Our neighbour owns a part of our garden

spidystrider

In 1996 we bought a cottage flat. The front garden belongs to us and half of the back garden. It has always been used as a rental flat and our neighbour upstairs spends most of his year working in Dubai. There are no fences up and we always cut the grass along the same invisible boundary line.

The flat went on the market and sold quickly. Today I went to sign it over to the new owners, to find out that at the last minute the solicitors have found that the boundary has been changed.

Sometime back in 2007 it looks like our neighbour has asked for a change of boundary and that in 2010 it was granted. No one ever contacted us and we never signed anything. The big problem is that it looks like we can not access the back garden now without going onto our neighbours ground.

I don't understand why he would want this piece of ground that he never uses. How could this happen without anyone contacting us and how could this be done, knowing that we could no longer access our garden without going onto our neighbours ground.

Our solicitor is trying to sort it out, this is of course going to cost us and could end the sale, leaving us and the buyers well and truly out of pocket. I guess there is also a chance that our buyers could sue us for their fees.

G_M

Is this England?

I assume the flats are both leasehold?
I assume also it is the leases that have apparntly changed?

If you purchased a lease in 1996, then the extent of the land in the lease would have been whatever the lease defined at that time. What did the lease and lease Plan show in 1996 when you purchased?
No change could have been made to the lease without your consent.
Indeed, if you have a mortgage on the property, your mortgage lender would also have had to grant consent - the Charge they placed on the leasehold Title would have made it impossible to register a new/changed lease without their consent.

It is hard to explain therefore what happened without a full legal investigation which your solicitor is doing.

spidystrider

Sorry I should have mentioned that I am in Scotland and that the flat is freehold. There is no mortgage on it. My solicitor has the original deeds with the garden boundary the boundary has now changed, with our neighbour taking around a 4 foot wide piece of ground the full length of the garden. This new boundary shows up on the Land Registry, Scotland.

davidmcn

G_M wrote: »

Is this England?

"Location: Ayrshire, Scotland" might be a clue

I assume the flats are both leasehold?
I assume also it is the leases that have apparntly changed?

If you purchased a lease in 1996, then the extent of the land in the lease would have been whatever the lease defined at that time. What did the lease and lease Plan show in 1996 when you purchased?
No change could have been made to the lease without your consent.
Indeed, if you have a mortgage on the property, your mortgage lender would also have had to grant consent - the Charge they placed on the leasehold Title would have made it impossible to register a new/changed lease without their consent.

It is hard to explain therefore what happened without a full legal investigation which your solicitor is doing.

Apart from the references to leasehold I would agree that much of the above applies in a Scottish scenario too. Really one for the solicitors to sort out.

It's probable that the OP's sale is triggering first registration, which sometimes throws up discrepancies between their title and those of neighbours which have already been registered.

spidystrider

davidmcn wrote: »

"Location: Ayrshire, Scotland" might be a clue

Apart from the references to leasehold I would agree that much of the above applies in a Scottish scenario too. Really one for the solicitors to sort out.

It's probable that the OP's sale is triggering first registration, which sometimes throws up discrepancies between their title and those of neighbours which have already been registered.

My solicitor did mention that this would be the first registration because we had bought it back in 1996, before the register existed.

moneyistooshorttomention

What triggered the neighbours having the boundary changed? - ie was 2007 when their flat had First Registration?

spidystrider

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

What triggered the neighbours having the boundary changed? - ie was 2007 when their flat had First Registration?

I believe that is when the boundary change must have occurred, although so far I have had little information. In fact the best information has been given by the very knowledgeable posters on here.

davidmcn

I suspect the Sasine deeds always contradicted each other, but that wouldn't be obvious unless you happened to check the neighbour's title. Because Land Register titles aren't allowed to overlap, whoever is first to register effectively has priority (though there are ways of fixing errors if you can show that the plans were in fact wrong).

moneyistooshorttomention

If you obtained a copy of your neighbours Title Plan from the Land Registry then the date would be on there of when it was Registered. That's something that, fortunately, only costs a few quid and you can either do it online or send off in the "traditional" way by post and get that.

davidmcn

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

If you obtained a copy of your neighbours Title Plan from the Land Registry then the date would be on there of when it was Registered. That's something that, fortunately, only costs a few quid and you can either do it online or send off in the "traditional" way by post and get that.

This is Scotland, so your references are slightly wrong, but anyway...the OP's solicitor will almost certainly already have details of the neighbour's title - I presume the discrepancy has come to light when they carry out their search to compare the Sasine (i.e. "unregistered") plan against the Land Register.