**  A second window aside called by the
She-philosopher.com page, entitled
“To the lawmakers responsible for California Assembly Bill 1404,
the Good Neighbor Fence Act of 2013”  **

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[ An HTML transcript of e-mail sent on 20 July 2016 follows, with recipients’ contact data removed to discourage spam. ]

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Subject:  Re: AB 1404, Chap. 86, Stats. 2013
From:  Deborah Taylor-Pearce <dtp@she-philosopher.com>
Date:  7/20/2016 1:51 PM
To:  Gershenzon, Leora <...>
CC:  Neves, Gina <...>, Smith-Davis, Alexandria <...>

On 7/19/2016 6:20 PM, Gershenzon, Leora wrote:
> Since the statute does not specifically
> state whether it applies to a fence
> located 21 inches back from the property
> line, a court would need to determine
> if a fence 21 inches from the property
> line constituted a fence dividing the
> properties.

This raises another question: does "the boundaries and monuments between them" of Cal. Civ. Code § 841(a) cover engineered grades as well as fences?

Our two subdivisions have different engineered grades, and the 21-inch clearing between subdivisions was never a flat surface, but an incline of about 3 feet in height. The original placement of the adjoining subdivision's boundary fencing was at the foot of the 21-inch-wide incline between subdivisions, thus marking and/or establishing the lower engineered grade of the new subdivision properties behind us.

Invariably, when that subdivision boundary fencing is removed, as has happened behind us, the engineered grade is tampered with by residents who now have direct access to the 21-inch-wide incline separating adjoining subdivisions, and are free to alter it as they please. In our case, residents' alterations of the incline (which they flattened out and made into a planter box) interfered with our subdivision drainage out back, causing problems for my subdivision neighbor to the south.

 

> AB 1404, which repealed and added
> Civil Code Sec 841, does the
> following: [snip]
> Anything else relating to fencing
> or enclosure of property was not
> addressed by AB 1404.

Yes. As I noted on p. 5 of 7 of my Memorandum to Small Claims Judge

http://she-philosopher.org/RA/SCCcase/TaylorPearce-v-Lewis_memo-to-judge.pdf

(and as you note in your response to my 4th question) the original law included language regarding enclosure, which I have always interpreted as providing for just compensation when one property owner "incloses" "his land" with the adjoining property owner's "division fence."

Strictly speaking, the stretch of wall at the back of my property is not a shared "division fence," because we intentionally located it (in 1999) on our private property, not on our subdivision boundary line. So I have never been clear if/how the original law governing enclosure applied (this whole mess I'm dealing with now, caused by predatory neighbors, pre-dates the changes to the law made in 2013, and I was originally working from the 140-year-old statute when I first sought, back in 2011, to understand my rights & obligations under California state law).

Because the enclosure issue is so important to my case (and to many of us living in urban and suburban areas), I am curious why the legislature deleted all references to enclosure from the new law?

I expected this important part of the original law to have been updated and clarified, not simply ignored.

Deborah
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Deborah Taylor-Pearce
dtp@she-philosopher.com