Neighbor robbing me blind

[lileean]

I lived in what they call a medium residential area where we share mailbox post with two mailboxes on it. The mailboxes are located everyother houses. We were lucky to have the mailbox sit on our property line. Recently, we noticed that the fence post was starting to rot and deteriorate. We elected to do the improvements ourselves and bought the wood and concrete and replace the post holding the mailbox with no intention of asking for half the cost from the neighbor since it was minor. The original mailboxes were put back into place. The one detail we did not add to the fence post was the 2x4 that sits underneath the mailbox. We used a 2x2 instead. Our neighbor whom we share the fence post with tells us that he did not like the new post and went on to talk about how he never liked the mailboxes from the beginning. My husband said he would put the 2x4 on to make him happy. A couple of days later, the neighbor approaches him and tells him that he will have the fence contractor add the minor detailing and that he had purchased two mailbox also so that we can match. (We were also having a shared fence shared fence replaced.) My husband did not offer to pay for the mailbox since we didn't ask for it. Days later, we came home to a new mailbox and the 2x4 detailing on the fence post. Now, we received a note from the neighbor asking us to pay for half the labor done by another contractor and the mailbox. We did not receive an estimate from this other contractor that they hire to do the work for them or consent to it.

We believe that the neighbors forced the improvement on us since they have now put the house on the market and is going through escrow. We did not talk about the other contractor nor did we receive any estimates notifying us of this work. There were no contracts made nor did we made any agreements during our conversations. It feels like we are being rob blindly from these people who have deceived us. We also don't have HOA or CCR since the neighborhood decided to abolish it. Can anyone tell me if it is right not to pay them? I'm in California.

If you did not specifically agree to the improvement and the cost then you need not pay.

And it's up to you if you want to compromise.