Any lawyers about?

[M0reGinPlease]

Can anyone offer legal advice on boundaries? Is the old 'left hand boundary is your responsibility' still a thing or are boundaries a shared concern?

Basically the retaining wall between us- to the left of our property- and neighbour is in a bad state. It's more of a problem for her as her ground level is much lower and if anything were to move it would be much worse for her, but she's old and not particularly friendly and her house is falling apart. I can't see her wanting to do anything about it and I don't really want my house to slide into her garden. Not sure how to broach it with her. We'd probably have to go through insurance for our share.

Do you have a copy of your redline plan showing your boundary responsibilities? Get one and see who has legal responsibility for the wall, then you can make a decision on how to proceed... without that nobody can give you legal advice as it's an unknown quantity.

Is the wall retaining your garden? I think this might be your responsibility. If your neighbour is unlikely to volunteer to do anything about it, I think it’s difficult to force her. However, as it’s your garden that may well move and force the wall to collapse, I think I would take responsibility and get it sorted. It won’t be cheap though and get it designed by a Structural Engineer.

Go to the gov.uk Land Registry website and download both title registers, i.e. for your house and your neighbour's. You'll probably need the title plans too. If they don't tell you who is responsible for what then the presumption is that it's shared. There are lots of myths about boundaries, the title documents should be your starting point. It'll cost £12 for all four.

Our deeds show a red line around the whole boundary, would this imply they're all shared?

Yes, it's retaining our garden I guess, as we're on higher ground level than her, but what if we just never did anything about it, surely she'd have to take some responsibility then to protect her own property? Her house looks like it hasn't been touched for over 50 years. The wall must have been half decent at some point as the fence posts etc look relatively new, but my DH has nosed over her fence and can see the footings of the wall crumbling into her overgrown jungle garden.

It may not be on the register or the plan but on a document referred to in the register. If no mention at all anywhere in the title, the assumption is shared.

You have a duty of care to your neighbour regarding not allowing your garden to fall into hers. At worse a failed wall can kill someone.

It is clearer if you know who owns the boundary but it doesn’t sound as if you will get money out of her if she has any responsibility, anyway. So how far are you prepared to take this? You won’t get blood out of s stone.

Therefore you have choices to make. It is the weight of your garden that’s making the wall fail and probably inadequate retaining wall design for the weight of your garden. If you wanted to sell your house, you would have problems. I would build a new wall, put a fence on top and hide the neighbour’s garden. I don’t know how long you have owned the house, but didn’t your survey pick this up? Retaining Walls don’t suddenly get close to failing, generally. It’s a slow build up of pressure.

In all likelihood the wall is your responsibility as it is retaining your land.

As bubbles said.

The filed plan (red line on Land Reg docs) isn't technically the legal boundary surprisingly enough. Your legal boundary is the sum of many things and this I would think is yours.

If you call the Land Registry you could ask if they have any retained documents from when the property was first built. Sometimes these show T marks which indicate ownership of a boundary. But it would be argued anyway that it's your responsibility no matter what that says...

So fix it, would be my advice.

bit mystified about how you think insurance would help? it sounds like a maintenance issue to me.