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

That was my first thought tbh. May not be a CF neighbour at all. As the seller is not the previous owner and have no need to feel a duty of honour, they may well have offered (or been asked by neighbour) a strip of land for a few thousand and thought either you wouldn't notice til it was too late or wouldn't pursue because it will be so much hassle for you.

I agree that you have to deal with the seller via your solicitor, OP.

Unfortunately, this kind of scenario is quite common. My late father's neighbour tried this nonsense with him. Dad's own flat had been bought by the council via compulsory purchase. Unwillingly, he finished up in a council property which he refused to buy, fearing that he'd be the victim of a compulsory purchase yet again.

The next door neighbour had bought his council house. His garden was a hymn to concrete, decking and gravel, whereas dad took pride in his roses and vegetables.

One day, Mum and Dad got home from a medical appointment to find that the neighbour had built a fence which took a foot of Dad's rose garden...

The neighbour got a shock when Dad - by then an octogenarian - knocked on his door and told him to move the fence. He argued with Dad, but then complied. I'm assuming that he thought that an old man would be a soft mark.

In your case, OP, the neighbour obviously thought that they could fool a new neighbour. I'm sorry for the position that you're in, but you'll have to tell the seller to deal with it.

but that would have meant them lying in the legal pack? Surely they'd have known how silly that is?

Absolutely this. Let them sort it out prior to exchange. What CF neighbours!

Will be a bloke. They always add a few inches on ...

So true 😂😂

You hold all the cards here OP. I’m sure the sellers (the deceased’s children) will be fuming when they find out. It’s their solicitors role to now resolve this. Provide your solicitors with the pictures from today and the pictures from Google Earth in 2003.

You can threaten to pull out if they don’t remove the fence, OR as 1.5foot isn’t much, the sellers could agree to sell the neighbours the land they have stolen - for say 5 k. And you insist on the them knocking that amount off the property price.

Often the boundary shown on title deeds isn't precise enough to the nearest foot or two to make it certain where a fence should be sited. The vendors could have just allowed the neighbour to put it in the right general area as a favour to him.

Or the neighbour could be chancing his arm himself.

Maybe they thought they'd get away with it? It happens. A developer bought the piece of land next to mine and made two house gardens look bigger by nicking a long thin strip of land belonging to me. It was easily challenged as DH has owned the property for forty years and had many pictures of the land as a whole and aerial shots and written statements from more than one company who had worked on trees etc stating as such from up to twenty years prior. Didn't stop them trying.

I hope it wasn't an iamsold auction property. It does sound like it from some of the things you're saying. If it is, you'll have a hell of a time recouping your £10K if you pull out, because their whole business model is built around grabbing as many of those deposits as possible, irrespective of whether or not sales go through.

And if the sellers are using iamsold's in-house solicitors, Medway Law, then don't count on them sorting anything out ever, never mind in time to stop you breaching your deadline. Go ahead or pull out, either way you're going to end up playing hardball with someone. I think I'd recommend visiting the neighbours just to get a sense of how much or little you'd prefer it to be them.

Controversial but I'd maybe be thinking to let it go.
Causing friction with a new neighbour isn't likely to end well.
Do you really need the land .

Not controversial, just stupid.

Why on earth would anyone let a neighbour get away with a sneaky land grab, no matter what the size!

Op why not offer your garden furniture to go with the extra bit of land.. I mean do you really need it?. Fucking nuts people on here today..

You’d give away a chunk of land then pay for it for the next 25 years???? Batshittery.

And imagine the hassle when you come to sell!

Even a bloody foot matters!

However @MummyToBeAgain1 I would see the vendor tomorrow and let them deal with it, then you can be exonerated can't you? Meaning they wont know its you.

Good luck and let us know how it went!

Really feel for you and hope it can be resolved. I think the easiest way would be by the vendors insurance company getting involved, maybe they even have legal cover.

Whatever you have of value your neighbour says it’s all theirs and has steals it from you. Do you really need to cause trouble by getting it back? Do you really need these things anyway?

That's a bit like paying a blackmailer. You're teaching them they can get away with it. They'll just do it again, grab a bit more of your drive or maybe your back garden.

Land grabs are absolutely awful to sort out. It's just so easy to walk onto someone else's land and put a fence on it. By far the best defence is not to move in next door to a thief.

Wow. What a chancer.

It’s the neighbours’s fence if he put it up.

I’d argue that if you build something on someone’s else’s land which is sold, and everything on that land is sold as seen, then the new owners could rip it down and just go “oh, why would you have put your fence in our land… that’s an odd thing to do. Oh well, we’re putting up a new fence on the boundary anyway, you can have yours back.” And just carry on all breezy like. What can they do? They don’t own the land so any action they take will have to include “we built on land we don’t own and now want to sue.”

I know it’s their fence and it’s destruction of their property… but what could they actually do about it 🤷‍♀️

You might find he was actually reinstating the boundary where it should be, albeit a bit sneaky. I’ve had a couple of houses of that layout, where the fences jut out after the flank wall at the front and back, in line with the guttering overhang.
Obviously speak to your solicitor, and remember, it’s not your house until completion 😉