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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
- Short title.
- Application of Act.
PART II
FENCING COURTS
- Fencing courts.
- Fencing courts to be courts of record.
- Proceedings to be in public.
- Representation of parties.
- Summoning of witnesses and privileges thereof.
- Witnesses failing to attend or refusing to be sworn or to give evidence.
- Witnesses giving false evidence.
- Contempt of fencing courts.
- Appeals from decisions of fencing courts.
PART III
CONSTRUCTION AND REPAIR OFDIVIDING FENCES
- Proportions in which adjoining owners to contribute to cost of dividing fences.
- Owners wishing adjoining owners to contribute to cost of dividing fences may serve contribution notices.
- Service of contribution summonses.
- Inquiries to be held into applications for contribution orders.
- Making of contribution orders.
- Matters to be considered by fencing courts.
- Persons on whom contribution orders to be served.
- Debtor owners may apply for amendment or revocation of contribution orders.
- Certificates of compliance with contribution orders.
- Failure to comply with contribution orders or directions penalised.
- Manner in which creditor owners may recover unpaid balances of contributions.
- Lines of dividing fences.
- Obligation of adjoining owners on damage to or destruction of dividing fences.
PART IV
OFFENCESRELATINGTO FENCES
- Interpretation in Part IV.
- Wilful damage to or destruction or removal of fences.
- Breach of duty by persons damaging or destroying fences.
- Persons failing to shut or fasten gates.
- Unauthorised climbing over or crawling through or under fences.
- Powers of owners or occupiers of land or of authorised persons.
PART V
GENERAL
- Powers of persons constructing or repairing dividing fences.
- 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—