Neighbours made driveway over new home’s boundary.

[BraOffPjsOn]

So we’re buying a house and have received the boundary doc.
It shows very clearly where our land would be and we also brought the neighbouring plot’s boundary doc.
When we were there and from Google satellite view you can clearly see they’ve taken a chunk of ‘our’ land to make themselves a driveway (without it they only have a tiny path to their house and no space for a driveway). The solicitor is not giving much advice but I am pushing.

what would others do/suggest?

Is the house and land as seen, before you knew about this issue, good for you? Presumably you made your offer based on the fact that the neighbours had the driveway they have put in?

If so, I would ask your solicitor to go back to the vendors and ask them why the land registry doesn’t match what they are selling, and what do they know of the history of this bit of land.

Then if you are happy I would ask them to get the deeds changed so that what you are buying is clear and accurate.

@BraOffPjsOn I agree your solicitor should resolve this. Depending on the outcome potentially Land Registry could be asked to change the filed plans to show the boundaries as on the ground.

I certainly wouldn’t be buying with this unresolved legally.

It would be worthwhile finding out how long ago this was done before leaping to the assumption that the neighbours are land-grabbing monsters! The previous owner may have agreed but not bothered to update the deeds. Ideally the sellers (or their solicitor) should get the title deeds corrected at the Land Registry and you could make this a condition of purchase. I would be unhappy my solicitor wasn't being more helpful.

It looks like you wouldn’t be losing too much land.
Maybe ask for a reduction in price and for new boundary plans to be done to stop any problems if you choose to sell

I think a conversation is in order, and new land reg dox to be drawn up, but I don't think it's insurmountable. They may well have just asked the neighbour if they could have it to make access to their property easier, and as it made no difference to the owner, they said yes.

I do think you need to press your sol on getting some understanding, or maybe you could go and speak to the neighbours yourself?

then you need to go back to the seller.

and what if they lie?

The vendors need to sort this out, either by selling the bit of land involved to the neighbour, or granting them a right of access over it. Either way this should be marked on the deeds before you exchange contracts. You could ask the vendor for a discount as you will not have as much garden as you expected.

To me it doesn't look like there is an issue. The plan has a fence out the front of the neighbours and a little half circle out of your top right corner boundary. I'd try to blow them up the same size and overlay to see where that little half circle sits.

Boundary lines on title plans aren't all that accurate. Yours shows their path/drive cuts in to the edge of the road in front of 'your' garden. The plan looks like it's about level with the pathway, Google maps looks slightly beyond that, but I'd say close enough not to think any more about

It really looks like the drive is where it's supposed to be to me - I've tried to overlay it but it's not the easiest!

I think perhaps the one you're looking to buy actually has 'too much' garden to the right, possibly the fence has been repositioned slightly because of the tree? And it's throwing you off. You can see on the plan the fence should be in line with the end of the road and it's actually a bit further towards next door.

If that fence was in line with the end of the road it would look like the drive was just cutting the corner off slightly as shown on the plan.

That doesn't mean your fence is in the wrong place either though, it may just have been an adjustment by the builders because of underground services or the tree or how much fence panel they had left or anything at all!

Very understandable. I would ask the selling party if they have any documents pertaining and if not, maybe go round to the neighbour and talk to them. See what the deal is from their perspective and if they'd be happy to formalize it.

I deal with land registry plans a lot and the boundary lines are only accurate to about a metre, some of the old deeds have fences drawn in thick pen and it is impossible to be more accurate so land registry won't guarantee the boundary without a surveyor determination (that said, there are sometimes agreed measurements on the title plans but not often)

Ok this is helpful - so from that reasoning you don’t see any issue between the title deeds and the map image?

When I look at my house on Google there are pictures going back a number of years. Can you try this & see if there's a picture of before this driveway was done? It may have a clearer view which shows the boundary.

Honestly I feel if it's causing you stress already then move on and let it be someone elses problem

Don't worry about the things you cant control and all that

@GrannyAchingsShepherdsHut this is an excellent use of diagrams, I now actually understand the OP’s issue.
@BraOffPjsOn I think you are putting too much stock in the idea the the original plan showing a ‘narrow pathway wasn’t in fact always a driveway given that both the house you’re buying and the one next to your neighbour also have narrow looking paths on the original plan (Unless everyone had driveways put in since the homes were built). Given @GrannyAchingsShepherdsHut clear overlay it doesn’t look like any land is missing at all.

It looks like the plans aren’t completely accurate to what was built, which is often the case.

You’re thinking that their path should kind of wrap around the point of the corner of the road. But you can see their neighbour’s fence on the other side hits the corner right on the point, so their path in turn starts at the point of the corner and extends along the bottom edge a bit, into what you’re thinking of as (to be) your land. So actually it looks like everything was built just shifted along a bit, and they don’t have more than they should have.

This is really common and the deeds only give a rough idea. They aren’t supposed to be pinpoint accurate although newer ones are better because of GPS.

One thing you could do to investigate is that Google maps lets you go back in time. Either on Streetview there should be a date up in the top left (on mobile) and you can go back that way, or you can use Google Earth for older satellite photos. That way you can either reassure yourself it has always been that way, or pinpoint when a land grab happened.

I've just had another thought - does the house have a garage or just a driveway? As if it was built with a garage then it must have had a drive not just a path right from the start?

I can’t work it out from the diagrams to be honest and it’s not a work project to sit down and study them against the ops posts, so not clear to me the size of the problem. But if it is as described then I too would regard it as very difficult to fix, and either drop my price to allow for losing the land or walk away.

I don't think they exactly line up but it may be due to slight differences in the os map and google earth and the boundary thickness. Overlaying the maps is a good shout. You're buying it as it is, are you happy with it on the ground? Does your solicitor think this will be an issue in a future sale? If you're happy, then make your peace with the fact your neighbour may have taken (or just gained, they may not know there is a discrepancy) a small section but don't let it fester and become a boundary dispute as that will cost a fortune- in legal fees and in peace of mind. him
When our old neighbour registered his property for the first time (after living there 40 years) he include a strip of our garden to give him access to his back garden and was adamant it should be his as it once belonged to his farmhouse (quirky old houses with wonky boundaries, his had been there for hundreds of years). The legal advice we had was that an ongoing dispute would devalue our property by around a third (and stop us being able to remortgage) and we would be better giving the land to him as it had a minimal value in itself. He was a shouty, arrogant millionaire, we were young, skint new parents and he could afford surveyors a nd expert legal representation. We ended up having to agree as land registry couldn't confirm the boundary to within a metre and the strip was narrower than this, albeit it was in the red line on our title. I still intensely dislike him but it taught me that sometimes you have to be pragmatic and it isn't worth bankrupting yourself just to prove you're right.

The questions you are asking seem to be ones your solicitor should be dealing with. You need a different solicitor if this one can't be bothered.
Not a good idea to buy the house without this being properly sorted out.

Do not buy the house. Walk away. You will regret it if you go ahead.

It's not even about the land in dispute (though I would be wanting my land back), it's about what else they're going to feel entitled to do.

When we moved into our current house a few years ago, on our very first time here, we drove up to find the neighbours had parked both their cars in our private driveways while leaving theirs empty. My partner had to go and introduce himself and ask them to please move. They never said why they did it.

It didn't get things off to a good start, and they've continued to take the piss over the years. Literally blocking our front door with their vehicles, still stealing our parking spaces, and sending their children to play in our front garden.

These things are never, ever a one-off. They are going to be hell.

Yes.

It's always been my understanding that the boundaries marked on plans are purely illustrative and not necessarily definitive, If you think about it the scaled up line of the red marker pen on the plan would equate to about two feet in real life. And is it the inside of the line or the outside?

You need to read the deeds as far back as you can to see how the boundaries of the property have been described at each conveyance.

Also the OP needs to be really pressing their solicitor to manage this. That's meant to be what the solicitor is getting paid for...