stop for 28 days without a good reason, your neighbour can take over and finish it.

If neither of you does any work for 90 days after the time you were supposed to start, all the notices and agreements about the work will no longer count. But you can still make new agreements or give new notices if you want to.

You and your neighbour can agree to give yourselves more time, or you can ask the court to give you more time.

If you do work on the fence, you can ask your neighbour to pay their share of the cost.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM21864.

Topics:
Housing and property > Home safety and repairs
Housing and property > Land use
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“What happens when you and your neighbour have different ideas about fence work”

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15: Effect of change of occupier, or

“When someone moves house, the fence agreement with their neighbour becomes invalid”

Part 3 Liability for work on a fence

14Provision for doing work

  1. Where a person serves notice under this Act in respect of work on a fence, he may proceed to do the work—

  2. after the expiration of 21 days from the date of the service of the notice if he is not duly served with a cross-notice within that period; or
    1. if before the expiration of the said period of 21 days he is duly served with such a cross-notice, as soon as all differences between the parties are resolved either by agreement or by the court.

      1. If the person who served the notice fails to commence to do the work within 28 days commencing on the day on which he first became entitled to commence the work or such longer period as may be agreed to by the parties or fixed by the court (in this section referred to as the prescribed period) either party may thereupon, or at any time within 90 days thereafter, proceed to do the work.

      2. If the party who last proceeded to do the work fails for a period of 28 days to carry out the work with due diligence, the other party may proceed to complete the work.

      3. If for any period of 90 days after the expiration of the prescribed period and before the completion of the work neither party does any part of the work, all notices, cross-notices, agreements, and orders relating to the work (other than agreements and orders to which subsection (5) applies) shall, in relation to the uncompleted part of the work, lapse and become of no effect, but nothing in this subsection shall restrict the giving of further notices and cross-notices or the making of further agreements or orders.

      4. At any time before or after the expiration of any period of 90 days to which subsection (2) or subsection (4) applies, the period may be extended either by agreement of the parties or order of the court.

      5. Where in accordance with this section either party does any work on a fence, he may recover from the other party as a debt the other party's proportion of the cost of the work done.

      Compare
      • 1908 No 61 s 17