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

What if the siblings ARE the neighbors?

joke, ok?

I'm so sorry OP I know you love everything about it but bad neighbours will ruin it all. Think very carefully about whether you go ahead. It isn't just a case of getting this sorted and moving on if it turns out they have stolen it. It impacts your enjoyment of the garden, going to and from the house, having guests over, going on holiday.
A Lovely house in a lovely location will feel like nothing when you're dealing with CFs.

I wouldn’t want to live next door to them.

So keen to know how this one turned out and fingers crossed it all in your favour op, sounds a right nightmare. So bloody cheeky.

I remember my parents falling in love with a house years ago, it was a semi, the house they viewed belong to an elderly lady who had passed away and the house joined to it was her daughter. It had a really big beautiful garden. Upon a second viewing my parents found the daughter next door had fenced off a large chunk of the garden for herself. They didn’t go ahead with buying as they didn’t want a dispute 😔

In fairness the vendors may genuinely not have known, if this CF left his "alterations" until they'd cleared out for the last time

That said, with someone like this I'd be surprised if it's the only issue there's ever been, so yes there could easily be something else they've not mentioned

It’s an auction property. They’ve basically agreed to buy it!

I'll echo what others have said.

1. It's not your property yet. Don't speak to the neighbors directly
2. Speak to the solicitor as you have done. Auction or not, you are about to buy a house as set out in the description, not one with less ground.
3. I would be clear as things stand your wouldn't proceed as there is now less land. This needs to be resolved by seller with neighbours 1st.
4. I would ask for auction fee to be refunded given the above.
5. Even if the boundary is replaced (at no expense to you), I would think long and hard before proceeding given how the neighbours are.

@TheWolfHouseYou don’t need to do any of that drudgery! Just go to street view on google maps and click ‘See more dates’

We sold my late father in laws property in September last year. He was a hoarder on a large plot of land, in the middle of nowhere, it took us 4 years of back breaking work to get it ready for auction. The day of the sale, the owners of the neighbouring 120 acre woodland moved a boundary fence and stole goodness knows how many metres of land. We had to declare this at the auction and lower the reserve on the day to get rid of it, which thankfully we did but at a significantly reduced price. It cost us several thousand pounds to get our land back and the fence line was rightfully restored. We had exchanged contracts on the day so didn’t actually have to get involved but we felt it was the right thing to do to sort it out for the new owners, it was unbelievably stressful and has caused so much bad feeling. I feel for you and hope you resolve without too much stress.

I would still buy.

At this stage you are not the owner so any dispute and associated costs are with the owner. They will want this sorting.

Off topic but did the previous 96yr old owner die inside the property? That would spook me right out.

Unless you’re buying a new build then the chances are someone has died in a property at some point 🤷🏻‍♀️ Hardly creepy-just life!

Indeed. Most houses will have had life lost in then and quite a few life genuinely born in them.

OP may never have to own up to flagging the land grab…the relatives, estate agent, or solicitor (during land registry or Google Images searches) could all have easily flagged the change in boundary…

I suggest that the vendors or there representative need to get The Police round for a potential criminal damage charge.

That will sort things out sharpish - I Hope!

Was the any chance the neighbours saw you taking photos today? 👀

Or actually - just death.

I would not proceed until the current sellers resolve the issue.

You bid for and bought a property with X square footage. This is not what you will be getting without an expensive legal fight if you proceed as is.

Speak to your solicitor immediately. DO NOT complete until the fence is down or relocated to reflect the true boundary.

Go to your solicitor. You’ll have agreed to buy the property … including the bit of the garden the neighbours have essentially stolen. Get them to look at the deeds. It will show where the boundary is.

I hope the CF wife is on here reading all this, panicking about the big bill they're potentially about to receive to restore the wall!

Take screen shots on Google earth now of the before and after from the boundary lines. This will show what they have done and how much they have taken.

This is what I was thinking - auction properties are sold as seen and it isn’t as seen anymore. The breach of contract is on the seller’s side, even if it’s not their fault, which must mean the 56 days go out of the window.

If the garden is even 10m long that’s nearly 33ft - losing 1.5ft over the length of that is about 50 square feet of land gone!!!

Fingers crossed for a quick resolution.

This happened to friends of ours. It was the house boardering them at the back.
It was a long garden, they took down the fence, build a wall taking 10ft and putting a shed on top of it.
My friends had family illness going on so the sale went through and their solicitor informed them they were aware of what they had done, but they didn't pursue it.

Come some years later they are selling and my friend views the house, takes lots of photos and then tells her solicitor to inform them that they have a boundary issue.

They informed them a couple of weeks in when bidding is brisk.
They come around furious with them that they were being messed about years later.
Bottom line they were told if they wanted to sell they better pay through the nose for it, or take it down and put a fence back up and restore the boundary.
That was the quickest thing to do, so they ended up doing it.
Hopefully it will cost them.
Land grabbing is surprisingly common when houses are going through probate.