My neighbour reckons he has right of access (with a car) over my property

[BasinHaircut]

Between my back garden and the one over the back is an alleyway/road. It’s pretty wide at the start and then narrows (at the point of my garden) to where you could just about drive a car down there if it wasn’t completely overgrown.

Our garden stops about 6-7ft short of next doors garden, but the land registry plan clearly shows that our boundary is in line with next door. Therefore we plan to extend the garden and wanted to stick a garden room up there.

The bit of next door’s garden that is currently longer than ours houses a shed that has been there for as long as we have lived there and clearly much longer. There is ivy with a stump thicker than my leg all over it and running down the very very old gates that serve as a fence there. Once upon a time my neighbour apparently had a driveway there and parked his car accessing through the bit of our houses land that isn’t currently incorporated into the garden.

He says that it states on his deeds that he has access. We don’t have deeds as only lived here 5 years so just got the land registry print out. He said that he isn’t bothered if we extend the garden and build a room there but he is selling up after the pandemic ends and so wanted to warn us that it could be an issue if the new owners wanted to put a driveway or garage up the end of their garden.

Fair enough for him to tell us this but I’m not sure I believe him. He is a bit of a know-all and likes to tell us how things are. The land in the alley/road (outside of all of the boundaries) is unclaimed land and is used from the point it narrows (our garden) as a dumping ground for all of the houses garden waste (I hate this and is one of the reasons I want to claim our bit back, it’s basically been used as a massive compost heap for 20 years by the looks of it). Because ours is as far as you can walk up before it gets narrower and completely overgrown, outside our house is the worst bit.

My question is how do I find out if he really does have access? And if it’s in his deeds then is there any cause for saying it’s now void as it hasn’t been used for 20+ years?

Thats best , keep your cool, if he thinks he has rights let him try to prove it, I dont know why he is bothered as he is selling soon?
Photograph any docs and tell him you will go and have a read.
The Claiming a right of way as they have used it for so many years if he mentions that one then let him bring it on as he won't have much chance of selling once he declares a right of way dispute, if he did try and claim it its only going to line the legal trades pockets.
Friend of mine has an L shaped Garden that was basically a field at the bottom of next doors garden, bought it many years ago. Bloke next door sold his house new purchaser moves in after few weeks comes around to discuss getting his garden back! Some people live in a dream world and can't read the paper infront of them
Good luck and keep us informed

If you don't hear anything from them for a couple of weeks, say, (I'm not a betting person, but I reckon you won't hear a peep), get a fence put up on the boundary sharpish!
It would be safe lockdown-wise and the fencers would probably appreciate the work!

@Funf he said he isn’t bothered if we wanted to block it off (he has actually had a shed there for years anyway so he doesn’t use it as access) but wanted to let us know as it could cause issues in the future as will have new owners who might want to put a garage there.

But in general he is a right know-all and ‘works in local government’ (as he mentions so often) which he thinks means he is the authority on everything.

I have a slight suspicion he wants to say he has back access for a car when selling so wants to discourage us from blocking it off permanently.

@mineofuselessinformation yes we will be fencing off ASAP just in case new owners get any ideas but ideally I’d like to see those deeds first!

Once you have seen the deeds and confirm no right of way, photograph it all including his shed and then fence off. With his shed there it makes it more difficult for him to claim some right of way established by use although that isn't easy now anyway.

"I have a slight suspicion he wants to say he has back access for a car when selling so wants to discourage us from blocking it off permanently."

Sounds right!

So they could park at the bck-but would have to take up more of their own garden?

tbh
you have seen the deeds which confirm no right of way.
photos today, temporary boundary (planters?) as soon as you can.

Surely his physical deeds aren’t going to be any different from what you’ve downloaded from the land registry? Does anyone know if it’s possible that he has something that is different?

You need to get a copy of your deeds and ask to see his, where it states what he said.
Failing this you need to speak to a solicitor and have it drawn up legally.
You could be made to take it down if you breach what it says in the deeds.
You should always have a copy of your deeds anyway, I thought everyone did.

I don’t even know how I’d go about getting a copy of my deeds TBH. Assume the mortgage lender has them and will release to me once I’ve paid off my mortgage.

I don’t think I really need to see my actual deeds though, he has his in a file upstairs apparently and if it states it in there it should be quite simple for him to prove it.

It’s not written on the land registry docs for either property so I’m fairly confident he is talking out of his arse. I would have thought he’d be quite quick to prove it to me if he thought he could.

Given that there is a path to use for pedestrian access, I suspect the chance of there being a right of way over your land to enable a vehicle on to his is somewhere between zilch and zero.

I would just say "Thanks for raising the question of the path the other day, I have checked on the land registry and there is no mention of a right of way over our land. our solicitor would have checked when we bought and nothing showed up, so I don't see any future issues" and the get on with fencing it off.

Having taken pics to show his shed, the ivy, the overgrown-ness etc, so that if he tries to pull some adverse possession stunt in the future you can shut it down straight away.

This thread got me curious and seems like the place to ask questions I downloaded our title and map thingy and I'm confused about the Charges Register section. We bought the house in 2012, but it has a thing in the Charges Register for 2014... what's that all about?

@MissSquiss : what does it say? Did you remortgage in 2014 as it could be that.

Op. The bank is not likely to have them. Since the land registry and deeds went electronic banks don't keep them anymore. We had ours sent through the post years ago by the bank saying they didn't need them anymore

GU24Mum Aaah probably! Our provider changed name and it could have been around then. Cheers!

No problem. Feel free to pm me with a screenshot of the page if you'd like!

@BasinHaircut The Land Registry docs are your deeds. Whatever was useful in them relating to title was extracted by the land registry and put on to their system.

You don't need deeds. Most of them don't even exist anymore. If the house has registered title (yours does since its on the land registry records) then the land registry entries are the "deeds". There's nothing in the original bits of paper that is not now on the land registry entry.

There is no right of way mentioned on the land registry entry (not the plan - these are often wrong), so there is no right of way.

I'm curious again. There's a strip of land that runs across the bottom of lots of the gardens on our road. How do I find out who owns it?

Here is my boundary map (red). The bit I've highlighted in green is slightly higher up than the top of everyone's gardens. The neighbours on either side use the bit at the top of theirs and we look after ours but don't have anything on it as such yet. Just wondering how to find out more?

Who owns the area in green? Does the building where your plot steps in belong to ndn?

LIZS That's what I'm asking! How do I find out who owns it?

The bit where the plot steps in is not a building; just extra garden that does indeed belong to NDN.

The building in the green patch is a greenhouse and garden room which NDN uses and has actively used for years. There is a fence to the left of the greenhouse in line with the red boundary line.

There is also a wall/hedge in line with the other boundary line separating us from the green bit in line with other NDN, and they have a little shed and patio on their side.

Not sure if this info is relevant, but when we bought the property the green bit in line with ours had an old collapsed Wendy house on it, seemingly built from asbestos concrete (!!) and had clearly been wired to the mains at some point.

The previous owners had built the house in the 1950s.

@MissSquiss so both your neighbours have "acquired" and use land that doesn't belong to them?

It may well have been claimed by adverse possession by them as they have both lived here for more than 30 years. Or it may be land that was treated as garden by the previous owners of their properties but wasn't on the deeds. I need to ask when lockdown ends as they're both getting on a bit in age.

The land to the left of the green section is a huge woodland and the green boundary line is actually a retaining wall of sorts, about two metres high. The green highlighted land is like a terraced strip between the property boundaries and the woodland.

MissSquiss your boundary map looks very similar to how ours did, except in our case it was a railway line the other side of the green block. Everyone has taken their fences back to the railway line and used adverse possession to claim that patch. The land could only have belonged to Network rail and we have a letter from them saying it had never belonged to them so we cracked on. Now 20 years later we have it the same land registry map as the rest of the garden.