Are we complete idiots?

[Happy20]

We have an ongoing issue with a boundary which isn't as easily answered as you would think! Basically the neighbors think a piece of land is there's when we are pretty sure it's ours.


When we brought our house the sellers said a meadow at the bottom of our drive was theirs, they mowed it and used it, even had a couple sheep on it once.
We moved in, all fine and dandy until the next weekend when neighbour is out there mowing the meadow. Very kind of him we think because obviously he is being neighbourly what with us having only just moved in. We think we've struck it rich with such lovely, thoughtful neighbours. Wife of neighbour comes round the next day with a welcome card and has a nice superficial chat. We thank her profusely for mowing our meadow and offer to help them out if they ever need a hand, well you can probably see where this is going. Neighbour tells us it's their meadow and there must have been a mix up. We explain what the old owners told us and she claims they ' must have been talking about another bit of land as it has always been theirs'. After much awkwardness and many protesting about how old neighbours must have pulled a fast one (without actually saying they have pulled a fast one) we leave it at we will talk to our solicitor and her being nice but increasingly frosty. I think she honestly thought we would just say it's fine and not bother with taking it any further. She seemed very out out that we would be talking to the solicitor and old owners solicitor.

Now is the massive issue!

Our house is very old, the deeds were lost a long time ago. We have insurance to cover the lack of deeds (can't remember what it's called but our solicitor insisted we needed this) and can see up to date deeds from our sale with the old owners, but cannot find anything further back than that.

So YABU - leave the neighbors to it. You brought a house with no deeds just hope they don't want to build on it.
YANBU - it's clearly your land and the are trying to pull a fast one.

We are waiting on a call back from our solicitor but in the meantime does anyone have any ideas where we might find really old, long list deeds? I would be forever grateful!!

[PurpleButterflyAway]

Happy20
No I mean brought. I deliberately used the incorrect word to try and get on your tits, did it work?

I think I love you

[MinecraftMother]

@Hingeandbracket

Didn't you just give him his half?

[MinnieMountain]

Ah, but that would be far too sensible @MinecraftMother. Much easier to just be annoyed with the conveyancer.

[Bannerwag66]

Do we think OP will provide an update on this?

[Evalina]

If there is no evidence of an owner or exclusive access to the meadow by either the former owner of your property or your neighbour, then you need to work out a plan going forward.

It might be possible for you and your neighbour to fence in half the meadow each, with exclusive access to your own halves. Then sit tight for 10 years (or whatever the qualifying period is) and then submit a claim to the Land Registry in the future. In the meantime you get to enjoy and use (half of) the meadow, and avoid a dispute with your neighbour.

If your neighbour has no direct access to the meadow other than through the gate on your property then you could probably just deny them access to that, but of course if their land adjoins the meadow they could just put in their own gate and presumably already have.

[EggysMom]

[quote MinecraftMother]@Hingeandbracket

Didn't you just give him his half?[/quote]
That would show the whole transaction going through Hingeandbracket's bank account and then a large amount going out - giving the potential for problems with the bank (money laundering) or the DWP (deprivation of capital). Far better to bank a cheque for the correct amount.

[Allmyeye]

How long did previous owners look after it for? Isn’t there something about after so long it becomes yours? In the dark recesses of my mind I’m thinking about a squatter getting a house after so long because he wasn’t served papers to remove him.

[Allmyeye]

Sorry looks like you’ve already had that discussion🙈

[species5618]

DogBowlSpaghetti
So solicitors can make mistakes then - sorry, couldn't resist commenting.