Neighbour says I'm encroaching on their land

ognum

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Where this is going is that I shall be perfectly civil and polite and taking in parcels now and I have a Land Registry entry that indicates what I own and am not going to bother myself about a petty amount of mine they are using until the circumstances are right to put things straight. I can manage to smile sweetly from here on in until then about how things are at present and just carry on using exactly the same land as my predecessor did (not including my extra smidgen), but including the smidgen they are after now.

I've made my feelings clear just enough so that they can see I'm not a walkover and will now resume the politeness/overall helpfulness/etc attitude I have maintained as usual and just ring friends to let off steam if there are any further rants at me in an attempt to "have a bit more of mine".

They've had their little bit of a try-on. It hasn't worked. Status quo ante. I guess its not uncommon for people to "try for more" and make out that that's how things were before to a new neighbour and hope to get away with it by convincing new neighbour that things really were the way they weren't at all.

End of...:)

Just my opinion

I think you should sort this out with the documentation you have now, not wait until you have been there a while and then do it.

You are new, you have little or no established relationship, you have the documentation, why wait, do it with a smile I do not understand the point in waiting. Are you actually scared?

Get it sorted and then move on from there, as I said! just my opinion! It am aware we have not always had the same opinion in the past!

rosyw

ognum wrote: »

Just my opinion

I think you should sort this out with the documentation you have now, not wait until you have been there a while and then do it.

You are new, you have little or no established relationship, you have the documentation, why wait, do it with a smile I do not understand the point in waiting. Are you actually scared?

Get it sorted and then move on from there

Must say I agree wholeheartedly with this

I have one neighbour who liked to throw his weight about, telling me I couldn't do this, that or the other, I politely, and with a sickly sweet smile on my face pointed out on each occasion that actually yes I could, and showed him the paperwork top back it up. I haven't had any bother for a couple of years now, although some new neighbours have, and I've had to help them settle a few things, they're elderly and easily worried so he saw them as "easy pickings". We now politely smile and say good morning or whatever and he leaves us all alone. Much better to sort things out at the start, get it all out of the way and move on.

moneyistooshorttomention

Rosy,

Thanks for confirming my suspicions that there are indeed people out there who regard new neighbours as easy pickings. This does rather confirm what I think is happening here.

I shall get Land Registry entries for the properties involved and then I can compare closely and, if there are any further attempts at this, then bring them all out and say "This is the exact status...as you can see" and that should sort that out hopefully.

I am hoping they will have assessed me well enough by now after last episode that that will be the last episode ever of "try-ons". If they are after another "go" at some point soon, then I will bring out all that ammunition at that point. But I am hoping that peace will reign now obviously. I think they were testing to see how "strong" I am and hopefully have now come to correct conclusion and therefore won't try again. I'm guessing that they saw me as potentially vulnerable (ie not as a local) and have now realised their mistake.

rosyw

I sincerely hope the ammo isn't needed

In my case I know I was seen as easy pickings, the neighbour knew I was recently widowed and saw me as vulnerable, what he didn't know was that by the time I moved I'd taken so much "carp" from people that I wasn't going to take any more! :rotfl: I'd been warned by my solicitor that I could face problems with him as he'd threatened to block the shared drive unless he got the £75 he was owed by my vendors for their share of the gravel he'd topped it up with, my solicitor told him in no uncertain terms what would happen if he tried :rotfl:

I hope you neighbour is like mine and has now realised he may have met his match

Cardew

Land_Registry_representative wrote: »

I know OPs don't always come back and publish the outcomes but when they do it really does help others but as with all boundaries there are two sides (at least) to every scenario of course, literally.

Excellent posts - Thank You.

Do the Land Registry have a view on boundaries being marked with electric fences? barbed wire? land mines(properly signed) machine guns on fixed line of fire?

Strapped

Davesnave wrote: »

Yes, that concept was new to me too! :rotfl:

At our last house, we inherited a hedge 6' - 8' thick, which I removed over a period of several years, as it was so substantial. I therefore couldn't put a string line down the entire length, nor take out the full width everywhere, because the neighbour decided obtusely to retain the their 'half' in one place.

I thought I'd done well until I re-roofed the shed, from which vantage point I saw the truth! I don't think that boundary was particularly straight to start with.

But that was nothing compared with the bottom boundary, where we backed onto four properties and owned the whole hedge. There, two of them had, at some time, pinched about 3' of our garden to make rear accesses. Poetic justice really, as I'd done similarly behind another house to achieve the same thing! :cool:

There was nothing that could be done...... until we left. Then, we sold the bottom part of the garden separately to those 4 properties, and I made certain their new boundary was very straight.

We have one boundary which is a Devon bank, and technically belongs to another property - but I can't see them fording the stream on their side to come and maintain it! Fortunately they are happy for us to do so

Another boundary is shown as a straight line at the Land Registry, but in reality we have a flying freehold with the cottage next door, and then their linhay sticks into our courtyard! Fortunately we all have a bit of common sense and no-one is going to be getting the sledgehammer out any time soon. Although I dread the day we get new neighbours...;)

Davesnave

Strapped wrote: »

We have one boundary which is a Devon bank, and technically belongs to another property - but I can't see them fording the stream on their side to come and maintain it! Fortunately they are happy for us to do so

But does it? If the deeds are specific, then yes, but in many cases, including mine, they're silent.

In the case of a hedge bank and ditch, the far bank of the watercourse is usually taken as the boundary. See Land Registry quote below:

12.2 Hedge and ditch

Where two properties are divided by a hedge or bank and an artificial ditch, the boundary is presumed to run along the edge of the ditch furthest from the hedge or bank. This is based on the principle that an owner, standing on his boundary looking inward, dug his drainage ditch within his boundary, threw up the soil on his home side, and then planted a hedge on the mound. This presumption only applies to man-made ditches and does not apply if it can be shown that the ditch is natural or if it can be established that the boundary feature was made while the lands on both sides were in common ownership.


If it's a stream:

12.3 Non-tidal rivers and streams

Where properties are separated by a natural non-tidal river or a stream, the presumption is that the boundary follows the centre line of the water (ad medium filum aquae) so that each owner has half of the bed.


Whether it's a ditch or a stream. it would therefore be normal for you to own the far side.


I wish I'd known all this before I put in sheep fence and barbed-wire. Fixing the other side has been made doubly difficult and taken a few winters. It's also the reason that my neighbour, mentioned earlier, swears at me for "ruining his view," but the landowner on the far bank of the stream is pleased.


You can't win 'em all!

moneyistooshorttomention

Cardew wrote: »

Excellent posts - Thank You.

Do the Land Registry have a view on boundaries being marked with electric fences? barbed wire? land mines(properly signed) machine guns on fixed line of fire?

Or a few more "unusual";) things I've had suggested to me by a Californian friend of mine. Tell ya' they have got some unusual ideas out thar :rotfl:. Howdy friend if you read these British forums of ours...I'm still killing myself laughing at her thoughts on this..

Oh yes Dave...you should see some of the borders over here. They are literally hanging in mid-air....yikes.

..and to think that one of my reasons for rejecting another house here was that by the time the owner had said "We own this tiny bit and they own that tiny bit, but then they own...." and so it went on and I decided there were potentially half a dozen border disputes there in just that one sentence and rejected the house.

moneyistooshorttomention

I've had an interesting few hours mentally trying to put myself in my neighbours' (argumentative) shoes to understand what their reasoning on all this might be.

Ah! Now I see where a recent comment came from to effect that they feel I have noticeably underpaid for this house. My reaction to that was distinct puzzlement at the time (as I paid bang on the usual percentage of asking price). Having thought all the way through this and re-studied my deeds, I think I see why...

I think I know just who was the likely driving force for the way my vendor attempted to gazump me part way through the buying process and I had to pay a tiny bit more than we had originally agreed to stop this.

Based on pure objective facts, it would appear that I have indeed bagged me a bargain all inadvertently. Based on having this particular person for a neighbour, then I'm guessing the price asked took into account the hassle of having this particular person for a neighbour. I was a little puzzled by how one or two things had been done by the previous owner of this house but, now that I can see what the neighbour is like, then all is clear and I realise that x was done as protection against this possible onslaught, y was done as protection against that possible onslaught. I do hope my eventual replacement neighbour in that house has hobbies like bingo and bowls instead of "trying to be ruler of road".:cool::rotfl:

Strapped

Davesnave wrote: »

But does it? If the deeds are specific, then yes, but in many cases, including mine, they're silent.

In the case of a hedge bank and ditch, the far bank of the watercourse is usually taken as the boundary. See Land Registry quote below:

12.2 Hedge and ditch

Where two properties are divided by a hedge or bank and an artificial ditch, the boundary is presumed to run along the edge of the ditch furthest from the hedge or bank. This is based on the principle that an owner, standing on his boundary looking inward, dug his drainage ditch within his boundary, threw up the soil on his home side, and then planted a hedge on the mound. This presumption only applies to man-made ditches and does not apply if it can be shown that the ditch is natural or if it can be established that the boundary feature was made while the lands on both sides were in common ownership.


If it's a stream:

12.3 Non-tidal rivers and streams

Where properties are separated by a natural non-tidal river or a stream, the presumption is that the boundary follows the centre line of the water (ad medium filum aquae) so that each owner has half of the bed.


Whether it's a ditch or a stream. it would therefore be normal for you to own the far side.


I wish I'd known all this before I put in sheep fence and barbed-wire. Fixing the other side has been made doubly difficult and taken a few winters. It's also the reason that my neighbour, mentioned earlier, swears at me for "ruining his view," but the landowner on the far bank of the stream is pleased.


You can't win 'em all!

The LR docs show the stream as definitely in the other property.