NEIGHBOUR CROSSED THE BOUNDARY BEFORE EXCHANGE

Following this as im outraged on your behalf. You've been very calm about all this, I for one would have contacted everyone as soon as I saw the wall was gone and probably gone to the neighbours myself, id be out taking pictures and making a point im aware property has been stolen

In my experience of moving house you need to become an absolute thorn in the side of everyone involved, if you want to get things done with any urgency. Don’t assume any of them will just get on with the job they’re paid to do. It’s bloody exhausting, but necessary and does yield results.

Good look OP, absolutely rooting for you!

I’m sorry to disagree, but I’d be going straight to my solicitors and insisting they communicate directly with the vendor’s solicitors/auction house. The estate agents are only interested in their commission, this is in a different league, I would think.

I'd specifically contact estate agents and tell them to make contact with sellers and say that you're also notifying auction house too. That this will hold up sale and they need to be notified ASAP

Good. I'm glad that you're being proactive.

The auction house simply has to get this sorted out, since the property is no longer what you bid on.

Agree with @confusedaboutetiquette at 20:55. You’re going to have to run with it yourself and push hard, since the “professionals” are not taking it seriously enough.

This.

Sorry I haven’t read through everything here OP but we sold (quite recently) beneath the shadow of the actions of a similarly awful neighbour as sellers we moved heaven and earth. We issued a strongly worded and accurate letter from our solution rebutting the neighbour’s claims, and threatened that if mediation didn’t succeed we’d instruct barristers. In such a situation he’d have been liable for costs of 50k + as well as his own. Despite his bluster about having deep pockets he eventually saw sense and signed a boundary agreement stating that were the rightful owners of the contested drive We always knew this. But the buyers’ solicitors rightly wanted a formal agreement. You, OP, should be demanding nothing less (via your solicitor). And the sellers ought to be sweating to make this happen.

OP, do you know if the sellers know? And yes for the EA to say "going on holiday" would not be acceptable in ordinary circs. In these circs its definitely taking the piss.

if it’s an auction - you don’t exchange so what do you mean?

So you need to go back to the estate agent in the morning and ask who is dealing with this urgent matter on her behalf, whilst she's on annual leave?

The estate agent did come back to say she's on leave from today till early next week and will look in to it as soon as she's back. So, there's that..

That is not OK. This is urgent. You need to tell her that a days of delay here is unacceptable. What do you think happens if people are away or ill? There are other people in the firm who can deal with it.

She needs to pass the file to someone else. I can't believe that you didn't go straight back on this.

If your position is you want this house and don't want it to fall through, you need to be pushing everyone.

The sellers are in the power position here because they own the land and are highly motivated to sort it out because they want to sell quickly.

We jumped through so many hoops to get our dream house. I'm so invested in you getting yours. Please keep us updated, we are rooting for you 🙏

And if all else fails bearing in mind that solicitors are expensive, get a RIBA qualified surveyor in. They will map the boundaries to the inch noting historical mapping and current boundaries stated as well as satellite imagery. RIBA surveys stand up to court scrutiny too and may well cost less that 3 hours of legal wrangling. In the meantime, get land registry details. Just to say that I have had personal experience of using a RIBA surveyor with two current neighbours and the best 300.00 spent to

I wonder if it's a fully qualified solicitor or a conveyancer who only deals in property transfers.
We were once buying a house and it seemed to be dragging, when we drove by the house they were having new windows fitted! When we knocked at the door they said they'd told their solicitor that they had decided to stay put. Our solicitor and their solicitor blamed each other for not telling us.

When the sellers find out they will need to decide whether to go through a lengthy and expensive process of reclaiming the land and reinstating the boundary, or the lengthy and expensive process of pulling out of the auction, changing the deeds to reflect the new boundary and relisting.

How much difference does it make to the garden of the house you are looking to buy? If you can manage without the strip of land, I’d consider what price reduction you’d take to accept it as it is. If that figure is in keeping with the cost to the seller of fixing or relisting, they may well go for it.

@Toptotoe it’s the SRA not the Law Society, once you’ve followed a firm’s complaints procedure. All OP’s solicitor has done wrong so far is be a bit slow.

Pull out. You don't want to live next door to these people.

OP, you need to be making this a huge problem for the Auction house..

Include a recording of where they have interfered with the property.

Create a huge paper trail for yourself.

Also consider Small Claims Court if the cost is under their threshold to put right.

People are very surprised by how useful the Smalls Claim court is.

I'd back out and lose the deposit or whatever is at stake.

UNLESS it is all legalised by completion date. It might be the house of your dreams now, but it might not be once you move in even if neighbour reinstates the grabbed land. Personally I'd hate to have to look out my window every morning to make sure there were no further incursions overnight, or when I was away.

Sorry for sounding so negative. Those are just my feelings on what I personally would do based on what you have described so far.

Good luck either way and I do hope it will be resolved to your satisfaction.

I would tell her what you want her to do:

Contact the auction company - raise the issue with them.
Contact the sellers - raise the issue with them.
Hit pause on any time-sensitive stuff.
Contact the sellers neighbours if appropriate with a Letter Before Action.

Often that gets things moving!

Presumably, even though you went via auction, currently what you bought isn’t what is available so the contract is null and void so you can walk away and keep your deposit? I’d point that out to the auction people/sellers and insist it is sorted otherwise you won’t be signing anything.

I would tell her you are going to get the Law Society involved if she doesn’t respond.
personally I would thinking of losing the money and then look into making a claim against your solicitor due to her negligence