Country: What could be better? You have your lawn, your house, a bush or two, a few sidewalks, a garage, cars in and/or out of the garage, a shed with rusted hinges, a small driveway, and some of those blue plastic curbside trash cans waiting for pickup waits, and of course…that horrible, talkative, idiotic, aggressive, nosy, intrusive neighbor that everyone hates. How do you deal with a person like that? There are: 1) ignore, 2) play nice or 3) plot eternal revenge. But in case 3) you can't annoy the neighbor with a fence. At least not in Indiana, where there are a lot of strange laws.
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That's right – in Indiana, you may be able to do whatever you want in your own home, but once you step on the lawn, the law takes over. Undoubtedly rooted in the squabbles of the most annoying suburban neighbors, Indiana Code § 32-26-10-1 reads: “A structure in the nature of a fence, unnecessarily exceeding six (6) feet in height, maliciously: (1) is constructed; or (2) is maintained so as to cause a nuisance to the owners or occupants of adjacent properties.” Do you hear that? It's a nuisance! Out of shame. But even though there is an entire article of Indiana real estate law devoted to fences, and that article is specific enough to span ten chapters, the assessment and enforcement of “spite fences” — as they are officially called — is mild said vaguely.
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No “defiant fences” allowed
So Indiana, let's be honest: what happened to you? Were there a lot of vindictively erected fences back in the day that led to a few feuds between lawns over ever-higher barriers to keep the sun from hitting a neighbor's house directly? Actually, there need not have been such feuds back then, as the legal code in question is a very new addition from 2023. According to the United States Census Bureau, there are approximately 3,000,000 housing units in Indiana, and homeowners account for approximately 70% of them, or approximately 2,100,000. While that's a sizable number of detached houses, it doesn't seem to be enough to justify excessive neighborhood anger and/or passive-aggressive brawls without fences. (And believe it or not, there have been some even wilder neighbor disputes over the years).
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Details of the law are, well, not specific. Section 2 (there are only two sections) further defines the consequences if “an owner or occupier interferes with either his or her comfort or the use of the owner or occupier's adjoining property.” That's a lot of owners and occupiers. Translation: The law focuses on the experience of the neighbor – the victim of the defiant fence – whose “comfort” or “enjoyment” has been compromised by the barrier in question, rather than the intent behind the construction of that barrier. Such an experience could involve legal “action” (undefined) relating to “damages to compensate for the nuisance” (“damages” is also undefined), “elimination of the nuisance” (perhaps removal of the fence), and “any other remedies “To prevent harassment.” Yikes. Sounds like the lawmakers were speaking from personal experience.
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A Long American History of Neighborhood Problems
Although we're focusing on Indiana in this article, defiant fence laws don't just apply to the state. They're not new either. A 1958 report by the Chicago-based American Society of Planning Officials discusses the long history of fences up to that point and cites the maxim: “Good fences make good neighbors until an attempt is made to restrict the height or type of fence by regulation !”
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Twenty-one years earlier, in 1937, the Kentucky Law Journal published an article entitled “Statutory Regulation of Spite Fences in American Jurisdictions,” which initially suggested that spit fences were commonplace. “Until the end of the 19th century, it was generally accepted in the United States that, in the absence of a law, whoever erected or maintained a protective fence could not be held liable, civil or criminal,” it says. The article mentions “the most common legal definition of the defiant fence,” which was passed in Massachusetts in 1887 and replicated in other states such as California and Maine. New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Wisconsin and, you guessed it: Indiana. Perhaps the 2023 version of the Indiana law is just the latest update.
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Today, sites like Super Lawyers devote entire articles to distributing advice on resolving conflict situations, including using mediation instead of a lawsuit. The appraisal service also cites a case in which an Indiana family built a 720-by-8-foot barrier in 2003 to protect their property from neighbors' cats. But don't worry: according to the law, you are completely in the clear as long as your safety fence is no higher than 1.80 m.