Urgent advice please; builders have built about 10cm onto neighbours' land!

rosie383

We are having a single storey extension built and it is mostly done now. Walls, plastering, roof etc.
Our neighbours just pointed out that the builder has built right up to their extension wall, but this means that we have gone about 10cm into their land. This is impossible to see from our property due to a hedge and tree but we can see it from their side now that they have pointed it out.
What are our options? We really don't want to have to knock it down and they said that they aren't bothered except it would be an issue for either party if we go to sell. They would be willing to sell us the piece of land if necessary.

I need to add: the neighbours' extension was a DIY job by the previous owner and it was about 10cm into their land rather than all the way up to the boundary if that makes sense. We discussed with the neighbours that our builder would build an extra wall up against their wall rather than leaving a tiny gap to collect water and debris. What has happened is that he has then incorporated the wall into our extension. The new roof is over this double wall.

chrisw

You could either leave it and hope nobody notices when you come to sell (it's only 10cm-would you notice if you didn't know what was there before?), or make it 'legal' by buying the bit of land and registering it and getting some peace of mind. If the neighbours aren't bothered, they might sell it cheaply.

rosie383

I think we may have to buy and register it. Has any one got any idea how much that would be likely to cost? Hundreds? Thousands?

stator

Are you SURE it's their land? Most land registry plans aren't accurate to 10cm. What features exactly mark out the boundary?

You could agree with them an exact boundary register it with the land registry, pay all the costs yourself and chuck them a few quid to make them happy. A proper surveyor to draw up your boundary should cost £500ish? Don't know the LR fee but it's not huge.

Doozergirl

I'd ignore it. The boundary is never clear. In reality the line of a bounsay has no thickness, yet the line on the land registry documents, if they are 1mm thick on a 1:1250 document, makes them 1.25m wide on the ground.

A definitive boundary does not exist in law.

If you get on well with your neighbours, say sorry and get them drunk in the hope they forget about it.

If you go down lines of buying it, they could charge whatever they wanted. At which point I'll bring you back to your land registry title plan and ask you what would look different if you bought 10cm of land.

Nothing would look different.

rosie383

Thank you for the replies especially Stator and Doozergirl. When I looked online at gov.uk it said something similar. We really don't want to fall out with the neighbours and have any sort of boundary dispute. But I also don't want to pay out potentially hundreds of pounds either.

Now how do we convince our neighbours without them thinking that we are trying to pull a fly one. That was certainly what they seemed to be implying yesterday.

bmthmark

Personally I really would not mention buying the tiny bit of land, because straight away they believe they are on to a winner and they could charge anything.
I would ignore it and eventually it will go away.

Can't believe they would mention 10cm lol - no idea how they would know this

GT60

to change the LR it cost between £100 and !50 from memory
I have just had mine altered as the search's the solicitor did in my sale found some issues
With regards the extension is theirs Legal and does it meet Planning regs as it was a DIY job do some home work and then you may have something to argue back with, if it came to that.


A simple solution would be get a solicitor to do a search on your land and see what they think, saves tons of potential headaches if you or the neighbour came to sell

cyclonebri1

You obviously have decent neighbours,:T, kepp it that way and yourself in the clear by writing up a short document that the 100mm is gifted to you. Get this signed and dated by both yourselves and the neighbours and keep it safely in your possession.
There is no need to get the deeds altered imho.

What you do need to do is bung next door a big big drink, couple of hundred lets say, as they have saved you or the builder a ton of money and to be honest he may even knock something of your bill as his contribution.

jobbingmusician

Lots of good amicable ideas here, but can I just suggest that maybe it is your builder's problem rather than your problem? This doesn't stop you resolving it, of course, but the point about the builder being willing to knock something of his bill is a good one (he is saving loads by not claiming on his insurance if you sort it out.)

27col

It's extremely unlikely that any domestic dwelling boundary is specified to within 100mm.