zero lot line shrubs

This may be a relatively uncommon situation, but I am hoping someone here can point me toward information. I have a fully detached house but, unusually, one side of it is a “zero lot line” (my wall is the property line, and the yard from there is fully the neighbor’s): https://fontanarchitecture.com/detached-semi-detached-attached-buildings/. That yard has a bunch of shrubs planted up against our wall, and we now need to access the wall for stucco repair and painting . The house recently sold, is uninhabited, I surmise about to undergo major renovations, so now is probably a good time for us to talk with the owners about all this shrubbery from the previous owner. In general, though, what are our rights and responsibilities? We will have to access our walls via their yard. If we tear out the bushes, do we have to replant them? Can the neighbor have bushes up against our house? Apparently the previous owners of our house and theirs had a 55 year dispute over this and I’d rather not repeat that history!