Declare change to boundary?

[minimimo]

Last year we had our garden redone, and as part of this, pushed our back fence out about a metre to be in line with all the neighbours on our street. There is an overgrown sort of snickleway (sp?!) between our garden and the gardens of our neighbours behind...everyone along our road had already pushed their fences back to take half of this space.

We realised it was a bit of a risk at the time, but now we are selling, we've been asked to declare any changes to the boundary.

I'm not sure what will happen if we declare it...I assume we'll be asked to produce some kind of permission, which we don't have...or is the fact that everyone else has done it enough?! And is not declaring it even an option?

Help!!

Is it a change to your boundary or just putting a new fence along the old boundary? :D

Have you taken land that doesn’t belong to you? Was the land taken on the land registry? If it wasn’t then I think you can claim it. I would speak to your solicitor and ask for their advice.

If you look at the land registry copy of your title plan, does it look different to how your land looks on the ground? If not, it is possible that your buyer or their solicitor would not spot that the boundary had moved, especially since it is in line with neighbouring fences. In this instance, they may not make any enquiries at all regarding boundaries. However, legally you shouldn't lie on the form and if your buyer or their solicitor notice a discrepancy with the sales particulars/title plan/buyer's observations they will ask for clarification and the requisite evidence to support your claim of ownership. Similarly if your buyer discovers that you lied on the form once they have moved in, they may instigate legal action against you if they have to move the boundary back to the original position.

Unfortunately, if you do disclose that you moved the boundary (or it is picked up during the conveyancing), you cannot apply for adverse possession as you haven't occupied the land for the required time (think it might be 12 years). Do you know if the "snickleway" is registered or not?

Thanks so much for the replies.

I don't know if I'm the land is registered with the land registry-I've just been on their website but it's not clear how I would find out-do I just ask our solicitor?

I don't think they would notice the discrepancy since it's in line with neighbours fences but of course I don't want to risk a big issue down the line...

We have this in our house but the owners made us aware of it when we viewed. It didn’t cause any problems - they had bought an indemnity policy on it when they bought the house but our solicitor didn’t feel we needed to...the surveyor had to revalue for the mortgage but it didn’t affect the value at all.

The process for actually legally getting the bit of land is fairly complicated as no one knows who owns it. The best course of action would be to get all householders together but it’s fairly involved after that too, so we’ve pretty much decided not to bother.

I’d just be upfront. Ultimately will 1m of garden really change anyone’s mind about buying the house? Worst case they’d have to move the fence back & lose that bit of space.