Confused about house deeds

[Purple80]

I have recently had a dispute with my neighbours about our garden fence. The fence was put up before we bought our property. We always understood from talking to other neighbours that it was put up by the previous owner of our property it also runs past our neighbours boundary (as our garden is longer) and carries on to the bottom of our garden past another property boundry which also indicates it was put up by the same person. We also have an original copy of our deeds given to us with a load of paper work from the original owner. It show a T on the inside of our side of the boundry and also says no 11 boundry on it. (These deeds where drawn up in the 80s) This has always lead us to believe that the fences are ours. Few days ago I spotted my neighbours drilling posts into the fence posts. I went round and asked them what they was doing and pointed out the fence was ours they said they know and that they was building their own fence, they first denied they was drilling into our fence untill I asked to see. I pointed out to them that I was concerned that the extra weight would put stain on the fence posts as they are old and wooden. They said they would ensure it was stable and sort any damage. After thinking about it I went round the nxt day and said we wasn't happy for them to do this they then started claiming that they believe the fence to be theirs as the posts are on their side of the fence I explained that our deeds showed it was ours and would bring them round to show them they then got very aggressive and shouting.
The nxt day myself and my husband went round with a copy of our deeds to show them. Then then turned round and said that they had their deeds and showed us a picture on their phone showing that their deeds states timber fence no 9 on it.
In the end we just let the matter go and just said do what you like then as long as you take responsibility for the fence from now on they agreed. But what has confused me is how can our deeds say one thing and theres say another and if the fence wasn't put up by the previous owner of our house why is it the same all the way down. Is it possible our deeds are out of date.

Order land registry documents online. If a boundary was moved the land registry documents would have been updated. T tends to mean tree. So a tree or TPO'd tree might have been there. To me it sounds like a land grab so I'd order the documents just to be sure.

They use T with the body of the T on the side of the person who owns the fence, nothing to do with trees.

“they believe the fence to be theirs as the posts are on their side of the fence”

This is a fallacy. The posts mark the boundary: the fence can then be put on either side of the posts. Our fence has the posts on the “wrong” side because of where the neighbours had put their shed - there wasn’t room to put the fence on their side.

I agree with the previous poster: get this actually looked into and make sure you aren't giving up any property at all. Sadly sometimes there can be conflicts between various deeds/property line drawings - especially given that previous property owners can make all sorts of agreements (both formal and informal).

Unclear how long you've owned the home, but when you bought it presumably you had a law firm do a title/deed search etc etc. Often times those come with a guarantee of sorts. You may want to approach the firm you used to do the search at the the time you bought the property and explain that there now seems to be something of a disparity between your documents and the neighbour's documents and you need to know which is correct.

Request both deeds from land registry, it's possible that there is a conflict. You would need to negotiate a boundary agreement with the neighbours in that case and lodge it with land registry.

It is also possible that someone in the past replaced a fence that they didn't own.

In the context of property deeds in the UK, a "T" mark typically indicates that a property owner has the responsibility for maintaining a specific boundary feature, such as a fence or wall. If the "T" is pointing inwards towards a property, it usually means that the owner of that property is responsible for the maintenance. If the "T" is on both sides of the boundary, it can mean shared responsibility.

This. T is not tree. It’s boundary.

This. And you need to read the wording of the deed alongside looking at the plan. You can’t just assume what the T marks mean.

My apologies I read it as a letter T

You need both copies of the deeds and the register to read both in conjunction. Order from HMLR online.

Then then turned round and said that they had their deeds and showed us a picture on their phone showing that their deeds states timber fence no 9 on it.

We're they the actual deeds of their property or just one's they'd download from Google which happened to have No 11 on them?

I'm sure if it's a shared boundary fence they'd be some kind of information on your copy too.

Shatteredallthetimelately
I'm not sure if they was a proper digital copy or not she showed us an image on her phone saying it was a copy of their deeds and as they bought the house only last year theirs where most recent. We didn't really get a chance to study it properly and I now wish we had. I membered their house has an extension on the back so I wished I checked if that was shown on the deeds. But I don't want go go round and ask to see them again as I know they will only get aggressive again and they already see us as unreasonable people just because we asked them to stop drilling once at 1030 at night

Don't go to see them again, nothing to be gained. Order the deeds and go back to your solicitor to sort it out.