Neighbour erected fence on our driveway

Mde00435

Hello all,

I am in the process of buying my first house. We’ve had our survey done and amongst a few other issues our surveyor has highlighted that the fence down the side of our driveway is not representative of the boundary. 

To explain further, the property is a semi-detached house with a private driveway. The house next door is a detached house however the neighbour has fenced off a 2 ft wide piece of land along the length of his house. The house has double gates yet to the right of the gates the neighbour seems to their own narrow gate that allows them access behind our gates. They have cut their hedge away in the front garden to allow them access through to
our driveway. Neither I nor anyone else I have spoken to have ever seen anything quite like this. As things currently stand we wouldn’t be able to park cars up that part of the driveway as it’s too narrow to open car doors enough. The land is seemingly unused by the neighbour and causes quite a problem for us. 

Obviously this causes great concern to us with regards to privacy and security. I am perplexed as to why the neighbour has done this and also how this has been allowed to happen. The sellers are claiming ignorance as this was their parents home who bequeathed it to them and as such they have not lived there in recent years. On the conveyance questionnaire they have ticked the boxes next to “has a boundary been moved in the last 10 years” and referenced this fence. 

I have attached photos to better explain the situation. 

I know a home owner has the right to access another persons property to maintain their own however this fence seems a bit too intrusive and it sticks out much further than their eaves. The deeds give 4 measurements and one would assume the distances are just straight lines but we can’t accurately determine the houses boundaries without paying for a boundary survey to be carried out. 

Is the neighbour allowed to this? Are we allowed to contest this or have it removed. I am just trying to understand what kind of potential minefield we are walking into. 

lincroft1710

This is not a consumer rights issue.

Ask a moderator to move the thread to the "Houses, buying and selling" board.

Carrot007

Looking at it I would say that's the boundry.

As in they have just errected a fence becuase they have decided to become "bad neighbours" for whatever reason. Seems silly in that place.

Boundrys are not measued to the inch. You will be lucky to ghet it to the metre and ity appears less. However the plans should be obvious if it is the wall. But as a non straight edge I doubt it.

All it would raise for me is a "this is not the right house for me" realisation.

lincroft1710

Carrot007 said:

.

Boundrys are not measued to the inch. You will be lucky to ghet it to the metre and ity appears less. However the plans should be obvious if it is the wall. But as a non straight edge I doubt it.

All it would raise for me is a "this is not the right house for me" realisation.

As some properties are less than 5 metres wide, one would hope boundaries could be measured much more accurately than to the nearest metre!

Back in the old days of pre Land Registry, house deeds would show boundaries measured to actual feet and inches. I used to see plenty of these deeds in the 1970s

mclaren32

Good luck with getting anything moved, it has clearly been there for some time and unless the owners of the house have an ongoing problem with that neighbour and are trying to get it resolved they probably aren’t bothered.

Accept it or move on, doing much else is going to open a huge can of worms.

ThumbRemote

This isn't your problem. Ask the vendor to sort it out, or back out.
It could become a massive problem if you buy without it being sorted first. 

theoretica

The house wall probably won't be the boundary - because that would leave all the gutters and things hanging over onto your land. Where did your surveyor think the boundary is? Some drives are too narrow to park on, but it looks wide enough to drive along.

Aylesbury_Duck

You are going to have to make a decision, I expect: you or the vendor spend money on a boundary survey and any resulting legal shenanigans if the fence is in the wrong place or accept the restrictive space if the fence is in the right place, or, back out now before you spend any more money.

photome

If you can’t determine the boundary and you don’t like where that fence is , pull out of the purchase

Carrot007

lincroft1710 said:

Carrot007 said:

.

Boundrys are not measued to the inch. You will be lucky to ghet it to the metre and ity appears less. However the plans should be obvious if it is the wall. But as a non straight edge I doubt it.

All it would raise for me is a "this is not the right house for me" realisation.

As some properties are less than 5 metres wide, one would hope boundaries could be measured much more accurately than to the nearest metre!

Back in the old days of pre Land Registry, house deeds would show boundaries measured to actual feet and inches. I used to see plenty of these deeds in the 1970s

They may have claimed to be that accurate ;-) However boundries are a "living" thing and do move. As such these deeds are often just indicative and not definate. This does cause many land grabs and expensive arguments, however it really cannot be any different. If more people understood why it has to be that way it might be better,

Not to mention that many changes occur and people do not change the deeds. For instance there was an outhouse opn the back of this house with and end into each other garden, say a metre at the house and the back and a metre into mine for theirs, same building on a semi. However when I got here they were both end on and the boundry was straight (quite clearly a thin door beign why it was done that way origionally the other way).

Unfortunatly many things require reasonable poeple beign reasonable and it is not possible to do (cheaply) any other way. Not to mention the many ridiculous things people belive about upkeep of fences and such.

So in essance. On a fastly spinning ball with constant change where things move all the time such things are not possible nor should they be expected to be, which is where the problem often comes in. (some places will always be obvious though like in OP's case where that fence was always the real border)

Silver_Shark

If that fence has been in place for 12 years or more the neighbour can claim that land by what is known as adverse possession.

If I were you I'd walk away from the house purchase.