land dispute - affect on planning application ?

[gingeroots]

Just wondering if anyone can help me -

neighbour has applied for planning permission which involves demolishing their garage to provide road access to a piece of backland .

the access is quite narrow - I would say 3 metres and includes some 6 inches which I would argue is over our boundary line .

The garage has been in place for over 20 years and I imagine that our neighbour could successfully apply to register the encroachment in his title .
We have never received a notification from Land Registry to say that it is being registered .

So if it's not registered to our neighbour what is the position regarding ownership? We would challenge any attempt to register - not sure we'd be succesful but the title deeds for our house show measurements which I think would support our view of the boundary line .

I appreciate that our planning department probably take the view that the application has been made and that any boundary disputes are up to landowners to settle but wondered what happens if the application is granted and we then dispute the boundary?

This current application is the fifth ,others have been rejected due to loss of amenity because of location of access road . Officers reports have previously noted inadequacy of width of access and that it appears to encroach over our boundary line .

I have spoken to the planning dept about the boundary issue but they just say that if the applicant's plans include a section of our land then he should give us notification to that effect .But I can't find out what happens if he doesn't.

Anyone any thoughts ?

Surveyor that I spoke to said might be worth waiting until/if the garage is demolished and at that point using professional help to challenge any attempt by our neighbour to establish fence/road edge boundary over what I believe to be ours .

Go and ask on gardenlaw. This is exactly their sort of thing.

ooh thanks Spindelinda ,I love MN

What exactly do your deeds show? If they show clear measurements, get a surveyor to measure it out, exactly, and put a fence up. You do not have to allow someone else to claim your land! Get it back if 6" matters to your property.

Planning can be granted on land not owned by the applicant and not owning the land or property are not grounds to reject a planning application. My parents found this out when a next door neighbour got planning approved to extend onto land they (my parents) contested belonged to them and not the neighbour.

The neighbour didn't build anything until the boundary dispute was settled by the land registry. You can't claim land through usage anymore as it's meant to go on what the land registry plan shows. You can get those from the land registry for about £4 each (make sure you use the real and not a we charge you extra pretend site). See what they show and go from there.

I must also point out I'm not an expert on this! Good luck

Sometimes though, Land Registry may not have the land registered at all! The deeds and land registry should tie up though. Also planning can definitely be granted on land not owned by the applicant.

Thanks karron and milly .

I think we own the strip but he possesses it by adverse possession . I was hoping that the fact that he's never applied to the land registry to officially have the strip included in his title might be somehow important .

Maybe it would be important if we started legal proceedings but I'm guessing it's not a consideration for the planning department .

Was just wondering about if/when he demolishes his garage whether we'd be in a slightly better position to get our land back .

Not sure that this is much help, but when we built our kitchen extension our next door neighbours claimed we had gone onto their land. It was true that we had crossed where their fence had been. However, what we said was that their fence was in the wrong place because their soil pipe ran down the boundary line between our two houses (terraced). So, the fence had been placed further onto our property than it should have been, hence the reason why our extension crossed land that had been in their garden. We didn't go to court about it, a surveyor (selected by them) came in and basically, using the land registry documents, ruled that we were indeed building onto our own land (i.e. it was incorrect before). It isn't totally relevant, but essentially my point is that he didn't say that because their fence had been in the wrong place, the land was now theirs.

Thanks Hoolie ,I see what you're saying . Maybe your neighbour decided to be reasonable ,wish ours was !

Thanks .

Planning won't concern themselves with the ownership issue as others have mentioned.
Comparing plans from deeds and/or our title plans is not a precise business as they are a representation of what is on the ground and do not allow for gradients for example.
There is also the issue of where the original measurement was taken from i.e. inside or outside of a fence post or hedge?
As such 6 inches is too small to often be relevant and invariably it comes down to what physical features exist and how long they have been there to help define where a boundary may be.
The legal boundary is in essence an invisible line and hopefully existing and original features exist to define it but you simply won't always know.

So the best advice is often to take a look at what is currently in place, discuss what the plans are and then agree a way forward which can then be formalised in an agreement as appropriate.
A battle over 6 inches of land will not be resolved by Land Registry or by the Planning Department so the solution is really down to you and your neighbour I suspect.

I have also posted on MSE where a very similar thread exists but stayed silent on Garden Law for now as much of what you are asking has been covered

Thanks LandReg .

I don't think we could reclaim the strip anyway because our neighbour has had it for so many years .

I think it's unlikely that he will willingly reinstate the boundary because the extra inches are an important factor in allowing access to his backland .

I'm going to look at the official guidance on determining a boundary but think it requires him to cooperate . And also ,if he disagrees and ,as you say ,the LR wouldn't be involved in deciding about such a narrow strip - so we'd be back to him co operating .