Good fences make good neighbors

There’s an old saying that good fences make good neighbors, but in rural Iowa fencing issues can drive a wedge between neighboring landowners. A new bill written by Rep. Greg Heartsill, R-Columbia, is intended to eliminate concerns over those disputes.

By law, rural Iowans are required to split the cost of a fence to separate their property from their neighbors, whether or not they want the fence. Typically, both parties agree to the “right hand rule,” where each landowner stands side by side at the middle of the boundary.

Landowners pay the cost of installing and maintaining the fence to their right, but the practice isn’t part of Iowa code and some landowners have raised complaints about the practice. Heartsill’s bill, signed into law earlier this month by Gov. Kim Reynolds aims to help landowners settle disputes among one another.

When two landowners can’t agree on the construction of a fence, township trustees are called in to intervene. There are four county townships in Jasper County: Sherman Township, Newton Township, Palo Alto Township and Hickory Grove Township. Township trustees who settle disagreements are known as “fence viewers.”

“The fence viewers are the ones that help the landowners agree to the terms of how the fence is going to be constructed,” Heartsill said.

While the process has been in place for years, Heartsill said input from constituents led him to look at modifying the law. Some landowners have expressed concern that they didn’t receive a fair hearing because one or more of the fence viewers may have a conflict of interest in the case. Heartsill’s bill requires the township clerk to appoint fence viewers without a conflict of interest, something he’s hoping will reduce complaints about the process.

“We’re trying to resolve the conflict before it comes to the fence viewers,” Heartsill said. “This code section would require the township clerk to appoint new fence viewers that do not have a conflict of interest.”

The bill also helps landowners resolve other issues regarding fencing in rural areas. Heartsill said he had a constituent approach him last summer who was unhappy about a ruling he’d received from the fence viewers. The landowner’s neighbor wanted to split the cost of a fence, but the section the landowner needed to enclose was wet, marshy ground where it would have been difficult to build a fence. After looking at the site himself, Heartsill, who owns a commercial fencing company said he believed it would have been difficult to maintain the fence over the terrain.

“Looking at it as a contractor, it just didn’t make any sense,” Heartsill said. “He didn’t want the fence and didn’t have livestock, he got the more expensive, hard part of the section to put up.”

Under the new legislation, property lines can be moved to an area where it’s feasible to construct a fence. Creating a “carve out” around difficult terrain will come at the expense of the landowner who wants the fence, a move that’s designed to protect landowners who aren’t interested in having a fence on their property line, Heartsill said.

“That’s typically where you have controversy, because yeah the line is right here, but you’re never going to be able to maintain it over time,” Heartsill said.

Palo Alto Township Trustee Rick Nearmyer said while disagreements that require fence viewers to get involved aren’t a regular occurrence. A trustee for more than 12 years, he’s been called in as a fence viewer twice, but he was also was involved in a fencing dispute of his own.

“Other than my own I’ve just had two the whole time I’ve been on,” Nearmyer said. “Neither one I had to view I just had to step in and tell them how it was supposed to be.”

When a faulty survey misidentified the boundary between Nearmeyer’s property and a neighbors, the neighbor paid to have her fence moved 6 feet over from the site of the existing fence, even though the previous boundary line had been set more than 80 years earlier.

“She left it where it was, she said there was nothing I could do about it because it was a survey deal,” Nearmyer said. “When she bought the ground they surveyed it, but they took six feet off the wrong place.”

To resolve the dispute both Nearmyer and the adjoining landowner hired attorneys. The other landowner accused Nearmyer of unduly influencing the decision due to his role as a township trustee. Nearmyer’s mother also serves as the county clerk in Palo Alto Township.

“We had to get an attorney, it was a big fiasco,” Nearmyer said. “One of the other trustees is the landlord of the ground I farm, they [the opposing landowner] said it was one-sided, but it wasn’t.”

As a fencing contractor Heartsill said he’s been in the middle of fencing disputes before, those encounters helped shape his understanding of the issue. The bill found broad bipartisan support in the House as well as the Senate, Heartsill said he believes fencing issues have long been a point of contention for legislators who represent rural areas. Heartsill said he didn’t expect the bill to pass this year, he just wanted to start the conversation.

“The thing is when I brought the bill forward it actually surprised me with the rate of speed that it moved through the legislature,” Heartsill said. “I was pleasantly surprised and I had several legislators that were attorneys in their day job, they shared their own anecdotal stories where this happened with their law practice.”

Contact David Dolmage at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or ddolmage@newtondailynews.com