Boundary issue

[WayneCampbellsSidekick]

Not long after moving into our house last year our neighbours asked me if she could access the garden for something she couldn’t reach from her side. I had a tantrumming toddler in the pushchair at the time so was quite distracted and said yes fine. A few weeks later got home and she was sat on the front drive weeding “her” strip of land. Did what anyone would do, got the deeds out and the boundary is shown as being in line with the brickwork of the garage ie not where they claimed it was. Politely showed neighbours the deeds, asked if theirs said something different (they said no but continued to argue the line was where they claimed it was). Fast forward another few weeks, got home and weed matting had been put down while we were out. Had the same conversation about the boundaries & got the same response. Nothing more said until today noticed they’ve been in the bloody garden again to put stones on top of the weed matting while I was out! I knocked and said look I’ve noticed you’ve been in my garden again & got the response “yeah to access our bit of garden”, said it’s not on to keep coming into the garden unannounced and putting things down without permission, said if the deeds state the boundary being in line with the garage then where has this alternative narrative come from and suggested we get together with both our deeds etc to compare notes. She nodded but made passive aggressive comments about living here 20yrs/if somethings been maintained by someone for a certain amount of time then it’s theirs by law/admitted they’d argued with the previous owners about the same issue.
I have so much going on in my life right now I don’t have the energy for nonsense from the neighbours.
please can someone give me some advice on how to deal with this! Do I need to pay out for a surveyor? 🙈

Being totally gaslighted here and doubting myself

How could you get into trouble? They are the ones illegally putting stuff in your garden.

Land registry documents are not to scale, and are not exact. This is stated on each of their documents.

You are. She's trying to mess with your head. Ditch it all on her porch. Don't let her bully you.

I suspect she's guessed you have your hands full with things and thinks you're an easy target.

I’ve got so much going on at the moment (3 year old waiting for ASD assessment, amongst lots of other things such as being in a new job but my worries about my toddler is the main thing keeping me up at night) and I don’t have capacity for dramas with our bloody weird neighbours.
so to confirm I’ve understood this correctly, the title deeds which show the boundary line as being in line with our garage cannot be disputed? So all their protestations about it being somewhere else are null and void? In addition to this - somewhere in between us having our offer accepted and moving in, they erected a large fence attached to our garage wall and positioned actually on our side (ie slightly in front of the brickwork of the garage). Previous owners argued with them about this but obviously let it slide. They are basically using this as a boundary now despite the fact it’s in front of our garage

I suspect this is an occasion where a diagram would be helpful. But as @Red2017 @AllAboutTheTent says LR documents can be a bit fuzzy. If she is putting things on what you believe to be your land then you will need to do more investigation.

So ( not being a property lawyer here - are there 2 issues ) 1. She has put a weed mat & stone on your property 2. She is accessing your property to maintain her side of the garden without permission. I would as other have said put a fence up between the two properties , but it is probably worth double checking the boundary first,

Quite annoying though. I would give it another couple of conversations once you have more facts as by & large I would not like to fall out with a neighbour and see how it goes.

All best

Shouldn't your solicitor have asked if there were any disputes with the neighbours when you bought the house? I thought sellers legally had to declare any issues, arguments or disputes in the paperwork.

If she wants to claim that land, let her take you to court. Your deeds show the boundary, and she can't legally access the land, so it sounds like this is in your favour.

Get a solicitor to write that this is your land. There is no legal right to access soad land anyway (it would be a covenant on the deeds if it was). And make sure she needs a key to access your land.

That is true, but they use the "physical features of the site" to determine the actual boundary normally lines of garages and fences. A solicitor will be able to clarify for OP if there are any concerns, but it does not sound like there is

Of course you need to go back to the solicitor you used at the time of purchase and have this sorted out with the solicitor/owner you bought from.

This is a land grab. Common when houses are changing ownership.

They are scum.

You either roll over or get it all down on paper and get the fence removed.

Yes if its black and white on paper it can not be disputed. Go on land registry and pay £3 to see theirs too. Then show it to them.

Also when did you buy the property? If recent contact your solicitor

Boundary rules can be complicated (have a look at the general boundaries rulehttps://www.lewisdenley.com/insights/boundary-rules/#:~:text=General%20boundaries%20rule&text=This%20rule%20means%20that%20the,precise%20boundary%20between%20two%20properties) but in many cases it’s fairly obvious in front gardens, being a line from the boundary in the bricks.

I was worried about this happening as our neighbour referred to our front border as “shared” so as she moved out and before the new people moved in I put a small (20cm high) barrier in place to clearly mark the boundary. I suggest you do the same, and don’t worry about getting in trouble. You have to stand up for yourself and not let CFs take bits of your land.

And given they clearly have aspirations on your land you might want to apply to the LR for boundary determination, although IIRC that needs to be agreed by both parties

We moved last year. To be honest our solicitors were a bit crap. Also if there were no official complaints lodged against each other how would they know of any disputes?

https://www.gov.uk/your-property-boundaries/apply-exact-boundary-determined

When you sell a property it has to be declared. Speak to your solicitor.

If they have moved the fence onto your land it might be an idea to see if you can find some old Google Street view images of where it use to be or a satalite photo. If it's definitely your land then anything attached to it like a fence belongs to you and you have the right to dismantle it and repositioned to the edge of you property if you wish.

My husband is raging. I have really awful anxiety and keep imagining them making an anonymous call to the police etc saying our children are being neglected etc. I know this is irrational but I am finding this constant stress way too much.

I honestly sometimes wonder what it will be that will finally tip me over the edge

OP, this sounds like (almost) that last straw for you. I sympathise. You've got plenty going on without numpty neighbours causing additional unnecessary issues.

If your DH is raging, can you tell him to deal with it (calmly) and then block it out of your mind?

She has been in dispute with the people you purchased from, you should have been informed of this. Speak to a solicitor.

Can you post a picture of your deeds? I can't picture it.

If they've removed weeds and made the area look better then I'd probably be happy. I don't know if I'd get worked up about it, especially as you seem to have a lot of other more important things going on.

This