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Where to get boundary measurements?

gazfocus Posts: 2,405 Forumite

1 August 2012 at 1:28PM in House buying, renting & selling

Completing on our first house on Friday and one of the first things we are hoping to do is move the fence backwards to match the Title Plan from the Land Registry. Our solicitor has confirmed that we are within our rights to do this.

However, what I was wondering is where do we get the exact measurements of where our garden boundaries are? Is this something we get once completed?

Comments

phead Posts: 214 Forumite

1 August 2012 at 1:45PM

Read this:

http://www.gardenlaw.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2247

A title plan is worthless for establishing the exact position of the boundary, if the landowner disputes you moving it then you are into a potential dispute, which may get very expensive (no wonder your solicitor likes the idea!) and effect the price of your property later on.

Given the fence is where it is, they start with the better hand. You need a lot more than a title plan to start down this line.

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lincroft1710 Posts: 18,293 Forumite

1 August 2012 at 1:52PM

Some old deeds did have the actual boundary measurements on. But you would be very lucky if your house a) was old enough and b) actually had such deeds.

If you are querying your Council Tax band would you please state whether you are in England, Scotland or Wales
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gazfocus Posts: 2,405 Forumite

1 August 2012 at 2:01PM edited 1 August 2012 at 2:35PM

Thanks. The house we're buying is 6 years old so probably not old enough to have exact measurements, etc. Basically, the fence at the bottom of the garden is placed in a position that makes the garden 2/3 the length that the title plan shows. The title plan actually shows the position of the fence and shows an amount of land beyond the fence that belongs to our house.

The reason the fence is where it is, is that about 2ft after the fence there is a 6ft+ drop in ground level so the developers that built the house placed the fence where it is, to save having to fill the void.

The land behind the house belongs to the council so I don't think I'll get much of a fight from them.

Our solicitors have advised that because the title plan shows the fence and land beyond the fence belonging to us, we can move the fence to the edge of the red line but obviously this is going to be very difficult if we don't have any measurements to work from.

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princeofpounds Posts: 10,396 Forumite

1 August 2012 at 3:59PM

If the title plan shows the fence is the boundary, but the fence is not quite where the line on the plan is, the physical fence position normally wins out.

But here, there is a big difference and the fence clearly is not the boundary according to the plan. So there should be another physical feature that determines the boundary. only after that would you resort to actual measurements.

Given it's a void, probably the boundary is marked by your neighbour's fence onto the void, rather than yours.

So I can see where your solicitor is coming from.

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gazfocus Posts: 2,405 Forumite

1 August 2012 at 5:32PM

Not sure if I'm explaining this properly so here's a couple of pictures (I posted these a while back but revisiting it now).

Our house is the one with the red wendy house in the garden.

This is a snippet from the land registry title plan

The border beyond the fence is a caged stone wall that looks to have been erected to contain the land.

My solicitor has confirmed that there are no access rights, etc and I've spoken to the council's planning department today and their response was basically "if it's within your boundary you can do what you like". My next question was "how do I determine the actual boundary" and they just advised me to contact a surveyor (which will obviously cost a fair bit).

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daveyjp Posts: 13,102 Forumite

1 August 2012 at 5:54PM

Do it yourself. The house is on the plan, you can measure the outside wall length, measure this length on the plan to get a scale, then use this to calculate the length of the garden to the red line, mark it out and erect a fence.

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gazfocus Posts: 2,405 Forumite

1 August 2012 at 6:05PM

Have looked at the title plans a bit more closely and the plans are drawn at a scale of 1:1250. At 100% zoom on the pc, the additional land is about 4mm. Am I right by multiplying that by 1250, in which case that would make the additional land measure 5 meters?

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princeofpounds Posts: 10,396 Forumite

1 August 2012 at 6:10PM edited 1 August 2012 at 6:13PM

Did you not read the link from gardenlaw? Measurement from a plan doesn't tell you much. Physical features rule, to put it bluntly.

In this case, looks pretty clear the the stone wall, not the fence, is the boundary. Looks to be in the right position (which is, yes, a few metres out if you want to think about it on terms of measurements)

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jimjames Posts: 18,180 Forumite

1 August 2012 at 6:15PM

Based on the photo, what about the houses next door? If the boundary for one suddenly jumps 20ft back then could that not raise an issue with the other properties no longer being in line?

Remember the saying: if it looks too good to be true it almost certainly is.
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daveyjp Posts: 13,102 Forumite

1 August 2012 at 6:18PM

gazfocus wrote: »

Have looked at the title plans a bit more closely and the plans are drawn at a scale of 1:1250. At 100% zoom on the pc, the additional land is about 4mm. Am I right by multiplying that by 1250, in which case that would make the additional land measure 5 meters?

You can't rely on printed plans, thats why physical measurement of the property is required so you can check the actual against the plan.

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