garage built over our boundary - advice

[gingeroots]

Next door neighbour has a garage which appears ( ie out of line with rest of dividing fence ) to encroach on to our land by about a foot .

This is an inconvience as it makes our access to our garden ( we're a top flat and have to go down side of our house ,between our house wall and his garage to get to our garden ) very constrained .Not enough room to wheel a wheelbarrow or a bike etc.
It is more of an issue now as our neighbour has made several planning applications ( none succesful so far ) which involve knocking down his garage to allow room for an access road to open up his garden and a strip of backland and build houses.
The access wouldn't quite meet our LA width requirements - tho the planning office seem a bit inconsistent about this and I suspect may not turn the application down over a few inches .

His garage was there when we bought the flat 15 years ago .
I'm uncertain where to seek advice - the land registry docs and our deeds show boundaries but the actual measurement from our house wall to our boundary isn't clear .
Is one meant to measure the Land Reg plan ?
Would a specialist surveyor be able to pronounce on the real boundary ?
But does the fact that the garage has been there so long mean that he now owns a bit of our land ? And therefore no point paying a surveyor ?
( I think the Land Registration Act 2002 covers this ,but I can't follow it )

Oh dear ,any advice ?

After 12 years they'll have adverse possession of the land, if indeed they encroached, unless they were granted specific permission on certain terms.

I thought the adverse possession rules had been changed?

Has your neighbour served notice on you when putting in the planning apps? Something called Notice under Article 1 which would have to be physically given to you. If he hasn't, he believes that all the land in the site edged red (i.e. the planning application site) belongs to him. Or at least that's what he's telling the planning office. Do the plans for the application include the site going round the outline of the garage and then back along the fence?

It is possible that the fence is encroaching on his land, rather than the garage encroaching on yours.

How has it changed Mumsnut?

I presume Mumsnut is referring to the changes that came into force in October 2003 which improved the position of registered landowners. However, I think that in this case the neighbour could still claim adverse possession on the grounds that the land is adjacent to his own land, the exact boundary has not been determined and he has reasonably believed that the land belongs to him for at least 10 years.

Correct as ever prh!

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/9/schedule/6

Depends on whether the boundary has been determined under s60

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/9/section/60

Don't know much about that, or whether a proper Land Registry plan is detailed enough.

Thank you for your replies .
This stuff is really making my head hurt!
I appreciate that my view is just my view - but if you saw it yourself ,you might think I was right .
But I know ,boundaries aren't straight , minefield etc .

Have just found this www.landreg.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/lrpg004.pdf
and also the one relating to unreg.land .
When I've time I'll read - but those of you with more brain cells ( you know who you are ..bridge ) might already understand them .
I think what I want to know is -
should my neighbour have notified /sent some kind of form to the freeholder of my flat ( me ,or possibly the one before ) that after the x nos of years ( garage there for more than 15 ) he was applying for possession ?
( or whatever is correct expression )
If he got no response ,I guess that's like unchallenged ?
Would land reg have record of him sending form ?
Or is the whole form thing not required if he's had garage there before the qualifying period specified in this new legislation ?
I know this is all too detailed to ask ...but ...bridge ,you like a challenge ,don't you ?

Seems to me it doesn't matter how long the garage was there for - if he didn't take steps to formalise his title by 2006 then he can't rely on the old rules. My reading of it is that he's stuck by the new rules.

If it really bothers you, you should see a solicitor about it. The issue here though is whether it is the fence that shows the true line of the boundary, or the garage.

Thanks ,I just wanted to get a feel of whether it was the sort of thing that could be sorted out IYSWIM .
I once ( connected with something at work ) spent ages trying to establish something in same field only to find that the Land Registry had 2 different people both with titles to same piece of land ,advice was to go to court and it would be 50/50 chance whose side " won " .
It has always bothered me that our access is so narrow that we can't wheel a bike down there ,but I guess I thought we just had to put up with it .But over the years its become apparent that our neighbour wants to knock his garage down and put a road there - and my experience of him over the years is that he's not a fair minded or helpful person and that things could become worse if not regulated now .
I'm trying to say that honestly I'm not just being petty .
Though I guess one persons petty is another persons ...

Agree with Resolution.

Your neighbour only needs to notify you if he applies to have the land registered in his name. If he has at some point had the land placed in his name there will be a record of this at the Land Registry. However, I suspect he believes he already owns the land and therefore would not see any need to have the land transferred.

If he now decided to register the strip of land concerned he would have to notify you and you would be able to object. However, for the reasons given in my last post I suspect his claim would succeed.

Go to the planning people and get them to inspect, don't be nice you will get walked over.

We have something similar: two detached houses but the garages in between 'butt' up next to each other and the shared gutter lies along the boundary. Our internal garage wall is a foot in from the boundary... we thought there was dead space up to the boundary & under the roof/shared gutter but it turns out our neighbour's garage comes over into that missing bit.

What do we need to do?

I am not quite clear what you are asking, PorkChopSter. Do you disagree about where the boundary lies? Or do you think your neighbour's garage comes onto your land?

Don't go to planning. They have no records of land ownership and cannot and will not get involved in boundary disputes. A Certificate of Ownership submitted with a planning application is always taken at face value unless evidence is provided to the contrary. Even then, all that would be required is the correct Certificate, not that the application cannot continue.

However, planning permission does not override land ownership rights. Anyone can apply for planning permission on anyone elses land. You could if you so wished, apply for planning permission to build a 70 storey tower on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. It might even be granted. Doesn't mean the Queen is going to let you do it (and Prince Charles would certainly have something to say on the matter )

ph47: their garage is definitely on our land and they know it I presume at some point they have demolished their garage wall and are using our wall now and the old dead space.

It's not an issue now as they are fantastic neighbours but when we or they come to sell, or we wanted to convert it into living space or a usable car garage, then it'd be a huge issue.

You should write to them and get them to acknowledge that they have built on your land, and that as they continue to occupy it with your consent they will not acquire adverse possession. On the other hand if you want them to remove the building from your land you could ask them to do that, though I suspect neighbourly relations would suffer!

I post though as someone who got hot under the collar when I realised our neighbours had fixed their TV aeriel on our side of the chimney breast.

Thank you.