NEIGHBOUR CROSSED THE BOUNDARY BEFORE EXCHANGE

[MummyToBeAgain1]

Hi

I need some advice please.

We're buying a semi detached property and due to exchange and complete in a week or 2.

Over the weekend we drove past the property to find a fence being built between our garden and the property on the right. I suspected they had come in to our garden at a glance so drove past again yesterday.

The fence had fully been up and clearly it crossed in to our garden (to be). I've attached a quick drawing which shows what I mean. The red line is the fence the neighbour has put up.

Just for some context this is a auction property as the owner has died and the children wanted a quick sale. This means that we have a deadline for completition which makes things more stressful.

What do we do now?

Tia

I have no idea but surely the first thig you do is call the conveyancing solicitor you're dealing with?

Absolutely call your solicitor. They're stealing land essentially

That’s a warning sign that they are CFs!

No idea what you do though, maybe knock on their door and say you’ve noticed that the fence is on your land, sort of setting your boundary?

Love the fact your diagram had a 'sensitive warning' message 😁

To be clear OP - this is not your house. You haven’t even exchanged yet. So you can’t go to the neighbours and say the fence is on your land, because it’s not yet your land.

I would go through your solicitors and say there appears to be a boundary dispute, and you need the sellers to resolve this before exchange. Then it’s their problem.

Firstly check the deeds. Physical fences can move over time and may not necessarily follow property boundaries. What was there before? Was it in the same place? You'll have been dealing with a solicitor so you need to take pictures and pass them to the solicitor. I have an auction property next to me in exactly the same owner circumstances and it's very difficult to tell where the actual boundary is because it has not been maintained for years so if I chose to put a fence up it is unlikely to be in the correct place. Is it very overgrown and likely they can't properly tell where the boundary is?

Is it definitely his fence, and not your fence?

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Agree with previous advice that this is a job for the solicitors. When I was selling my mums house the neighbours used that time to change the garden fence (though in our case NOT the boundary) and accessed the garden (and later the house with a key I didn’t know they had) - can confirm these sort of people are generally not fun to live alongside so think carefully too. You have my sympathies.

Honestly, I wouldn't want to proceed with the house. I think there will be trouble with those neighbours.

Check the deeds though. Perhaps the fence was in the wrong place before? And let your solicitor know what has happened and get them to raise a query. Definitely don't exchange unless this is resolved to your Satisfaction.

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Just for some context this is a auction property as the owner has died and the children wanted a quick sale. This means that we have a deadline for completition which makes things more stressful.

The time stress here is on the vendors. They have to be able to sell you vacant possession of the property… not a property with a strip of garden occupied by the neighbours!

Get your solicitor to tell theirs immediately and take advice from your solicitor.

This is the vendors issue to sort.

Contact your conveyancing solicitor immediately and tell them you will not be proceeding until this is resolved. However, I would be very reluctant to proceed now. These neighbours are CF who have been really sneaky, rushing in to steal land while the property is empty, in the hope you wouldn’t notice. If they do that, they will undoubtedly be trouble in other ways, I’m sorry to say.

Completely agree.

Should be easy for them. A fence has been erected on their property, they ought to remove it and return it to the neighbours.

I'm not sure how to @ everyone at once but thankyou everyone for your replies.

I feel like it's come as a shock as everything was going so smoothly until now.

I've booked a viewing for tomorrow afternoon just to clarify the position before I ring my solicitor.
Although, I'm stressing so much, I might actually end up ringing her today.

I'm aware that as of yet it's not legally my property therefore I can't knock on the neighbours door however the seller can. Thing is though I think I'm stressing because the sneaky behaviour shows what the neighbours are like which also means they may hold this against us and could become a nightmare to live with.

I'm certain they have crossed the boundary as there was a wall that went all the way to the end. They've broken that down and cut some of the bushes of to build they fence. On the title plan the garden boundary is straight from the start to the end.

We can't back of from buying the property because we'll lose the nearly £10k auction fee we've paid.

Have you looked to see if there are any old photos of the aerial view of house on google earth? It might help show where the fence has been in the past

copy and pasted from Google

View a map over timeCurrent imagery automatically displays in Google Earth. To discover how images have changed over time or view past versions of a map on a timeline:

1. On your device, open Google Earth.
2. Search for places.
3. To view a map over time, you can either:

• In the toolbar, click Historical imagery .
• Click View Historical Imagery.
• This feature isn’t available if you’re using the Map basemap. To enable this feature, change your basemap to Satellite.

1. Select how you want to view the map.

• To turn on historical imagery view, at the top left, click Historical imagery .
• To turn on timelapse, at the top left, click Timelapse .

1. A timeline appears. At the top right, click the timeline to explore the map over time.

• To find a specific time, you can either:
• Click the year you want to view in the timeline.
• Click Previous or Next .
• To lock the latest imagery, click Last page .
• To minimize the historical imagery toolbar, at the top right, click Collapse .
• At the top left, the toolbar remains active as a floating chip.

1. To deactivate historical imagery, click Historical imagery* *.

There no reason you can’t speak to the neighbour. You obviously can’t tell him what he can and can’t do with the fence but you can talk to him. It might give you a better idea if he is someone you could have as a neighbour or not.

I'd be thinking about getting hold of as many historical pictures as you can. PP suggested google earth, but consider asking the vendor* to contact the estate agent for every pic (even those that never made it onto RightMove) of what the boundary looked like before the fence went up.

*Presumably the agent won't give you the pics because of GDPR etc.

If there's any nearby houses on rightmove (current or previous listings), check the pics of those too. We managed to firmly establish a unilateral boundary change doing this.

I'd go to your solicitor and also contact the seller. How wide and long (approx) is the extra strip the neighbour has nabbed? It seems a lot of effort on neighbours behalf for what looks like a fairly small strip (not that it means you shouldn't sort it out or they're allowed!).

@RaspberryBeretxx
This was our first thought. However, our side of the neighbours property has very, very little garden space. For them this will make a difference as it'll allow them to comfortably access the back of the property. The length is till the end.

Crikey, don't wait until tmw if you know they've already done it! Call the estate agent and your solicitor now.

@TheWolfHouse
Thank you so so much. That was really helpful.

Right, I've had a look and from 2002 up until last weekend it was exactly the same.

A clear cut straight line to the end - with a small wall and bushes for the boundary. This confirms further that we're right in thinking the neighbour has sneakily cut in to our garden whilst the property is vacant.

This is not the property you bought because land has been taken by the neighbour. Get advice from your solicitor. The auction fees need checking as well because you bought something but it isn’t as stated now. You might be able to get these back. The seller is the one to sort it out with the neighbour.

This is excellent advice

@MummyToBeAgain1 I wouldn't wait, I'd be on the phone to solicitors ASAP.
These people are basically trying to steal land from you before you've even moved in. You either need to take action- which may be in the form of demanding the sellers take action - now, or consider pulling out. It might honestly be worth the loss not to be living next door to them. Buying houses is never really straightforward and losses do tend to happen along the way and sometimes you just have to decide to suck it up.