Johnson County, KS Fence Regulations: Neighbor Fence Rules (2026)

Sec. A. 29-201 et seq. When a boundary fence dispute arises, the county manager first has the legal department confirm the request is valid, then selects three county employees, preferably ones with background in fences, real estate, boundary lines, or agricultural land use, to serve as fence viewers. The viewers must notify the property owners of the inspection date, and owners may submit written materials up to five days before the site visit. Because the fence viewers act as designees of the board of county commissioners, the viewing itself is conducted as an open meeting under the Kansas Open Meetings Act, and any member of the public may attend, though public comment is not taken at the site.

Property owners get to walk the fence line with the viewers, explain their position, and point out the disputed sections; the viewers may ask questions but must give every owner a chance to answer. After the viewing, owners have five more business days to submit supplemental material, and within ten business days the fence viewers meet, in another open meeting, to vote on proposed findings and a recommendation. Those findings go on the board of county commissioners' agenda, where the board may adopt the recommendation as submitted, modify it, or reject it and send the viewers back to reconsider.

The county manager oversees the whole process and may adopt additional procedural rules. Nothing in Sec. 18-2 sets a fence height, material, or placement standard; those dimensional questions fall under the county's separate zoning and subdivision regulations, a different Municode part not included in this chapter.