Boundary Issue Advice Needed

[paul7953]

We bought a property around 14 years ago, the rear garden is small and comprised of a small patio and shed included in the sale, the boundary had no fence prior to purchase and we insisted that a new fence be erected prior to completion of sale, which was done, in agreement with the residential housing committee for the estate on which we live.
A new neighbour to the estate has accused us of extending our patio and putting a shed on it, to effectively extend our boundary by 200 to 400mm onto their land and is causing us an absolute headache and is constantly bullying and intimidating us.
We have not extended the garden or patio, erected any structures in our rear garden or moved the boundary fence markers, although must advise that the fence is no longer there, however the original fence stakes are still in the ground under the surface of the soil for reference and a temporary fence and new hedge has been put in place, while the hedge is establishing itself.
Q1/ As I have used this area of garden (whether it is marked on the deeds or not) on the understanding that I had purchased it with the house, can my neighbour forcibly remove my fence, plants, patio slabs and shed off this area of land that he disputes belongs to him?
Q2/ If he does remove it, can I claim any damages as a result?
Q3/ Do I have any legal rights after having used this land for 14 years without anyone contesting the issue? The previous owners used it for over 10 years in much the same way.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

James

He should not remove anything while the boundary is in dispute. If he does you may be able to claim damages from him.

You may have a claim for adverse possession of the land even if it didn't originally form part of your property but such claims are harder to win than they used to be. You need to consult a solicitor.

Have a look at adverse possession on the Land Registry site, as it's very informative. But agree with above, consult a solicitor.

Do you have a drawing or pictures to see the layout?

Doesn't your neighbour have to prove you extended your patio and erected a shed? Were these in original sales details? Surely the onus is on them to prove, not you to.

Only have land registry documents, however as the scale is so small 1/1250 scale it's difficult to see where the boundary really is as there are no dimensions on the drawing.

The shed was in the original sales details to be included in the sale and has not been moved. He has accused me of lots of things, all untruths and cannot prove anything.

What I was really trying to find out is, if the garden fence was incorrectly positioned by the last occupant of our house prior to the sale, where do I stand from a legal perspective?

I don't want to go down adverse possession route to be honest, it would only cause a lot of bad feeling, after all I have to live next door to them!

I know seeing a solicitor is probably the only way forward, but I know how expensive going down that route can be. The resolution route has proven unsuccessful to date to...

Any suggestions!!!

Do you have legal cover with your home insurance, union/professional body membership?

If you don't want to consider adverse possession, where the garden fence was positioned by the last occupant is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the actual boundaries of the property.

As the previous poster says, you should check whether your home insurance includes legal cover.

I think you have answered my question, No legal cover on policy.
I will read up on adverse possession route, but don't think it's worth following through.

Thanks for all your knowledge and expertise on the subject.
Much appreciated.

A very sensible option might be to do nothing and see what happens. If your neighbour brings it up just respond that he needs to seek advice from his solicitor. And keep repeating and don't be drawn into a discussion. Most don't want and can't afford the huge expense of a boundary dispute.

You are talking about a tiny amount of land 20-40 cm it is unlikely that anyone, even a court, would be able to say definitively unless your boundary is clearly not in line with other rear boundaries of the properties either side. There is an allowance of 50 cm either way under the land registry rules due to the thickness of the line of the ink on the plan. You mention a residential housing association so it sounds as though this is an estate house which means it is likely that it was once all owned by the same owner so the boundary should have been plotted when your house was originally sold. You could apply for a copy of the original deed under which the house was sold with the actual plan which conveyed the land as this may be to a better scale. However as I said before it is very unlikely that any court would order the removal of structures which have been in situ for 24 years as you would have a decent claim for adverse possession in any case.

The land registry plans are just indicative and purely so that it's clear which plot of land you have purchased. The information on the ground indicates where the actual boundary is exactly.
Normally it's fenced off and boundaries can move as little over time, but if there's a dispute then you can get the boundary determined at great expense and someone will just look at all evidence and provide a best guess as to where it should be and then measure and Mark it. That can then be registered at the land registry where you can then refer to it in future.

I think @Jonb6 gives good advice. Try not to get drawn into lawyers at £300+vat an hour

@paul7953 Have a look at Garden Law before you do anything.

This thread in particular is worth looking at

www.gardenlaw.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3149

The main thing to maybe point out to the neighbour is that they bought that property as is, you didn't suddenly erect a fence in the middle of their garden. Title plans are merely there to idenitify the property. They are really not to be used as definitive boundary markers. Due to the scale of plans they can be very wide on the actual ground.

Have a look at Google maps/Bing etc and see if you can see any photos that show the shed/patio etc haven't moved, or any photos you yourself may have taken. If you know where the previous owners are you could also ask them to sign to the fact that nothing has changed since they sold it to you.

Your neighbour is clearly an arsehole getting all huffy about a teeny bit of land. Please do not go down the legal route on this. It will cost you thousands. Let him do all the legal stuff. But do look at Garden Law, we found it invaluable.

Have a look at Google maps/Bing etc and see if you can see any photos that show the shed/patio etc haven't moved, or any photos you yourself may have taken. If you know where the previous owners are you could also ask them to sign to the fact that nothing has changed since they sold it to you
Not sure why you’re reluctant to claim adverse possession. We did so, with utter ease, based on exactly the kind of stuff above from PP. A developer bought land, next to ours, and thought our boundary fence was in the wrong place based on his interpretation of Land Registry diagrams. We’d owned the plot, fully enclosed, for 35 years by that point, previous owner had it since the 1940’s. We were able to ‘claim’ adverse possession on our, completely unchanged for 70+ years, plot easily by utilising pictures of DSD in the garden next to the fence in the 1980’s, aerial shots of the plot and hedges/fences from as far back as 1940 (thanks to google), and invoices and written declarations from contractors who had worked on the hedges/fences at various times since the 1990’s. Easy to prove, as it sounds yours should be. Cost about GBP150.00 for specialist solicitor.

£150 for a specialist solicitor will get you around half an hour of their time.