If the fence sits on the boundary and both properties use it, Texas generally treats it as shared, and shared usually means shared responsibility. If it sits wholly inside one lot, it belongs to that owner. The survey decides it, not the assumption, and we are describing common practice rather than giving legal advice.
Most boundary disputes we get called into start with two neighbours who each assumed the fence was the other’s problem. The only document that settles it is a survey. Your mortgage file often has one, and it will show whether the fence is on the line or a foot inside it.
Talk to the neighbour first, agree in writing who pays what, and agree which way the finished side faces before anyone digs. Turning a run around after it is built means pulling every picket. If you cannot reach agreement, building wholly inside your own line is the clean answer, at the cost of a few inches of yard.
This is how these jobs normally run in the Dallas metro. It is not legal advice, and a genuine boundary dispute is worth a real survey and a property attorney.
Not unilaterally. Absent an agreement or an HOA rule requiring it, a neighbour cannot simply invoice you for a fence they chose to build. Shared cost is normally something both parties agree to before the work starts.
Usually yes on the face that is on your property, though an HOA may specify colour. Doing anything structural to a shared fence is different, and worth agreeing first.
It happens constantly and mostly nobody minds. It only becomes a problem at sale, when a survey shows the encroachment. Rebuilding to the true line is the durable fix.
We walk the property, give you a straight price, and show you how it is built underneath.