Boundary Dispute - how to stop it becoming messy?

[Ithinktomyself]

Help. We live in a sort of terraced house with front and back gardens. Been here for two years. The front garden has fences and a line of tree stumps which seemed to sort of denote the boundary. The neighbours have a shed on their side and we put a woodshed on our side.

The neighbours think that our woodshed is over the boundary but on close inspection it is clear that in fact their shed is a good 10 inches into our property. We're not bothered except that they are telling us to move our woodshed and want to move fences to reclaim what they think is theirs.

I don't want a confrontation or a dispute. I don't care if their shed stays where it is but I do want to maintain the boundary (or get it to where it should be) and stop them harrassing us about it. They have put paint across where they think the boundary is which got onto my sunloungers.

What can we do? Where do we stand? And any advice about de-escalating the situation without being total pushovers?

@Ithinktomyself my grandad wasn't showing any typical signs of dementia in the beginning, just the argumentative fixation over things.

There might not be anything like that, she might just be an argumentative person. Either way, it's a really difficult situation to be in and you have my best of luck wishes.

@GiggleMcDimples - thank you, much appreciated! You might be right. I think though that it's more a case of she's got away with this in the past as it was occupied by renters who probably didn't care and now she's twitchy and argumentative because we're not just giving in. I will bear it in mind though. I do want to be kind (although less so after I heard how she spoke to my perfectly reasonable, if assertive, DH).

@Bookworm4 It's hilarious, I really don't know how they've done it without the council coming out and telling them off. I think that if they continue to be aggressive I might quietly wonder why that area of road is not shown on their deeds. I do need to be less of a sap, I think that my eagerness not to fall out has made this situation worse.

No quietly wondering, a swift email to council should work 😉