Director Lee Stutt gives you the lowdown on boundaries and why they cause so many disputes - plus what you can do before you even contact us

Boundary disputes are one of the most common enquiries. Again and again, we see people

with a disagreement with a neighbour over where it lies.

Farmland, terraced houses, new purchasers, just built houses. Another person who says

they’ve been sold land that you think is yours. Where does one end and the other begin.

We’ve done these, successfully, for years. Here’s the advice that always comes through.

The answer almost always lies in one specific document, but there’s a run of mistakes to

clear out of the way first.

First, a declaration of war with your next door neighbour is not sensible. Going head first and

telling them they’ve done wrong will not lead to a resolution. It will lead to a reaction and

doubling down, and that first move makes all the difference. It may mean all hope of sensible

discussions is lost from day one.

Second, ultimatums and sneak attacks probably won’t stick either. Building fences on 3

days’ notice, blocking people out of their drives, these things seem very clever shortcuts, but

they end up with injunctions, and that’s not a good place to be either.

Third, and related to both of those things, don’t leap into a dispute at all. If you have one, you

aren’t going to be able to sell, because you’ll have to disclose the dispute to any potential

purchaser. That may still be the case once it’s resolved - you’ll still need to declare disputes

that have existed. This isn’t a point of legislation as such, it’s a conveyancing disclosure

obligation, enforced through the standard property information forms and the risk of

misrepresentation if it’s answered wrongly.

Fourth, the most common mistake is that someone treats their Land Registry plan as the

source of truth. It isn’t. Not at all. Land Registry is a repository of documents that record land

ownership. That’s all. Land Registry will not tell you where your boundary is. Practically

every time we’ve encountered someone pressing to say that their boundary is as defined at

Land Registry, that person has been wrong, because they’re starting from the wrong

premise.

Fifth, some Land Registry plans have T markings on them, and people think this is the

answer, but it isn’t necessarily. T markings can denote either ownership of a boundary

structure or simply an obligation to maintain it, and unless the deed itself explains which, the

marking carries no independent legal force at all.

Sixth, think about the proportionality of it. Don’t lose your rag and make it a matter of

principle. Nobody is going to think you’re a hero for fighting to trial over a few feet of

otherwise worthless land. Stick your ground if you want to, but don’t risk your house over

ownership of the fence.

Look on the news any week, and you’ll see a story of 2 normal neighbours who’ve lost it all,

arguing over a wire fence, with the judge saying this could all have been avoided if you’d

talked.

Seventh, get proper experts in. An expert who can interpret the deeds and apply them. Not

someone who will say what you want them to say. Not somebody who looks at the lay of the

land and gives an opinion without any methodology. Certainly not someone who calls on the

Land Registry plan as gospel.

So what's the actual position?

And now the real advice. The governing document that defines where the boundary between

different parcels of land lies is the one that divides it up. Once, all this was fields. Then, bit

by bit, it got partitioned and sold off, and now it’s houses, or a supermarket, or whatever.

Each time a piece of land is carved from what’s retained, a boundary has to be created. The

task is to identify where the boundary was created, based on the document that created it.

That’s the ‘partitioning conveyance’.

This is sometimes a problem, because people don’t always have partitioning conveyances;

they don’t technically need them other than as a historical artefact. But that’s what we’ll be

looking for. Maybe it’s stored at Land Registry - we can get it if it is.

Once we have it, we can see the plan, the wording, any measurements in an ideal case, and

apply them to the ground, topographical features, and GPS co-ordinates if necessary. A

proper land surveyor is worth the money for this, because you’ll be committing everything to

their opinion (and your lawyers opinion) and if it all goes wrong, all relations are destroyed.

If there really isn’t one available, then we can look at other rules, and the land, and see if

maybe there are changes of elevation, a history of usage, other historical documents like

planning applications, photos, all sorts of things. But this is always more difficult because if

someone discovers that partitioning conveyance when a case was proceeding on the

expectation that it was lost, then everything can change.

What's our approach?

When we get involved in potential boundary disputes, we make a point of not starting up a

dispute. It’s okay to do that. It’s okay for lawyers to write to suggest that there’s a potential

misunderstanding, a discussion to be had, a resolution to be reached without a dispute.

Corrections to mindsets are needed, especially when facing someone who’s relying on a

Land Registry plan, but that can happen without aggressive posturing that ruins all

relationships. It’s not a sign of weakness to do that. It’s a long strategy, which may even

yield immediate results, and certainly better results than all guns blazing.

Our team routinely handles boundary disputes, without inflaming things, and aim to get them resolved without needing a claim. Get in touch to discuss how we can help you

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