Fencing and Decking Editing and Proofreading Services

A fence goes up on a line the customer was confident about. Three weeks later the neighbour produces a deed plan, the posts are eleven inches inside their garden, and the fencing contractor is in the middle of an argument between two households that will outlast the fence. The customer said it was their boundary. Nobody wrote down that this was the customer's assertion rather than a surveyed fact.

We edit what fencing and decking businesses produce — quotations and their boundary assumptions, boundary and neighbour information for customers, access and working requirements documentation, planning, height and permitted development guidance, decking structural and drainage information, materials, treatment and expected life documentation, spoil, waste and reinstatement terms, guarantee documentation and its conditions, payment and deposit terms, and aftercare and maintenance guidance. Our editors work on the assumption a fence is built on.

The boundary assumption is the single most consequential line in a fencing quotation, and its failure is silence. A contractor who builds where the customer points has taken on a risk that belongs to the customer, and the customer does not know they have kept it. We write these so the quotation states, in the customer's own words, where they have said the boundary is and that the contractor is building to that line without independently verifying it — since this one sentence moves the risk back to where it belongs and costs nothing; so the customer is asked to speak to the neighbour before work starts, with a suggested form of words, given that most boundary disputes are between people who were never asked; so the position on the existing fence is recorded, covering who it belongs to, whether it is being replaced on the same line, and whether the posts are moving; so the practical facts of the line are stated — the offset, whether the posts sit on the line or inside it, and which side the rails face — because these are what neighbours actually complain about; so the height rules are explained with the front garden difference and what needs permission; so anything requiring access to the neighbour's side is identified before quoting, as a fence that cannot be built from one side is a different job; and so the contractor's position if a dispute arises is stated: work stops, nothing is removed, and the money owed is for what has been done. Quotations written this way keep a contractor out of other people's arguments.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including quotations, correspondence and customer information. We are editors rather than surveyors or legal advisers, and we offer no view on boundaries, ownership or planning. What we can do is record whose assumption the fence is built on.