CHAPTER 20:06

FENCING ACT

Acts 45/1976, 15/1981, 29/1981, 20/1982, 8/1988, 9/1997 (s. 10), 22/2001 (s. 4).

ARRANGEMENT OF SECTIONS

PART I

PRELIMINARY Section

1. Short title.
3. Application of Act.

PART II

FENCING COURTS

4. Fencing courts.
5. Fencing courts to be courts of record.
6. Proceedings to be in public.
7. Representation of parties.
9. Summoning of witnesses and privileges thereof.
10. Witnesses failing to attend or refusing to be sworn or to give evidence.
11. Witnesses giving false evidence.
12. Contempt of fencing courts.
14. Appeals from decisions of fencing courts.

PART III

CONSTRUCTION AND REPAIR OFDIVIDING FENCES

15. Proportions in which adjoining owners to contribute to cost of dividing fences.
16. Owners wishing adjoining owners to contribute to cost of dividing fences may serve contribution notices.
17. Service of contribution summonses.
18. Inquiries to be held into applications for contribution orders.
19. Making of contribution orders.
20. Matters to be considered by fencing courts.
21. Persons on whom contribution orders to be served.
22. Debtor owners may apply for amendment or revocation of contribution orders.
23. Certificates of compliance with contribution orders.
24. Failure to comply with contribution orders or directions penalised.
25. Manner in which creditor owners may recover unpaid balances of contributions.
26. Lines of dividing fences.
27. Obligation of adjoining owners on damage to or destruction of dividing fences.

PART IV

OFFENCESRELATINGTO FENCES

28. Interpretation in Part IV.
29. Wilful damage to or destruction or removal of fences.
30. Breach of duty by persons damaging or destroying fences.
31. Persons failing to shut or fasten gates.
32. Unauthorised climbing over or crawling through or under fences.
33. Powers of owners or occupiers of land or of authorised persons.

PART V

GENERAL

34. Powers of persons constructing or repairing dividing fences.
35. Regulatory powers of Minister.

AN ACT to establish fencing courts and to confer on them certain powers and functions; to regulate the alteration, construction, relocation, repair or replacement of dividing fences; to create certain offences in relation to fences; and to provide for matters incidental to or connected with the foregoing.

[Date of commencement: 1st February, 1977.]

PART I

PRELIMINARY

1    Short title

This Act may be cited as the Fencing Act [Chapter 20:06].

                       2    Interpretation

• In this Act—

“applicant owner” means an owner of land who has applied for a contribution order;

“clerk of court” means the clerk of court attached to the appropriate magistrates court referred to in section four;

“construct” includes, in the case of a hedge, plant;

“contribution notice” means a notice referred to in subsection (1) of section sixteen or subsection (2) of section twenty-seven;

“contribution order” means an order made in terms of paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of section nineteen;

“contribution summons” means a contribution summons issued in terms of subsection (3) of section sixteen;

“cost”, in relation to the construction or repair of a fence, includes the cost of any— (a)   clearance in terms of paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section thirty-four;

(b)   survey made for the purpose of that construction or repair;

“creditor owner” means an owner of land in whose favour a contribution order has been made; “debtor owner” means an owner of land against whom a contribution order has been made:

“dividing fence” means a fence separating the adjoining pieces of land of different owners;

“fence” includes—

• any gate, grid track, other than a grid on a main road as defined in the Roads Act [Chapter

13:12], or stile and any other means of passage over or through the fence concerned; and

• any ditch, hedge, railings or wall used as a fence;

“fencing court” means a fencing court referred to in section four;

“local authority” means a municipal council, town council, local board or rural district council;

“Minister” means the Minister of Lands and Water Resources or such other Minister to whom the President may, from time to time, assign the administration of this Act;

“occupier”, in relation to a piece of land, subject to subsection (2), means the person, other than the owner, who—