Boundary Disputes & The Land Registry

I recently bought a property that backs onto an open car parking area without any boundary walls or fences. The Land Registry plans show that I own a strip of it – difficult to tell from the plan – probably about 8ft – but my neighbour claims to own all of it.

The Land Reg plan of his property also shows that I own a strip, and he can’t seem to be able to show me any documentation that the land has been conveyed to him or the previous owners of his property at any time.

He claims that the LR plans are wrong, is this possible? I’ve managed to track down the original deeds of title for my property which might clarify things, but I’m not going to get them for a week or 2, but is LR information open to interpretation? If we need to lawyers involved (which I’d like to avoid) how much weight do LR plans carry?

He’s obviously going for an adverse posession of the land – he’s fenced it and gravelled it all – but he’s only owned the property for 2-3 years.

Ta
Snigle
:o)

Have you asked him why he believes he owns it?

Yes, but not got a proper answer out of him yet. I’ve not met him face to face yet and I don’t really want to start challenging on the phone or by letter. I’d rather see if we can sort it amicably first and I think that’s better done in person rather than in writing.

I’m not after altering anything but I do need access to a drain he installed across my land. My solicitor wrote to him during the conveyancing to assert ownership, that’s why he’s questioning it.

anything up a meter is open to dispute, so if the boundary has moved 8 ft it should be a bit more clear. see what the plans say, then see what his response is. if he won’t back down it’s going to get awkward, so after that i’d get a solicitor to write him a letter in the first instance, asking him to remove the fence from your property.
bu66er.

buy leylandii, they’re great fun!

Thanks Del, he’s not put a fence on my land, it’s an open area and he’s put a gate across the entrance.

He has, however, put an inspection chamber on my bit, and run a sewer diagonally across it to gain access to the mains sewer. There’s no deed of easement, so I suppose I could potentially make life difficult for him (though I’m not planning to!).

I need to reroute my sewer and the easiest way would be to enter his. This would mean putting an inspection cover on his land. I’m going to try and persuade him to go along with an informal arrangement in which he leaves his sewer access on my land and he lets me put one on his. I might draw something up to say that we will both grant easement in future if either of us sell our property.

Is this the right way to go about it?

Snigle
:o)

Update: The guy’s an idiot. I’ve scanned the plans and emailed them to him and on one hand he says the plans are wrong, and on the other he says I’m misinterpreting them.

As far as I’m concerned, the land was conveyed to me last year and I have the plans etc to prove it. Is the onus on him to prove otherwise?

I could really do without racking up more solicitors’ fees…

Snigle
:o)

Contact your local authority. one of their planners will help you for free

Snigletrack, there is no interpretation on Land Registry. If LR shows you own a piece of land, it is set in stone unless the other guy can produce solid documentation to prove there was an error with registration. If the other guy’s LR details also show you own it, he has absolutely no case at all.

Would suggest you spend £100 or so to get a solicitor to write a letter setting out the legal position, but that you intend to allow him permanent easement for his drain as a covenant in your deeds. So he knows you mean business, you should probably add that if he does not accept this course of action you will take legal action which will involve him losing the land anyway but also having to pay your legal fees

Thanks Captain, probably good advice. I’ve been at pains to avoid making anything that could be interpreted as a threat as I know that’s the best way force a dialogue breakdown!

However, I think it’s going to start getting messy soon. I need to make him understand that I’m not interested in knowing the exact position of the boundary at this point, it’s largely irrelevant. But he wants to use the drain issue as leverage to get me to agree that he owns it all.

The main problem with the LR plans is that they’re 1:2500 scale, so it’s impossible to get accurate measurements. It also doesn’t accurately show the exact shape of the buildings, though the open strip of land is clearly marked.

Fingers crossed that when I get the old deeds (that I’ve tracked down to a solicitor who conveyed the property 10 years ago), they’ll clarify the position. I suspect he’s banking on those having gone missing.

If he won’t cooperate with the drainage issues, I’m just going to run my drains into the inspection chamber he’s installed on my land, then he’ll be forced to prove that it’s not mine. It’s not ideal from a drainage POV but it would solve the problem.

You might get some decent info from the forums at Garden Law[/url] – there’s folks on there that know as much about that sort of stuff as the folks here do about riding bikes. Oh dear!

In England all property transactions had to be registered with LR from (I think) sometime in the 70’s so you can trace anything back through there if needed. I would be surprised if there wasn’t something of a scale reasonable enough to be accurate to a metre or so somewhere in those transaction records

maps of any sort, unfortunately, mean nothing as far as establishing boundaries. a rough guide yes in that they could show features that you could use, but exact in terms of measuring off no.

you can get someone out from the land registry (i think) that will determine the exact bounday but your neighbours will be notified beforehand.

the other issue you could have is the carpark. if this comes under highway authority the you may well own the land but highyways have an unarguable right over it.

sad to say but if you get into a bunfight it will be eye wateringly expensive.

I’m involved (professionally) in a number of boundary disputes.
The first thing to remember is that the plan with the registered title is based upon ‘general boundaries’, i.e. it is not precise.
Second, whilst on the face of it the actual land transferred to you as part of the registered transfer should be as it appears on the title docs, including plan, this may not be the case. For example, it may be that the registered title when first drawn up contained an error which has been repeated ever since, so that the plan for your title in fact contains land that it ought never to have been included. IN these circumstances, the LR ought to provide you with an ‘indemnity’ to compensate you for your loss.
So, you will need to look a lot further than the registered title to be sure about what land is in fact within your title. I have been involved in too many cases where this has been overlooked – this costs!
There are also other issues such as squatters rights, basically possession of another’s land for 12 plus years, which may be relevant.
The best thing to do is to see a solicitor with expertise in this area. I can’t stress this enough as most general practitioners will not be much help, believe me.
Finally, avoid Court proceedings at all costs. If there is a dispute, the Land Reg can determine the definitive boundary. Court costs over a couple of feet, even inches, can be about £40,000 on each side!
Good luck

Cheers Downsman, advice taken on board. Want to avoid spending money unnecessarily!

Thanks for that link Purist, I’ve posed the question on there…

Snigle
:o)

As Downsman states the Land Registry may have inadvertantly made a mistake and carried it over. As a slight aside LR are currently diigitising all the boundaries so that eventually you will be able to access a digital version of your property overlaid onto an OS map.

Send the Israelis in

So, you will need to look a lot further than the registered title to be sure about what land is in fact within your title.

sorry to hijack the thread a little, but downsman is there any chance you could you elaborate on this a little and possibly suggest what means are available beyond the registered title to try and establish a boundary?

i have a light boundary issue myself and whilst amicable i would be interested to know if its possible myself to exactly find the correct ‘line in the sand’.

many thanks

Sure. You want to ask the Land Reg for all of the underlying conveyancing docs that they have, in particular the deeds used on first registration of your registered title and any amendments thereto. You ought to do this for your property and the neighbouring ones. If the dispute concerns user of the land in dispute, you want to try to ask locally about the use of the land and to try to obtain photos etc. Cheers.

I had a dispute regarding boundary and I had a surveyor mark out boundary and the guy doing it said that land registry maps only have a tolerance to about +/- 1 metre.
Anyway to get to the point as boundary dispute was in regards to building work being carried out it was put in the hands of building control to sort out.
Two years on and very little has happened and I am a few grand out of pocket.

HTH

To be honest, the size of this strip of land is largely irrelevent to me, I wouldn’t have vehicular access to it as there’s no easement or right of access over his gateway. It’s only that the solicitor brought this to light that there’s any dispute.

That said, I’m certainly not going to relinquish it if I own it as it’s vital access to my property for maintenance etc.

I understand about LR plans being inaccurate, but I think the fact that it clearly illustrates a strip of open land between my house’s back wall and the boundary – rather than the wall being marked as the outer extent of my boundaries – there is definitely some of it that belongs to me.