What does English Common Law say about residential property fences?
Answers:
First issue: does the old English common law apply in your jurisdiction? Many jurisdictions have passed statutes which impose an equal duty to pay for and maintain the reasonable cost of a boundary fence constructed according to workmanlike standards and applicable zoning ordinances. If this applies to your property site, then it doesn't matter what English (or American) common law may have provided.
Having said this, the common law doctrine is that a boundary fence operates as an encroachment, for which the encroached-upon property owner is entitled to reasonable value. Simultaneously, however, the encroached-upon property owner receives an unjust benefit from the presence of the fence at the expense of the encroaching property owner, such that the encroaching property owner is entitled to just compensation.
The remedy is that the court will grant an easement to both property owners for the continued maintenance of the fence, and a charge to the encroached upon property for the reasonable value of the fence provided to that property.
It is equitable therefore, for you as the property owner who must suffer the less aesthetic and thus less valuable side of the fence, that you should pay less than one half of the value of the fence, because to do otherwise would unjustly enrich the other property owner.
Now, if you haven't paid anything for the value of the fence, and that fence is constructed in a reasonably workmanlike manner, then you would presently owe the other property owner for the benefit of the fence you have received, regardless of its less pleasing nature.
You are, of course, free to remedy this situation, by tacking up boards on your side of the railing at your own expense, and thereby making your side as aesthetically pleasing as the other.
If you do, then you would owe the other property owner only for one half of the construction of the posts and railing, and not for the costs of his/her fence boards, because at that point, you wouldn't be using those fence boards.
Other answers:
Obviously you have to fine out where the true property lines are. I had a similar problem and our city code stated if the fence prohibited you from accessing or using your property-they culd not erect it. Your city or township my have it's own laws concerning fences. They may even ask if the owner even got a permit to erect such a fence. Your problem is that he has the "ugly" side facing you. Basically, you're going to have to check with your city or township's building codes. Some cities are very particular. But based on my city's codes you wouldn't have too much to fall on based on it just being "ugly". You may have to find a better deFENSE. Sorry...coundn't resist. SEE YOUR CITY'S BUILDING CODES
Obviously you have to fine out where the true property lines are. I had a similar problem and our city code stated if the fence prohibited you from accessing or using your property-they culd not erect it. Your city or township my have it's own laws concerning fences. They may even ask if the owner even got a permit to erect such a fence. Your problem is that he has the "ugly" side facing you. Basically, you're going to have to check with your city or township's building codes. Some cities are very particular. But based on my city's codes you wouldn't have too much to fall on based on it just being "ugly". You may have to find a better deFENSE. Sorry...coundn't resist. SEE YOUR CITY'S BUILDING CODES
In the United States, nearly everyone builds their fences like this, with the ugly side facing their neighbors, and there is no law against it, so you would be seen as a "whiner" if you complained about it over here.