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Original poster

Boundary dispute with neighbour

42 replies

Hillhouse1 · 06/03/2017 21:25

Hi I'm hoping someone can help. I have had a boundary dispute with a neighbour for some years. They have trespassed on to my land. I have my surveyor's report and the neighbours have theirs. In the end, I decided not to pursue things, but to just let things lie. The neighbours now want to sell their house (they have moved out and live somewhere else) but can't until the boundary dispute has been resolved. I have offered to sell them the land, but they have refused to accept my perfectly reasonable offer. I have suggested that they reinstate the boundary fence that they removed, but they flatly refuse. They had buyers for the house and when I spoke to them about the dispute, they said that they would not object to the fence being reinstated. However, the sellers refuse to cooperate. They are now threatening to instigate legal proceedings with a claim for full costs. Do they have any rights? And if so what can they do? I have offered to sell, or offered to have the fence reinstated, but as neither is what they want, they have refused.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? Thanks in advance.

OP posts:

SmokyMountains · 08/03/2017 09:52

long, not wrong!

Beachedwh4le · 08/03/2017 10:05

If you have a mortgage on your property just tell them your lender doesn't allow you to just transfer out a portion of their Land.

You also can't just offer to sell it to them if you have a mortgage, by the same principle.

If you're not actually bothered about the sliver and are not mortgaged it makes more sense (to me) to let them have the ground provided they pay the associated fees, and they sell the house to a hopefully more reasonable person rather than holding it ransom just to get one over on some lunatics.

Thinking about an easy life is no bad thing.

ExplodedCloud · 08/03/2017 10:17

They can sell though Smoky. If they are prepared to declare it and make appropriate reductions in price etc or take out an indemnity policy. The purchasers will need to talk to their mortgage lender of be cash buyers.
It can happen.

SmokyMountains · 08/03/2017 20:16

It could happen, but a conveyancing solicitor would advise very strongly against doing so, (mainly to cover their arse in years to come) so it would likely have to be an unusual hard to find type house (which this doesn't seem to be) for a purchaser to think its worth it, or have a really huge discount to make the risk worthwhile, which is unlikely to go over with the vendor. I also think they'd need to be cash buyers as a mortgage holder be unlikely to work with it.

(Everyone in the industry knows boundary disputes are like lighting a fire and fuelling it by throwing bales of notes on it continually for several years.)

Original poster

Hillhouse1 · 08/03/2017 21:06

What a bleeding mess! Thanks everyone for your help in this matter. I'm going to mull things over this weekend and see if this helps. I do find it strange that a court would consider taking this case on, given the fact that I have been reasonable in trying to resolve the dispute - aren't courts reluctant to do this sort of thing? And why would anyone (other than these idiots - the sellers) not just buy the land for £1,000? Why would they not do this and go to court???

OP posts:

namechangedtoday15 · 08/03/2017 21:14

Disputes are rarely as black and white as people think. They haven't gone to the expense of a 40+ page surveyors report just for the fun of it.

EyeStye · 08/03/2017 22:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

Hillhouse1 · 09/03/2017 09:51

I did get legal advice about their surveyor's report, and was told that I had a 51% chance of winning (only because the strip of land could be considered small). I had loads of evidence of unreasonableness on behalf of the neighbours as well as evidence from previous owners of my house stating that a fence did exist to the right of my garage which was the boundary fence. But in the end my insurance didn't cover this level of "risk", so I just let it go. I knew at some point it would have to be resolved.

OP posts:

namechangedtoday15 · 09/03/2017 10:02

Hill house - the "conduct" of the parties (in terms of who is reasonable and who isn't) isn't considered by the Court until costs are decided. That is also the time when the Court will look at what offers have been made between the parties.

The Court will simply look at evidence to decide who owns the land and 51% is definitely not worth the gamble of proceedings.

QuackDuckQuack · 09/03/2017 10:26

If you used the legal cover that came with your house insurance then it is probably in the insurers interest to say that your chance of winning was under the threshold needed to pay for further legal action.

Floggingmolly · 09/03/2017 10:29

51% is very strange odds of winning a boundary dispute when you're absolutely sure it's your land

ExplodedCloud · 09/03/2017 10:33

Can I just go back to an earlier point? Does it really matter other than as a point of principle? Does it ruin your garden?
I just think it's going to be hard to resolve and hideous if you end up in court. Especially if they have a good expensive lawyer that you end up paying for?

SmokyMountains · 09/03/2017 11:37

How long is the timeline here op? The more you post the more it seems to be quite a lengthy timeline. Do you know roughly? There are implications if it is 12 years +

In terms of legal advice, who gave it to you? as I mentioned up thread, this is an area which would need an opinion from a barrister who specialises in this area, and any high street solicitor should tell you this and put the work out for you...

Household insurance very, very unlikely to help you instigate an action for a boundary dispute. If your neighbour instigated it, they might have to help you defend, but no-one really wants to open this to litigation.

You sound like you have already gone to a lot of trouble about this OP, in terms of getting a surveyor and then getting a legal opinion. So do the other party. It is just this sort of situation that ends up getting out of hand as both sides are very invested and don't want to back down...but as I've tried to explain earlier, the only way to 'win' a boundary dispute is to get a line drawn under it as simply and quickly as possible.

xStefx · 09/03/2017 11:41

I would resend the offer and copy of boundaries and say it stands for 1 month or the offer triples- awkward idiots they are

EyeStye · 09/03/2017 12:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

QuackDuckQuack · 09/03/2017 12:05

Even if the OP isn't bothered about that bit of her garden it will matter that the boundaries line up with the title deeds when she comes to sell her house in the future. So it makes sense to sort it out now.

LeninaCrowne · 09/03/2017 12:36

Sadly have experience of this.
Had to capitulate to the chancer neighbour to "keep the peace". Lawyer from Insurance company legal help line said it could cost tens £000's in court costs, and that in general Judges looked badly at people disputing over tiny pieces of land a few feet wide.
Said neighbour then boasted how he was going to move another fence to grab some local authority land .

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