The Bizarre Thing That's Illegal To Do On Your Property In Indiana

Land: What could be better? You've got your lawn, your house, a shrubbery or two, some sidewalks, a garage, cars in and/or out of the garage, a shed with rusted hinges, a little driveway, some of those blue plastic garbage bins along the road waiting for pickup, and of course ... that one, horrible, gossipy, jerkface, abrasive, nosy, intrusive neighbor that everyone hates. How do you deal with such a person? There's: 1) Ignore, 2) Play nice, or 3) Plot eternal vengeance. But in the case of 3), you can't antagonize the neighbor using a fence. At least not in Indiana, which has plenty of weird laws.  

That's right — in Indiana, you might be able to do what you please within the confines of your own four walls, but as soon as you step foot on the lawn, the law is in charge. No doubt having roots 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) erected; or (2) maintained; for the purpose of annoying the owners or occupants of adjoining property, is considered a nuisance." You hear that? It's a nuisance! For shame. But even though there's a whole article of Indiana's property code devoted to fences, and that article is specific enough to contain 10 chapters, the evaluation and enforcement of "spite fences" — as they're officially dubbed — is vague, to say the least.

So Indiana, let's be honest: What happened to you? Was there a slew of vengefully erected fences back in the day that led to some interlawn feuds involving higher and higher barriers meant to block the sun from directly striking a neighbor's home? Actually, such feuds needn't have happened back in the day, because the law code in question is a very recent addition dating to 2023. As the United States Census Bureau says, there's about 3,000,000 housing units in Indiana, with home owners accounting for about 70% of those, or about 2,100,000. That's a decent amount of standalone homes, but it doesn't seem enough to warrant excessive neighborly rage and/or passive aggressive non-brawls involving spite fences. (And believe it or not, there have been some even wilder neighbor disputes over the years).

Specifics about the law are, well, not specific. Section 2 (there are only two sections) further defines the consequences of "an owner or occupant injured either in the owner's or occupant's comfort or the enjoyment of the owner's or occupant's adjoining property." That's a lot of owners and occupants. Translation: The law focuses on the experience of the neighbor — the victim of the spite fence — whose "comfort" or "enjoyment" were diminished by the barrier in question, rather than focusing on the intent behind building it. Such an experience might incur legal "action" (undefined) regarding "damages in compensation for the nuisance" ("damages" are also undefined), the "abatement of the nuisance" (removing the fence, perhaps), and "all other remedies for the prevention of a nuisances." Yikes. Sounds like the lawmakers were speaking from personal experience.

Even though we're focusing on Indiana in this article, spite fence laws aren't exclusive to the state. They also aren't new. A 1958 report from the Chicago-based American Society of Planning Officials discusses the long history of spite fences up to that point, quoting the maxim: "Good fences make good neighbors until attempts are made by ordinance to restrict height or type of fence!" 

Twenty-one years before that, in 1937, the Kentucky Law Journal published an article titled "Statutory Regulation of Spite Fences in American Jurisdictions" that opens by talking about spite fences as commonplace. "Until late in the nineteenth century it was generally recognized in the United States that, in the absence of statute, one who erected or maintained a spite fence incurred no civil or criminal liability thereby," it reads. The article mentions "the most common statutory definition of the spite fence" passed in Massachusetts in 1887, imitated in other states like California, Maine. New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and, you guessed it: Indiana. Perhaps the 2023 version of Indiana's law is only the most recent update.

Nowadays, sites like Super Lawyers devote entire articles to doling out advice regarding the resolution of spite fence situations, including using mediation rather than a lawsuit. The rating service also cites one instance of an Indiana family building a 720-by-8-foot barrier in 2003 to defend their property from the neighbors' cats. But no worries: Judging by the law, you're totally in the clear so long as your spite fence doesn't rise higher than 6 feet tall.