Ordering a copy of neighbour’s title deeds

[Callipygion]

Does anyone know if I order a copy of my neighbour’s property documents from the Land Registry would they be detailed enough to show who is responsible for the fence between us?

Also, I have some sort of an alert set on my property with the Land Registry so I was wondering if they did too would ordering these documents trigger it?

TIA

The boundary should be on your own title deeds, is there a dispute with the fence, which side of the house is it. Do you know what the alert on your property is about.

I imagine ordering those documents would trigger a Land Registry alert.

Have you checked your own deeds?

Was the information about boundaries/fences on the property information form when you bought the property?

You should be able to tell from your own deeds- there is normally a tick or arrow shaped mark on "your" side of a boundary if it's your responsibility .

My deeds show which fences I own.

It's very quick and easy to order a copy of any deeds you want. The staff at Land Registry are very helpful, so give them a ring and talk to someone if you are worried about triggering an alert or who is responsible for which fences.

Property alerts aren't triggered by downloading deeds. They're to alert you if someone is potentially trying to commit fraud and make changes to Land Registry - e.g. taking out a mortgage against a property or lodging official searches.

I ordered my neighbours deeds after she had been up to all sorts of horrible behaviour.
There is no alert so the house owner won’t know.
However you only get the rather basic ones held by the land registry not the old detailed ones (if an older property) you get when you buy your house.
What was helpful to me was speaking to the neighbour on the other side of my mad troublesome neighbour (who sympathised having also suffered the mad ones antics) as they had a much clearer copy of the deeds which showed all three of our properties.

Ring the Land Registry!
In my experience they are very helpful.
I have alerts on my properties in case of fraudulent sales. (You much to explain here but the Registry will tell you all about it.)

You can’t trust what’s on the property information form - people make mistakes. Our sellers wrote the wrong side for which fence is our responsibility.

You might have a plan showing boundaries from when you purchased though.

You do need to look at both sets of deeds because information is only put on one set sometimes, especially with older houses.

The online register didn't say on mine. But the official copy of the original paper ones do. So get an official copy, costs a little more, there is no alert to the neighbour

If it’s to try and make them maintain the fence don’t waste your time or money
if it does turn out to be there’s they can quite simply take it down or just leave it

I thought, when we bought the house over 10 years ago, our solicitor told us we didn’t own any fences. And having got the deeds out tonight it says we must maintain the boundaries marked with inverted T marks - then it goes on to say there are no T marks on our plan.

There isn’t any dispute, it’s just on a couple of occasions the fence was just mentioned in passing and they called it “your fence”. I didn’t take much notice at first, a good while ago, but after a second mention recently I got the thought “do they think that’s my fence, because I thought it’s theirs” and I hope it’s not mine because it’s quite long, although in a fairly decent order at the moment. I perhaps missed my chance at that time to say something then.

Then yesterday I was reading a thread on here which mentioned ordering neighbours’ deeds so wondered if I could do that & see if the fences are marked on their deeds or not, just to confirm the facts in my own mind. (I’m a real wimp and not one for confrontation, and I would hate to start any bad feeling, so didn’t want make them feel any alarm for getting an ‘alert’.) Perhaps I’ll just wait for another mention of ‘your fence’ off them and ask then.

Thanks for your comments everyone, I think I will try and ring the Land Registry in the week on my day off.

I wouldn't even bother ringing them, the online portal is very straight forward, you just need the address. Just make sure you go through the gov website, it should only be £3 for each the title plan and the title deed but there are a lot of private websites that masquerade as the land registry and charge ridiculous fees!

Yes you and no they don’t get an alert. £3 and it’s all done within a hour. Don’t even consider ringing land registry- it’s a waste of a lot of your time and will only send you quite dotty.

source: have had to do this with my neighbours regarding their fence, and have done it a lot recently as house hunting!

I used to work in a solicitors and had to order deeds all the time on properties in divorce etc. No alert is given and your neighbour will never know you have ordered them, but make sure you order them off the correct site.