Land registry plan based on OS map wrong due to trees

ady216

The land registry plan of our property is the right shape, but now that the trees that used to overhang the boundary have been removed, I can overlay the Google Earth image and plan and it is in the wrong location by around 2.5m.  There have been several attempts to move the boundary (marked by the hedge in the original sale documents from 70 years ago) to the middle of the flower beds.  I can see now that they thought they could take the land because the OS map has put the boundary on our side of the tree canopy rather than down the centre of the trunks.  We have the deeds and they are registered with the land registry.  Does anyone know if there is a simple way to rectify this situation?

canaldumidi

Simple? No.

Apply. Surveyor inspection. Neighbour contacted and asked to agree/object.

https://www.gov.uk/your-property-boundaries/correct-boundary-mistake-title-plan

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/altering-the-register-by-removing-land-from-a-title-plan-pg77/practice-guide-77-altering-the-register-by-removing-land-from-a-title-plan

Slithery

You cannot rely on Google Earth for accurate plans because of the way the data is collected and processed. Definitely not to within an accuracy of 2.5m.

Section62

ady216 said:

There have been several attempts to move the boundary (marked by the hedge in the original sale documents from 70 years ago) to the middle of the flower beds.  I can see now that they thought they could take the land because the OS map has put the boundary on our side of the tree canopy rather than down the centre of the trunks.....

OS plans are almost as unreliable as Google Earth for this purpose.

Do the documents from 70 years ago have written measurements on them?

ady216

Yes, the plans have measurements on them.  The original sale document (not the deeds) has the hedge as the boundary line.  There are old images of the hedge in the year before the sale and it runs in a straight line along a field where many houses were built, first on our side and then, around 20 years later, on the other side.  Our rear boundary has 2 neighbours.  One neighbour has their fence around 1m  from the overgrown hedge/trees on their side of them (I think the original fence from the developers of the land behind us) and the other neighbour cut down the trees and tried to move the boundary 2.5m further over into our garden (where it would line up on the land registry plan) creating a huge 3.5m dogleg in a boundary that is shown as straight on the deed plan. The deed plan shows our straight rear boundary and continues the straight line on along the line of the original hedge (presumably where the rear boundary of all the other gardens in the row is now found).
When I overlay the Google Earth image on the land registry plan, all the boundaries are in approximately the correct position for all the houses in the plan except for where trees obscured our boundaries and that of our next door neighbour to one side who also have an overgrown hedge/trees.  The OS map and the land registry plans show all the houses in the row to have rear boundaries in a straight line until they get to the trees when it jumps to our inside edge of the tree canopy.  Now, most trees have been removed, Google Earth shows this fence runs in a straight line with all the other fences (down the centre line of where the tree trunks stood)

Mutton_Geoff

If it ends up in a dispute, it will be the most expensive 2.5m strip of land you've ever bought. Open discussion with your neighbour the best way.

ady216

If the deed plan, old planning application plans and original sale plan all match the current fence location and all the past aerial images show the thick hedge separating the two properties in the same location, and part of that hedge is still in existence (and the stumps of the rest of it are still largely in existence (at least our half of them, they ground their side down), could the neighbours really dispute the boundary based only on the land registry plan and OS map?  
When the neighbours put in a planning application, the council only recognised the land registry plan.  When we complained the house they were building would overhang our boundary, they just replied it would not (and it does).  Their plan shows a nice 2m strip down the side that is actually our garden.
The council did the same on our side boundary (also hidden by trees).  They had a line of trees, then there was a fence, then half a metre in from that there is a hedge on our side of the fence.  The fence continued past our neighbours plot and was built on our side with the same materials used around other boundaries of our property.  Their deeds showed this fence was 1.5m away from where the deeds measurements would place the boundary (the trees probably being the original boundary line), but they didn't want us to put up a small garage near the boundary, so they decided to claim they owned the hedge on our side of the fence (2m away from where the deeds showed their boundary) to the planners.  We were banned from touching any of our (3m wide) front garden hedge in any way by the planners and had to apply to be able to trim it again after the garage was built.  Other than to frustrate the garage being built, it is accepted that the fence and hedge is ours. They could make this claim though and get us banned from touching our property because the OS map, and therefore the land registry plan has placed the boundary structure line down our side of the tree canopy.  We sent deeds, measurements, photos and asked them to come and view it on both occasions, all to no avail - the land registry plan ruled.
I can't imagine the other neighbours will want to formalise their apparent loss of land as their property overhangs our boundary and the drains were built under our fence - they will just claim they thought it was theirs and the council agreed.  The boundary fence can only now be seen from overhead because they cut down the trees (they had to cut up and smash our fences to do that, knock down the small garden walls inside the fence line and then cut down the ladders we had chained around our trees that had grown up on our side of the original hedge line - they just kept trying until one day we were not there to protect them).  The trees were huge, with trunks around 2m in diameter and they wanted all trace of them gone.  The stump grinders weren't so cavalier as the owners and would not cut past around half way so half of most stumps remain (the owners did dig a few out where they got in the way of their drains)