Property border

[MenoHiccup]

I live next to a park. The back gardens of several properties in a row share a boundary with it. We all have wooden fences around our gardens. From the park you can see that for the older houses the fence is the only thing between the gardens and the park, but that there is a second chain-link fence on the park side of the newer houses' wooden fences.

From the solicitor's reports when we bought the house, I understood that the wooden fence is our boundary. My neighbour thinks the metal fence on the park side of the wooden fence is the boundary - also from solicitor's reports when she bought her house!

How do we find out who owns the strip of land between the two fences?

Your title deeds will show you. And if you don’t own it, the land registry will be able to tell you who does.

Who is the park owned by? Can you ask them to confirm their understanding of the boundary?
We had an issue with our front boundary because originally the road was unadopted. The council sent me plans that were much clearer than the Land registry plans (that showed we owned half the road).

How big is the strip of land? Unless it's a material amount in relation to your garden it's likely to be very hard to tell. You could see if the title plan (which should also show the neighbouring houses) is straight or different for different houses the same as the fence/chain link.

If not, you could try doing a map search or an index map search at the Land Registry in case there's an actual strip between your boundary and the park.

Although the Land Reg plans are drawn to a scale they won't be accurate to small amounts which is why boundary problems
are such a minefield.

It's likely that some people will have assumed one thing about the boundary and other people something different and that's what they each told the people they sold their houses to.

Not very helpful but probably realistic!

It's not a large amount of land, probably no more than 30cm wide at any point in the strip. There are, however, trees growing in the gap between the fences. Of course we maintain our side, but if a branch were to fall off on the other side and hurt someone in the park wouldn't we be responsible if it turned out that we owned it?

The boundary is where your fence stops. The land beyond is owned by the park. They often put their fence a few feet away from the houses boundary fence. I have done the same in my horse paddock for technical reasons. From time to time the neighbours have to be reminded of where their boundary is, and that I don't appreciate garden waste being dumped on my property, or attempted land grabs.

And the land registry don't comment on boundary questions. You would need to engage a surveyor.