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Contradicting Land Registry boundaries
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lizards
Posts: 244 Forumite


We've recently moved into our new house, where we intend to stay for a very long time.
According to the Land Registry title for our property, our immediate neighbour apparently owns a sliver of land directly at the bottom, beyond our fence and outside of their fenced garden. This land has several very mature trees (such as oaks etc) and there is then a steep drop off into the gardens that back onto our property. I cannot see if there is any sort of fence at the bottom of the drop off. I would imagine it was unusable by the people in the rear gardens as it is a very steep bank (the houses are all on an extremely steep hill with lots of terracing going on)
As this is so odd because it looks like they have no physical access to it (there may be a gate I can't see, but it's unlikely) I downloaded the Land Registry title for our immediate neighbour. And theirs clearly show that WE own that sliver of land. I also checked three of rear neighbours' gardens - none of them have a property border going into the sliver of land.
Just to complicate matters even further, the actual layout down there with fences looks like none of the documents. We have a greenhouse with fenced boundaries on three sides, portioning off a section of the sliver of land on the side nearest our neighbour who may, or may not, own the sliver.
Somebody is maintaining the trees, as they look freshly chopped in places. So someone must think they own it! Which is very odd as only our title says we own it. I suppose our seller might have but she made no mention to us over it all and we chatted plenty during a second viewing about the garden, she was a wealth of information - unfortunately we hadn't seen the Land Registry docs at that point or I'd have asked. I've no idea how whoever it was accessed the trees though given fences on the upper side and steep drop on the lower.
It would be really good if we did own this sliver of land. It cannot be of any use to the neighbour as they don't have any physical access to it, and the drop off makes it impossible to use for the rear neighbours. It would make the bottom part of our garden much more pleasant. In fact before I checked the plans today we were wondering whether to offer to buy it off the neighbours at some point as we assumed it can only be a hindrance to them with the tree maintenance. At this point we have not mentioned anything to the neighbours at all on the subject. And we don't want to create bad feeling.
Our greenhouse looks pretty old so I'm guessing it's been there a while. No idea on the fences - they don't look incredibly old but they don't look that recent either. The houses were built in 1981.
Are there any time/usage related laws in play here?
I've attached snippets from the Land Registry docs to illustrate the situation: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8840u2ztzrcpzsr/deeds.gif?dl=0
We're total novices to boundary issues so all advice welcome before we do anything further, even mentioning the subject to the neighbours!
Thank you for reading :-)
According to the Land Registry title for our property, our immediate neighbour apparently owns a sliver of land directly at the bottom, beyond our fence and outside of their fenced garden. This land has several very mature trees (such as oaks etc) and there is then a steep drop off into the gardens that back onto our property. I cannot see if there is any sort of fence at the bottom of the drop off. I would imagine it was unusable by the people in the rear gardens as it is a very steep bank (the houses are all on an extremely steep hill with lots of terracing going on)
As this is so odd because it looks like they have no physical access to it (there may be a gate I can't see, but it's unlikely) I downloaded the Land Registry title for our immediate neighbour. And theirs clearly show that WE own that sliver of land. I also checked three of rear neighbours' gardens - none of them have a property border going into the sliver of land.
Just to complicate matters even further, the actual layout down there with fences looks like none of the documents. We have a greenhouse with fenced boundaries on three sides, portioning off a section of the sliver of land on the side nearest our neighbour who may, or may not, own the sliver.
Somebody is maintaining the trees, as they look freshly chopped in places. So someone must think they own it! Which is very odd as only our title says we own it. I suppose our seller might have but she made no mention to us over it all and we chatted plenty during a second viewing about the garden, she was a wealth of information - unfortunately we hadn't seen the Land Registry docs at that point or I'd have asked. I've no idea how whoever it was accessed the trees though given fences on the upper side and steep drop on the lower.
It would be really good if we did own this sliver of land. It cannot be of any use to the neighbour as they don't have any physical access to it, and the drop off makes it impossible to use for the rear neighbours. It would make the bottom part of our garden much more pleasant. In fact before I checked the plans today we were wondering whether to offer to buy it off the neighbours at some point as we assumed it can only be a hindrance to them with the tree maintenance. At this point we have not mentioned anything to the neighbours at all on the subject. And we don't want to create bad feeling.
Our greenhouse looks pretty old so I'm guessing it's been there a while. No idea on the fences - they don't look incredibly old but they don't look that recent either. The houses were built in 1981.
Are there any time/usage related laws in play here?
I've attached snippets from the Land Registry docs to illustrate the situation: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8840u2ztzrcpzsr/deeds.gif?dl=0
We're total novices to boundary issues so all advice welcome before we do anything further, even mentioning the subject to the neighbours!
Thank you for reading :-)
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Comments
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If you look on the various pictures, there are dotted lines at the bottom of your land, that of your next door neighbour and another property on the bottom right. It looks like these dotted lines might join up to make a small chunk of land, that could well be owned by a third party. Just because your neighbour's plan doesn't have the bit at the end of your garden segmented off, it doesn't necessarily mean that it belongs to you. Your greenhouse does seem to be on the wrong side of this line.
Maybe the dotted line is some sort of theoretical pathway? Hopefully someone with better knowledge will be along later to help.0 -
could be the land belongs to the houses at the back of yours? have you got their docs from land registry0
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Thanks both. I did wonder if the houses at the rear owned the land but all three that touch both properties do not appear to.
I was under the impression from a brief search that the dotted lines were something to do with Ordnance Survey: "Where a boundary of the land is not defined by a physical feature on the our map, Land Registry indicates it on the title plan by a dotted line."
Of course, the title plans of ours and our neighbour have contradicting dotted lines! It's probably worth pointing out that the houses, at least on our road (no idea about the rear neighbours) were all built at the same time.
There is a fence over part of the dotted line now, but obviously where the greenhouse is, the fence does not follow the dotted line. The solid line at the rear is where the steep bank is, I presume.0 -
Did you try a map based search on the land registry? You put a pointer where you want to identify and it comes back with all plots that might be it. Most results will show the post address but if there's another resul called something like "Land at rear of X" then that might be it.Changing the world, one sarcastic comment at a time.0
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According to the Land Registry title for our property, our immediate neighbour apparently owns a sliver of land directly at the bottom, beyond our fence and outside of their fenced garden.
.... the Land Registry title for our immediate neighbour. And theirs clearly show that WE own that sliver of land.
Your Title Plan shows what you own. It cannot show what your neighbour owns.
Your neighbour's Title Plan shows what he own. It cannot show what you own.
The sliver of land appears not to belong to you, you neighbour, or the house backing onto you. It belongs to soeone else (unidentified).
Try doing a Map Enquiry and se if there is another Title registered for that area. If not, the land may be unregistered (though still belongs to someone else).
A ransome strip? Or just forgotten when the land was divided up and sold off for development, so still belongs to original owner/developer?
It appears ypur greenhouse is not on your land. You could try claiming adverse possession in due course.0 -
As above I'd claim adverse possession of that little bit of land.:footie:
Regular savers earn 6% interest (HSBC, First Direct, M&S)
Loans cost 2.9% per year (Nationwide) = FREE money.
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find out who is maintaining the trees, maybe start there?0
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The titles show what that property owns and as noted above a Map SEarch might help.
Whatever the plans show all you can do is talk to those that own the land and come to a resolution. Clearly nobody is worried about your greenhouse, so why not put up a notice on it asking the owner of the strip of land to contact you?
If they have proof of ownership you can offer to buy it? Maybe they are not interested in owning it and just want to avoid complaints about unkempt trees.Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.0 -
Have you investigated whether there is a tree preservation order? That just might give a clue.0
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Great, thanks all! This is turning into a treasure hunt!
G_M - you're absolutely right of course, neither of us own it, I was getting muddled. I think I got confused by the estate agent who said the seller said that it was owned by "neighbours".
I did the aerial search. It did indeed return a third party, a title known as "land at XXXX Road, YYYY town". This looks like the same title we received with the house, and applies to the whole estate rather than this one parcel of land as a whole.
So it seems like this is just a leftover bit that doesn't belong to a house.
I looked up the name of the most recent company that owns it (it seems to have a history dating back to the mid 19th century!) and they went bust a few years ago. Hmm.
"(23.08.2013) A notice dated 1 December 2011 by X and Y of X and Y Limited, liquidators of ZZ Homes Limited stated that the registered estate in this title was
being disclaimed under section 178 of the Insolvency Act 1986."
What does this mean??
bouicca21 - I did look into tree preservation orders, thanks for that tip! A few came up as possibles - one in the 60s that referred to a house by the same name as the road which no longer exists. Presumably as the land is referred to as the "XXXX estate" there was a fancy house on the land and it was sold off for housing in the 80s. Another order was roughly in the vicinity and referred to the road which our rear neighbours are on. There are further trees down there.
In a way it's good it doesn't belong to the neighbours because I am assuming that it must be a company who owns it, who would presumably have no sentimental attachment to it. It's certainly not big enough to develop on, especially if, as looks possible, there are tree preservation orders on it. We would absolutely love to have those trees as part of our garden, the garden is brilliant for us except it has no decent trees in it, and this would just make it perfect.0
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