Cost coverage for fencing that is not desired

So with us, from the street side, there is always the obligation to fence on the right side upon request and then bear the costs alone (but you can decide on your own), only front and rear neighbors have to agree.

Our rear neighbor didn’t want any fencing at all, but my wife has an extreme need for security and protection and the dog has an incredible urge for freedom, so of course we built a fence at our own expense (on our property, not on the boundary) and didn’t even demand half of it. Maybe now he just does whatever he wants and pays for everything? I would wait and watch to make sure that whatever the garden landscaper builds now doesn’t end up on the boundary or even on your property and of course pay nothing that exceeds the amount for half of a chain-link fence. But as I said, maybe he doesn’t want anything anymore and expects in return that you don’t interfere with what he is having built there now. And I would actually let it slide if he now puts up a 1.80m double rod mesh fence with printed privacy bands. You can still plant nicely on your side.

I would prepare in such a way that I would commission a landscaping gardener of my choice to create an offer according to legal requirements. And that at the minimum standard. I would also compensate the gardener for his time, and to the neighbor, in case he remains stubborn, I would show exactly this offer and promise him half of the cost coverage. With that, you would have already set the price anchor. The mood is already bad anyway, and such "claimants" always demand more and more in the end.

So I don’t know, but my idea of living nicely together isn’t to annoy the new neighbors right away with a fence (by the way, that’s kind of like saying I actually don’t want to have anything to do with you): I would have wished he’d come over, say hello kindly, and after some small talk say, "And by the way, at some point we need to talk about the fence and what we want to do there. But first, come over." At least that’s my naive idea...
But unfortunately no, to be clear I was addressed with the wording: "We have now commissioned a garden landscaper to fence in the property. It’s common to split the costs in half, will you take that on then?"

I see you pathologically locked in your perception of the neighbor as an unempathetic aggressor who violates you with his impatience. Whenever some understanding for your "other side" arises here, you rather bring up more arguments for him being a nasty jerk instead of cooling off for a moment. The stubborn blockhead is of course always the other person; it would be better if you shared the fence or hedge than the recognition that two parties are always involved in a disagreement.

Oh, I’m glad I didn’t build a semi-detached house – exactly for that reason: One says this, the other that, and everyone thinks they’re more important than the other. There is no genuine togetherness.

The semi-detached house problem is rather rooted in if and that on such a neighbor boundary both sides have not yet made peace with not having gotten a fully detached house lot. Then it is projected onto the basically fellow sufferer that fate is like this. My stupid twin brother is to blame for me not being an only child. Why should Karl-Heinz and Horst-Kevin be doing better than Jacob and Esau or Cain and Abel?

Here a great neighborhood dispute is brewing, which will certainly keep some lawyers busy.

Questions of taste regarding the fence aside, on your own property you can do whatever you want within the framework of laws and regulations. And so, for example, the situation arises here with us that we will plant a hedge in front of the neighbor’s fence, which is probably not so uncommon. Simply so that you don’t have to look at the damn ugly double rod panel with plastic weaving in anthracite your whole life.

That you lose a meter of your property because you have to leave space behind the hedge for trimming, well, that’s my problem.

It’s similar for you, right?
Pay your share for the standard fence according to the law and that’s that. It’s not just a disadvantage; you are immediately spatially separated from your neighbor, who apparently has no interest in fence conversations anyway.

And in that form it’s even cheaper for you than if the landscaper had to come again at the end to work on the fence between the properties. And possibly he can no longer get into the garden easily with the excavator or will damage the nice new lawn.
If the neighbor wants more money, just tell him to forget it. He can sue, but will probably have little chance of success... and therefore won’t do it.

The landscaper has the contract with the neighbor, he hired him, he has to pay him and thus advance the costs.

By the way, it was the same for us.
One day the neighbor showed up at the door and said, “We need to talk about a fence...”
I dismissed it without comment, and in the end he had the fence built and paid for it himself; in return he was allowed to put it directly on the border, and I didn’t complain about that. Since then I haven’t spoken to him anymore, he has no interest on his part, and thanks to the fence I don’t see him when I work in the garden... win-win.

.... You do not have to leave space behind the hedge for trimming; the neighbor is allowed to cut on their side anything that extends over to them.