Is there a document to say which fences/walls/land belongs to us?

easilyamused

Hello all

OH and I are in the process of buying a house, tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac down a shared drive. There's a parking bay out the front which the vendors state is shared with the house opposite.
Yesterday we received a bunch of stuff from our solicitor, including the seller's property information forms along with the HM Land Registry plan (which is pretty useless cos it's so tiny and non-detailed!) and then a larger scaled map with an HM Land Registry sticker on ,which is effectively the same but with some cross-hatching on (not sure what that indicates as there's no key given).

Haven't got anything that states what boundaries belong to us and are our responsibility (fences, brick walls etc) or even where our boundaries end. Is there a document that tells you this? Or would my solicitor be able to find out?

Thanks!

Clueless of Nottingham
x

steve_cov

There's a colour code: IIRC red lines mark the boundary, and I think it might be brown for the fences/walls which are "yours".

Debt_Free_Chick

The original deeds may state who maintains which boundaries, but the seller may no longer have these. I would have thought that if that information was in the deeds, it would have been transferred to the LR document.

Often, deeds don't state what the boundaries are as they can change over time e.g. what is now a fence might have once been a hedge. And, of course, anything marking a boundary can be moved - the fence might not follow precisely the line of the original hedge or anything else that was there previously.

The sellers' information form should state what has been custom & practice for maintenance of any boundary in the past. IIRC it's one of the first questions asked - have you been through that form carefully?

I think you need to be careful about relying on the colours on the LR map - the purpose of the colours should be set out clearly in the deeds or the LR document (which is simply an extract from the original deeds).

lindsay_g_2

With fences and walls you can tell which ones are yours by checking where the supports are. They are on the side of the household that owns them. So if you get a smooth face with no supports showing, that's theirs, and if not, it's yours.

There's some similar rule for hedges, but I can't remember exactly how it goes, so I'm not going to try and guess!

cattie

lindsay_g wrote:

With fences and walls you can tell which ones are yours by checking where the supports are. They are on the side of the household that owns them. So if you get a smooth face with no supports showing, that's theirs, and if not, it's yours.

There's some similar rule for hedges, but I can't remember exactly how it goes, so I'm not going to try and guess!

This isn't always so with fences I'm afraid. In my garden my fence has the attractive side & the neighbours have the side with struts. This was how it was when I moved in & I've known of other people who have their fences with the posts or struts facing the neighbours garden. With a lapped fence that slides into concrete struts it's very easy to be able to do this & still have the ability to remove each panel should repairs be necessary.

It is always best to check with the deeds & land registry documents to find out what your boundaries are.

silvercar

My neighbour replaced his fence adjoining our garden and said he wanted the smooth side facing him. His fence, his money, his choice.

dander

There should be some little 'T's on the land registery plan which indicate who owns the boundaries.

Kazonline

http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/guides_to/gardening_boundaries.shtml

I think this link might help. Kaz x

Debt_Free_Chick

dander wrote:

There should be some little 'T's on the land registery plan which indicate who owns the boundaries.

Unless, of course, a boundary marker (hedge, fence) was added later and not recorded on the deeds.

Our hedge is not on the deeds :eek:

easilyamused

Thanks for all the replies!

Have been through all the documents several times and we're still none the wiser so I think I'll give our solicitor a ring this morning.
There's no colours marked on the LR document at all, just a bold line all the way round the edge, with some cross hatching running in front of the property and down the side. Not sure what this denotes.
On the sellers information sheet, where they're asked 'looking towards the house from the road who either owns or accepts responsibility for the boundary on the left, right, across the back', the vendors have either ticked the 'shared' box or ticked both 'shared' and 'our responsibility' which doesn't actually tell us which bits are which!

Thanks again for all the help and advice anyway