Deciphering land border on Land Registry Title....

martinsurrey

greektony wrote: »

good point Martin..... I'm generally too naive and nice to people!

Me too, on this issue I learnt the hard way, bought a house, asked around about some dis-used land, came back from work and found a fence on the land that was unclaimed.

The back neighbour (who had been there for 12 years without batting an eye lid)) put it up after seeing me chatting and looking. They got the idea from me, and beat me too it. Nothing I could do…

Land_Registry

Our Practice Guidance explains some of the key points re boundaries and our title plans

Agreeing as to where the boundary may run is something neighbours would normally need to agree on. Any plan will only provide you with an idea as to where the boundary lies and in most cases there is a fence, wall or other physical feature already in place.

When you bought the property your conveyancer will probably have asked you to confirm that the title plan matched what you were buying - was the 'open' nature re red land not raised/discussed at that point?

Deciding how to approach the matter will invariably depend on what it is you are trying to ultimately achieve so if you intend to fence off an area which has previously been open then I would recommend always getting some legal advice as well.

Others have posted from personal experience and in my experience each situation is unique not just from it being a different parcel of land/property involved but also because the neighbours will invariably have a different view; experience of such matters; and of course and quite crucially a view on how important such matters are to them.

You can check whether the green land is registered or not by following our online guidance

So my advice is to gather whatever information is available to you, including what your seller's provided and then getting legal advice.

princeofpounds

Hi there

If there are no physical boundary markers in place at all then establishing the boundary is never going to be exact (unless you eventually end up in a dispute which requires a precised 'determined' resolution).

The red lines are a few feet thick on the ground. Making measurements off the map does not legally determine where the boundary is, but it's probably the best guide you have for the time being.

I do concur to a certain degree with martinsurrey that there isn't much point asking around before you do anything, and it might encourage someone to place legal or physical obstacles in the way of you marking out your own boundaries. As far as you are concerned, if it's on your title plan, it's your land.

The key point here is that it's not as if you are trying to be cheeky and stretch things, and that if anyone else does come forward you can have a reasonable discussion with them, you don't have to end up in a dispute if it is a matter of a foot or two.

You might want to see if you can find the title plan for the neighbouring plot, just to make sure it matches up. That's the only situation in which you are going to get a (sensible) dispute of more than a few feet.

As for actually measuring it - From a few features you know the size of, I'd try scaling up the lengths of the edges of the triangle. If you know your trigonometry, you'll realise that there is only one configuration they will match up. If you can identify one of the two corner points where it attaches to your already-marked boundary then you should pretty much have it.

It's a little more tricky because a) there appears to be a slight kink from the lines of your existing boundary and b) I assume the edge between the established part of the land and the 'new' part of the land is not easily determinable.

Remember to use a tape measure that doesn't stretch!