Not sure whether to post in Legal or Property, but I have just seen a planning application relating to my neighbour, and it seems they own a lot of our land....

[QuintessentialOldDear]

Neighbour is a council owned property, as was mine until the previous owners of my house exercised their rights to buy. The neighboring house is currently empty, it is "void", pending refurbishments.

It is quite hard to explain the layout, so I have attached some pictures in the profile. Note, these were not taken with the current issue in mind, just to document what it looks like now before any work started (in case our new fences were damaged)

Ours is a corner house in a sort of "cul de sac" environment, and the neighbour is another corner. We shared path, and opposite her side entrance were steps down to a patio. Straight in-front of her door was a low brick wall separating our properties. our access was along the path, down the steps, across the patio to our front door, which also is a side access.

We have since built a fence inside our side of the brick wall, the fence extends along the path, giving the neighbour use of the entire path. We have also put our own gate, separating our properties totally. (Due to a situation of abuse and asbo behaviour from the neighbour, I have email exchange between me and a former council housing manager outlining our plans for a fence.)

The pictures show what it looks like today, after building the fences and a new access for ourselves.

Looking at the councils map, the council property is outlined in red, and it would seem that our neighbours property extends from the corner of that house, and goes along the side of our house until 2/3 down the side of our house. It would mean that evertime we step in and out of our front door - the original front door as no alterations have been made to the original cottage - we step right onto council land! It would seem we are trespassing through our neighbours land every time we leave and enter our house!

The original drawing of the area that I got when we bought the house is just in black and white. The deeds mention a "public right of way" along the path, but nothing about the patio area in front of our house. The low brick wall next to the original steps was there already, and I presumed it was the official boundary.

Could it be that somehow this piece of land was missed when the previous owners bought?

How can this be? What can I do? Could the councils map be wrong?

I would phone your house insurance people and get some advice, it usually comes with legal advice and they will be able to look up your deeds.

Yes, their plans could well be wrong.

You could do with the land registry plan of your house, and start from there... here - I don't think the plans are too expensive any more. I would have thought that the info from the Council regarding the fence should be quite helpful as that effectively agrees where the boundary should be, even if it is wrong on the land registry plans.

You can get the areas amended if there is a problem with the plans - although its a hassle that you could do without.

Who has submitted the planning application?

It may be their land but you may have right of way. My neighbours access to their most obvious entrance is through my land. They have right of way set out in my deeds. Nothing I could do to stop them (not that I would want to). This isn't uncommon.

Do you have a copy of your deeds, they may explain more.

The council has submitted the planning application, as they are extending one of their own properties to provide a 5 bed for a larger family.

I dont have my deeds, heck I dont even have my insurance details as we are currently on holiday...

you can view your own deeds online via the Land Registry site. We hve to go over next door's land to get to ours - we have a right of way subject to payment of upkeep. It's v common - developers used to deliberately include a "finger" of land cutting across other entrances as a sort of ransom strip to prevent undesirable activities / development on neighbouring land

So there may not need to be a reason to panic yet. Piuh.
I can see from the drawings that the new development is honouring the current boundaries as I thought they were, so not building into our land, or moving fences.

But I will get hold of the land registry first.