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Fence Laws

Re: Fences.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I could find no laws saying I was responsible for putting up any fence PERIOD </div></div>

Here's some links to the law itself...you can try to contest it but if the other owner wants to push it, you will pay for the fence one way or the other.

There are several links to the law itself here: Fence laws

Furthermore: Acreage Living

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Have you ever wondered whose job it is to maintain the fence between you and your neighbor? Erecting and maintaining a tight fence is the joint legal responsibility of the two adjoining land owners. Property line fences are jointly owned by both land owners, and cannot be changed by one owner without consent of the other. If either owner desires a fence, both are required to build and maintain their fair share. Deciding the fair share is up to the owners.

A common method for dividing responsibility is to adopt the arrangement held by the previous land owners. Another common method is to use the "right hand rule". By this method, as you face the fence, you are responsible for the right hand half of the fence. While these methods are commonly used, they are not required. Two land owners may establish any division of fence responsibility that is mutually agreeable. In order to be binding, the agreement must be filed with the county recorder. Once filed, the agreement remains in force for following land owners until a new agreement is filed. If two land owners cannot reach a satisfactory agreement, township trustees may be asked to serve as "fence viewers" who make binding judgment on fencing disputes. Your attorney can offer advice on working through the process.

The law defines materials and construction specifications for a lawful fence. While many options exist, three common minimum requirements are: at least 3 boards on posts not more that 8 feet apart; at least 3 strands of barbed wire on posts not more than one rod (16.5 feet) apart; or at least 4 strands of smooth high tensile wire on posts not more than two rods (33 feet) apart.

Iowa's fence law is recorded in the Iowa Code Chapter 359A. You can view the law by entering the chapter number at the internet site http://web.legis.state.ia.us/IACODE/1999/. Check your abstract or visit your County Recorder to see if any written fence agreements are on file for your property. If you have reason to think your line fence is not on the property line, contact a land surveyor to check it out. An erroneous boundary may become the true boundary if left for ten years without challenge.

If you have questions about property or boundary rights, contact your attorney or check with the Iowa Attorney General's Office, Environmental & Ag Law Division, Executive Hills East, Des Moines, 50319, phone 515-281-5351.

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Fencing issues are not something you find just in Iowa...the problems arises when people move (or buy property) in the country in ANY state!

I've lived all my life in the country and I ran cattle myself so I know all about fences...I've been on both sides of it! /forum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif

<a href="http://aglaw.missouri.edu/fencelaws.htm" target="_blank">Fencing Issues by
state</a>

I would also add that the neighboring landowner need not have cattle (or any livestock) to force you to build your fence. They only need make their fence "tight" (read the law) and they can force you to do the same.

You can also be forced to pay the fees for having the trustees come out and solve any disputes....

You can fight it, you can drag your feet, you can hire an attorney, but eventually you will pay a price much steeper then the cost of a fence.... /forum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smirk.gif
 
Re: Fences.

My understanding has always been that when standing on your property facing your neighbors, everything on the right half is your responsibility. I wouldn't make a big deal out of this.Used fence poles are cheap and easy to find . If you don't have any tools , just ask a farmer friend, most will be more than happy to let you use everything you need. Round up a couple guys to help (maybe even the neighbor) and throw it in , Ive done it many times , its no big deal.
 
Re: Fences.

I have already called around or stopped to neighbors but can find no help or anyone that does fences. I am definately not taking the neighbor's price. He would do it himself for his price. Don't trust him. Will try to find an uninvolved party to get a real price and how much is required. I paced it off and is 200 yrds or less.
 
Re: Fences.

200 yards, you are sitting fine. That should be PEANUTS (don't mean to minimize it BUT, well shouldn't be much). I would FOR SURE do 3rd party OR do it yourself, DON'T let him do it and price it. Sounds like you're doing the right thing though. Go cut some hedge, get an auger (or do metal posts- buy 50 at Tractor supply & some barbed wire) and you're done for pretty cheap. Good luck with all.
 
Re: Fences.

Loneranger

Talk to the neighbor and find out what kind of fence he will want you to put in, but don't fight with him about it. Before you start you should check with the county and find out how the fence is registered, don't just go by the common right hand rule. I have one section of fence that because of the terrain and access it was decided by my parents and registered that the left hand side is mine. There have been occasions that a person built the wrong end of the fence because of the right hand rule and then had to put in the other half as well because that was the way it was registered.

200 yards will take about 38 posts and maybe a couple of corners and braces. I just looked on the TSC page and 39" woven wire is 330 feet and is $150 a roll and barb wire is 1320 feet and is $80 a roll. You need to go about 600 feet so either 2 rolls of woven and 1 roll of barbed wire or 2 rolls of barbed to put in a 4 strand barbed wire fence. The post run about $5.60 for 5 1/2 or 6 foot t-posts.

If you have never built fence before all you need to do is drive the posts and if you use just the barbed wire attach it to a solid corner or line post, wooden, and staple it to it after wrapping it around a couple of times. Then go to the other end, if it is a straight run, or to the corner if it isn't. Attach a come-along to something solid, I use the hitch on my truck. Twist off a loop in the barbed wire and put it on the come-along hook and stretch the wire tight enough to "sing". You should have left yourself enough room and positioned everything so you can staple the wire to a wooden corner post with out releasing any tension. Leave the tension on it and just work your way back down the line attaching the wire to each post with the wire clips. Then just repeat with each of the other 3 wires evenly spaced up the posts. For the corners or the end of your line you should set a large wooden post and also one back down the line with a brace between the wooden posts to help equalize the strain. If it would help you I can lend you a post driver and an auger type post hole digger and a come-along if you want, just PM me some time.

By the way you do get some benefits from fencing to keep his cows from you property. #1 you can not allow any grazing on forest reserve or CRP acres for any reasons so if his cows are grazing on your land you are responsible. #2 if his cows go through your property and would get hit on the road you are partly liable because you failed to maintain proper fences that would keep the cows off your property of at least keep them on your property and off the roads. #3 If you have no fences and any thing happens to his cows as a result you are responsible to him for damages and loss of his property, the cows. #4 Cows can really mess up any food plots or any deer hunting.

Even though you might not like it just build the fence and be done with it. I had a very similar incident when I first bought my farm with a very disagreeable neighbor. He never said a word about building any fence to me but after he had put in his half he went to the county board of trustees and the county attorney and declared that I had to have it built with in the next 30 days or he would build it and charge me for it. I had the trustees come out and showed them what it was like and that there had not been any fences there for over 20 years so what was the big rush now. They agreed and told me it would be ok as long as I got it built by fall, which I did. To this day that is the only section of fence that is on his farm and the other sides are open to the road, so he could never have run any live stock without him supplying the rest of the fence. He finally sold it a few years later but wouldn't sell it to me.
 
Re: Fences.

Man, that is a heck of a great post by Bowmaker, what a nice gesture to offer that kind of support and advice!!!

My only other suggestion is to do it NOW, so you're not in there when deer hunting is on AND you have some time to let the deer settle back down to the disturbance. From Bowmaker's calculations, cost should be MINIMAL and you should be able to do this in a hard days work. Good luck!
 
Re: Fences.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Man, that is a heck of a great post by Bowmaker, what a nice gesture to offer that kind of support and advice!!! </div></div>

I agree! Lot's of helpful information in this whole thread so I think I'll add it to the food plot links.

As more folks buy recreational property they are bound to run into the same problems and questions....nice to have some answers handy /forum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif
 
What ever came of this? I am in a similar situation now. I am looking to buy a farm in Davis county that hasn't been maintained and the perimeter fencing is pretty much nonexistent. I want it fenced with clearly marked property lines. Its about 14,500 feet, 4 double gates and about 20 corners. I am not sure the cost but I am scared to know. Do the neighbors have to share the cost? Will equip pay for part of it? Any updated info would be great. I see this post is from 2008.
 
John Young said:
What ever came of this? I am in a similar situation now. I am looking to buy a farm in Davis county that hasn't been maintained and the perimeter fencing is pretty much nonexistent. I want it fenced with clearly marked property lines. Its about 14,500 feet, 4 double gates and about 20 corners. I am not sure the cost but I am scared to know. Do the neighbors have to share the cost? Will equip pay for part of it? Any updated info would be great. I see this post is from 2008.
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You could be like my neighbor- just randomly walks around putting in posts claiming that’s the line…. Then on the other side of me now, I have Minnesota hunters who are back for the second year in a row, which is basically non existent. Some fishy stuff in my neighborhood right now
 
Th
newfarmer said:
You could be like my neighbor- just randomly walks around putting in posts claiming that’s the line…. Then on the other side of me now, I have Minnesota hunters who are back for the second year in a row, which is basically non existent. Some fishy stuff in my neighborhood right now
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That's exactly why having a proper survey done is critical. I want my lines clearly marked. We can't even find most of the corners. It was certainly fenced at one time. But it was let go and not maintained and is now nonexistent.
 
John Young said:
Th

That's exactly why having a proper survey done is critical. I want my lines clearly marked. We can't even find most of the corners. It was certainly fenced at one time. But it was let go and not maintained and is now nonexistent.
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Yeah- we are getting a new survey done when we add an acre to our piece- it’s a mess. The last time we dealt with the fence on a different piece- our lawyers said neighbor did not have to pay half because we only wanted it as a “boundary” and not for livestock. No idea if that was true- but that’s what we were told. Never looked into it further because the neighbor quickly said he was fine once lawyers got involved and we had that boundary line staked (pain in the ass)
 
I do not want neighbor problems. Its a lot less work to get along with the neighbors than it is to fight with them. I get along with most everyone. It takes a great deal to piss me off. I let most things go. I don't want the exhaustion of fighting with neighbors. I want neighbors I can have a beer and watch a football game with or a barbeque and trade trail cam pics and hunting stories. Way too many more important things in life to worry about over fighting with neighbors. These farms cost a great deal of money to buy and maintain and I want the lines clearly marked so if you trespass you clearly know it and when I prosecute you surely deserved it. I don't want to leave no room for error. Not to mention I want the piece of mind knowing exactly where my property lines are. I do not want to be guessing. FYI, this farm had perimeter fencing at one time. It just wasn't maintained and is pretty much nonexistent. You can see remnants of a fence here and there laying on the ground.
 
My son's 30.acres got surveyed when we bought it and he actually owns about 20 feet past the fence on 2 sides. Don't even think it's worth fighting over.
 
HWC said:
My son's 30.acres got surveyed when we bought it and he actually owns about 20 feet past the fence on 2 sides. Don't even think it's worth fighting over.
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That’s the downfall- people just assume fences are always right. He might think twice if they decide they want to bulldoze a path through along that fence ‍♂️
 
newfarmer said:
That’s the downfall- people just assume fences are always right.
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I have a fence of convenience that does not follow the property line because of a creek. Now I have a fence sitter ladder stand thinking the fence is the boundary.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Law states fence must be erected on border even if only 1 landowner desires. Does not matter if livestock or not. Right hand rule typically. You pay your half they pay other half. If they refuse turn over dispute to county fence trustee. if they still refuse to pay/build it, you can pay their half and the county will file lein for cost of the fence or assess amount with their taxes.
 
So how would you guys advise approaching this?

Keep in mind we've had 1 dealing with the guy and it wasn't good. His cows got through the fence and got on our property. He called me bitching about having to get his cows off our land. That instantly sent me from 0 to 100 because I didn't want his cows running through my land. I had them on trail cam and they caused a lot of damage. I said I don't want your cows on my land even more than you don't. He came back with well the fence has been cut. I said I didn't cut it and once again said I don't want any cows on my land.

Then I bring up I'm sick of seeing his dogs chasing deer multiple times a week. Seriously multiple times a week I would have deer with their tongues hanging out run by the camera and a minute or 2 later His dogs would be running by. His response was what am I supposed to do. You expect me to Try keeping them off there? He was acting like I was asking for his first born child or something and shocked at me having the gall to not want his dogs running free on the property. I said ya I do expect you to keep your dogs off my land. So he says you and me are going to have problems.
It was the craziest thing him putting all of his stuff on me. I was on my way down there when he called. So I called the sheriff and said I would be there in a little over an hour and not sure what was going to happen.

Well I cooled down after about 30 minutes and called him and said I would help him fix his fence if needed. Let him know I grew up 20 minutes from there and still have friends and family in Southern Iowa. There's no reason to fight about who damaged the fence. I obviously didn't cut it but didn't say that. He then said he would fix it and said let him know if I was hunting so he would try fixing it sometime when I wasn't hunting so he wouldn't bother the hunt. So just the craziest 180 degree deal.

I think some of the issue was "city" people buying up chunks of land near there. It was a big acreage broke up into multiple smaller parcels. I don't know but he isn't necessarily a reasonable man to deal with.


That's the one and only time we have spoken in the 3 or 4 years we've had the property. Still have some dog issues but the 2 main culprits are gone. A different neighbor that bought 15 acres were really scared of them. They don't hunt but expressed concern about them being around so much. So maybe they took care of them. I don't know.

I don't live that close to it and really don't feel like having enemies. So that is some background on where I'm coming from. I just don't know how I would even approach it
 
Bassattackr said:
And in MO the neighbor can lay claim to that "unclaimed" 20 ft of property, if 10 years worth of time passes. Adverse possession I believe..
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I’m no lawyer but have had some dealings with this. There are some other criteria for adverse possession to be claimed and effective. A filing of fence of convenience I believe covers the landowner once it is known that the fence is off or when the fence is built off the property line.
 
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