A Storm Blew Down Your Fence. You Have 7 Years Before It Becomes Your Neighbour’s Problem

• Many Jamaican boundaries are marked by trees or hedges
• Storms can wash away or blow down those markers
• Left unchecked for 7+ years, a misplaced fence can shift the legal boundary
• Only a commissioned land surveyor can legally confirm boundary pegs

Many Jamaican property boundaries are marked not by surveyed pegs alone but by trees, hedges or growing fences, land surveyor Craig Francis wrote in a Gleaner column following Hurricane Matthew, markers that storms can blow down or wash away entirely. Left unaddressed, that loss of a physical marker creates a specific legal risk most homeowners don’t realise exists.

If a fence is blown so that it no longer sits on the boundary but instead straddles it, Francis explained, and that misplacement goes unchallenged for more than seven years, the Limitation of Actions Act can allow the fence’s actual position to become the new legal boundary, regardless of what the original survey and title plan say. You must deal with the issue with alacrity, he warned, because inaction has a real, time-limited legal consequence attached to it.

The correct fix is narrower than most homeowners assume: only a commissioned land surveyor can legally determine where boundary pegs actually sit, and attempting to replace them from memory, or by measuring with tape, is not just unwise but illegal. A surveyor’s report carries legal standing a homeowner’s own measurements never will, admissible as evidence in court if a dispute ever reaches that point, precisely the situation Jamaica’s Supreme Court has ruled on directly: in McKenzie v Fullerton, a 2026 case, the court weighed whether a defendant had acquiesced to a disputed boundary for more than seven years, and whether demolishing a boundary wall in that context constituted unlawful trespass, the exact scenario Francis’s storm-focused advice was written to help homeowners avoid.

For anyone whose property boundary was ever marked by vegetation or an informal fence rather than a surveyed, permanent structure, Francis’s practical guidance holds regardless of what caused the marker to disappear, storm, neglect, or a neighbour’s own actions: engage a commissioned surveyor promptly, get a formal Surveyors Identification Report, and re-erect any boundary structure only once its correct legal position has been confirmed, not estimated.

Follow Jamaica Homes on Youtube @jamaicahomes and Instagram @jamaica_homes and on Facebook @jamaicahomesnews Send us a message or email us at onlinefeedback@jamaica-homes.com or editor@jamaica-homes.com