MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
As STW knows everything, I hope you can help with this one. Where I live there is a driveway which is shared with the house opposite. We each own half with right of access to the other. I would imagine that we own down the centreline but the deeds plan is 1:1250 and the line drawn on it is about 3mm thick! Scale that up and we're looking at a very wide boundary.
Anyway, there's a small bit of garden at the end of the drive. The walls and surface (gravel as opposed to grass) make it look like we own that bit of garden but the deeds show a straight line through the middle of it.
Anyway, getting to the point, there's a tree in that garden that sits slightly off to their side and it needs £200 worth of crown work to keep is sensible. The neighbour has implied it's our tree and I understand that since 1925, there is no common ownership of trees (the estate was built in the 1980s and the tree was planted then).
Is there any way to work out who owns the tree? If the neighbour is adament that it's ours, I'm happy with that as I imagine that it means that if the tree is ours and the driveway is defined by a straight line which must then go down their side of the tree, then the lions share of the drive is ours.
There's width for 1.5 cars to park at the end of it. If we have the lions share of the drive, then the parking is ours.
Silly I know but I'm just trying to pre-empt things. Hopefully, they'll be happy to cough up half and we'll keep using that parking space on the basis of whoever gets it first.
Land registry *might* have more detailed information if you go & ask them, but there's a lot of lawyers that are kept in business by boundary disputes.
[url= http://www.gardenlaw.co.uk/ ]gardenlaw[/url] might be the place to go for this one.
EDIT - as stoner says, mutual agreement (with documentation) is usually the cheapest way out of such things
It should be almost irrelevant exactly who owns what when the matter is so marginal. It is so much better for everyone to just talk it through, agree what it is you want to acheive (and if in your hearts you think your taking more than giving, then give some more) and work together.
Of course without some definitive legal documentation its often difficult to pass on any rights or responsibilities explicitly to whoever you may one day sell your house to, but while you're there, it makes much more sense for both you and your neighbour to always first think "Ill just go and ask Onzadog if he minds if I park my car there/or trim that hedge/or plant some shrubs down the driveway"
If he (or you) is genuinely unreasonable (as in you really dont think you can honestly "give" any more) then thats just unlucky. But your not going to get any luckier or richer going to court with it.
Not sure of how you work out who’s tree it is. But I do know that the lines drawn on the deeds are not the definitive boundary if there is a dispute.
The cost of having a definitive boundary legally drawn up would be more that the tree work cost.
the 1250 plan was from land registry. We pressed the solisitor on this issue when buying the house and that was the best she could get her hands on.
Will try gardenlaw, cheers.
I agree, compromise and common sense are what I'd prefer. I just want to make sure I'm aware in case it all goes south.
Get some string and pegs, mark out a straight line from what he describes as your side of the tree back to the property and ask him if he agrees that you've marked the boundary right, and therefore everything on your side is yours.
If he starts the old wavy line nonsense, you know what you're dealing with.
That's not a bad idea.
[img] http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTe8f6TV3MrqZHXaMOGxoqSTnJ9iKwntPWOD0tmeCi3dK4k0N0L&t=1 [/img]
Heads or tails?
Or you could perhaps settle it by gladiatorial combat? I believe the weapons of choice on the forum today are axes and samuri swords. Or you could opt for the more traditional pair of bombers each 😉
I like the idea of that. I reckon I'm both stronger and faster than the neighbour!
I can access some pretty detailed maps so happy to look your street up if you email me your postcode.
The path is probably set out in your deeds as shared, unless you want to pay for the upkeep of the majority of it I'd leave the path out of the discussion.
Cut it down yourself but 'accidentally' let it fall through their roof.
It's not a path, it's a drive way with parking at the end of it. Like most streets, parking is at a premium.
get him to put it in writing who's tree it is.
cut the tree down and claim the parking space.
if he complains tell him he said it was on your side therefore it's not on his property.