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

Most solicitors are slower than slugs. They don’t care.

this poster just wants to drag it out and get 1000 posts.

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone lives on Mumsnet.

Why? Do they win a prize? Idiot.

I hope this works out ok. The alternative to moving the fence line is to charge them to buy your land. But yes you're moving next to CFs.

I pulled put of a purchase when the neighbours ripped up the wrought iron fence in the front garden between the two properties. I reported it to the estate agent but they were useless. The fence belonged to the property I was buying. I'd paid for a survey at that stage so it wasn't a cost free experience, but I felt it was the best option even though I loved the house....!

THIS is tbe right answer

Blatant land grab, solicitors!

We eventually managed to sell the property our neighbour made a land grab for. All done at great cost through solicitors. Git of a neighbour was fixed to Concede and sign a boundary agreement because our next step had to be barristers. He would have lost at huge cost and must have k own it. What annoys me though are two things:
we had to bear most of the cost (because had we been forced to take him to court we would have had to show we’d made reasonable attempts to negotiate (crazy since the land was OURS!). The stress was all ours too.
and also, the git is still telling people we stole the land - despite the fact his own father was there when we bought the property and helped mark out the boundary he disputed.

although the law got us there in the end, it has the whiff of an ass (to mangle a saying!)

Any update?

Hope it’s all being settled OP. You’ve got to be getting close to the time limit from the auction now. Fingers crossed for you.

Must be some update by now! 🍿

UPDATE.

Firstly, can I apologise for leaving you hanging!
The last 2 weeks have been the most stressful and intense 2 weeks of my life and that is no exaggeration. I felt it was best to fully focus on the house issue and update on here when I had definite results.

After alot of back and forth, discussions with all parties - we decided to accept the change and ask for a price reduction. We accepted the change because the strip of land taken wouldn't effect us massively as the garden was big anyway so we were happy if the price was reduced accordingly.

The price reduction we proposed reflected the price of the land taken, the solicitor/surveyor costs we will need to pay when getting this changed on Land Reg, and the inconvenience this will cause for us.

Initially, they proposed half of the price reduction we asked for but in the end agreed the full amount to get the sale through.

My advice to everyone would be don't rely on your solicitor especially when buying a house on auction. Contact the auction person, the agent and the solicitor - send all of them the emails. Contact everyone if you need things moving otherwise you'll put yourself in a really risky place. We're days away from our auction deadline - completion will be on the final day but we've made it!!

Thank you all for your advice and support. :-)

Good luck OP - I think you will need it with those CF for neighbours!

Well done OP!

So in the end the seller lost out because of the shitty neighbours. They sound horrible.

I shall keep you updated about them!! Hopefully, this was a sneaky take whilst the property was vacant and not they day to day behaviour!

I'm really happy for you OP, but be very careful with those neighbours. They've managed to land grab and got away with it. There's no telling what they'll do when your back is turned now. I would be taking photos of locations of every garden structure/boundary with the pics showing actual measurements from other garden structures to prove location. I'd also set up a camera or two (with all the right privacy settings so it only covers your actual garden), so you have proof if they ever try anything else.

So the neighbours get some free land. I just don't think I'd have been able to accept that if I was the seller.

Sadly, yes, the sellers lost out. :-(

Thank you for your advice. We will be getting cameras and will be fully observing them as much as we can.

I wonder why the sellers didn’t sell that bit of land, and make the CFs pay them?

Absolutely shocking on the neighbours part and completely agree with your comment, seller has definitely been the injured party here.
Good luck though OP, glad you have an outcome that will get you to the finish line now.

No decent people would have done this.
Be very wary. They are nasty bastards.

I wouldn't either. I still don't understand why they didn't just knock on the neighbours door and speak to them to move it.

This is so sad for the sellers, who I’m sure you said had experienced a bereavement. What horrible humans your new neighbours must be. Do you know if anyone spoke to them directly to challenge their behaviour or have they essentially just got away with it without even being asked how they could behave so disgustingly?