Neighbour encroaching on my land.

vet88

The boundary between me and my neighbour consists of a chain link fence which runs behind an outbuilding on my side then a hawthorn hedge which runs up to my gate. Many years ago we erected a wooden fence in front of this hedge as it was too gappy to keep my dogs in and we now have a thick laurel hedge in front of it as well.
My fairly new neighbour has recently been chopping down the old hedge and then took down the wooden fence which was pretty knackered by now. I was just on the verge of going round to see him and discussing maybe splitting the costs of a new fence 50 /50 (I do not know who owns the boundary.) Anyway I struggled through the laurel hedge to have a look and saw that I was totally wrong.
On his side he had taken down an old shed and replaced it with a huge new building, probably a home office. Fine if he wants to take up all his garden, but the entire back of the shed is well over the boundary, it is beyond the old hedge line and even over the line of our old fence. He has taken out the last post of the chain link fence and bent it back at a right angle towards my land and oddly left the last three fence panels by the gate. It must be obvious to him that his building is over the boundary as the old boundary is still there on either side of this building about a yard back.. Now I see he has put other things like a water butt, steps, garden tools etc. all on my side of the the boundary, it is as if he is assuming my laurel hedge is the boundary.
Now I don't really know what to do. I have enough land that I am not going to go around there and make a huge fuss and I certainly will not demand he takes down this huge shed thing, but I am annoyed. Firstly he said nothing at all to me about this, also he must see his building is over onto my land, but mainly I am concerned as there are huge gaps in the boundary now where my dogs could get into his garden and the only way I could erect a new fence is to attach it to his shed. I can also see then when he sells his house there could be problems with the boundary marked on the deeds.
Any suggestions without causing all out war with the neighbour?

Megaross

Step 1. Decide what you would like them to do about it - moving the shed etc.
Step 2. Go around and just have a friendly chat, they might not have realised it was your land.

TELLIT01

If you aren't too bothered about the building itself, just speak to them and ask them to remove the butt etc as they are in your garden. Also ask them to replace the old fence as it was your property.   If they get awkward, you could then mention that the building itself is also on your land but you don't currently plan to force them to remove that.

DE_612183

If there is a fence, and then a hedge on your side I would have assumed that the fence was the boarder and the old hedge was on my land.

I think he didn't realise - as Megaross has said - friendly chat should sort it out.

FreeBear

TELLIT01 said:

If you aren't too bothered about the building itself, just speak to them and ask them to remove the butt etc as they are in your garden. Also ask them to replace the old fence as it was your property.   If they get awkward, you could then mention that the building itself is also on your land but you don't currently plan to force them to remove that.

Leaving the building (shed) encroaching on the neighbouring land could still store up issues in the future e.g. Adverse possession.

Best to get the problem resolved now and the boundary reinstated fully.

superbigal

Start playing this very loud

photome

FreeBear said:

TELLIT01 said:

If you aren't too bothered about the building itself, just speak to them and ask them to remove the butt etc as they are in your garden. Also ask them to replace the old fence as it was your property.   If they get awkward, you could then mention that the building itself is also on your land but you don't currently plan to force them to remove that.

Leaving the building (shed) encroaching on the neighbouring land could still store up issues in the future e.g. Adverse possession.

Best to get the problem resolved now and the boundary reinstated fully.

thats how i see it, could cause problems when selling

Bendy_House

vet88 said:

The boundary between me and my neighbour consists of a chain link fence which runs behind an outbuilding on my side then a hawthorn hedge which runs up to my gate. Many years ago we erected a wooden fence in front of this hedge as it was too gappy to keep my dogs in and we now have a thick laurel hedge in front of it as well.
My fairly new neighbour has recently been chopping down the old hedge and then took down the wooden fence which was pretty knackered by now. I was just on the verge of going round to see him and discussing maybe splitting the costs of a new fence 50 /50 (I do not know who owns the boundary.) Anyway I struggled through the laurel hedge to have a look and saw that I was totally wrong.
On his side he had taken down an old shed and replaced it with a huge new building, probably a home office. Fine if he wants to take up all his garden, but the entire back of the shed is well over the boundary, it is beyond the old hedge line and even over the line of our old fence. He has taken out the last post of the chain link fence and bent it back at a right angle towards my land and oddly left the last three fence panels by the gate. It must be obvious to him that his building is over the boundary as the old boundary is still there on either side of this building about a yard back.. Now I see he has put other things like a water butt, steps, garden tools etc. all on my side of the the boundary, it is as if he is assuming my laurel hedge is the boundary.
Now I don't really know what to do. I have enough land that I am not going to go around there and make a huge fuss and I certainly will not demand he takes down this huge shed thing, but I am annoyed. Firstly he said nothing at all to me about this, also he must see his building is over onto my land, but mainly I am concerned as there are huge gaps in the boundary now where my dogs could get into his garden and the only way I could erect a new fence is to attach it to his shed. I can also see then when he sells his house there could be problems with the boundary marked on the deeds.
Any suggestions without causing all out war with the neighbour?

Wow. At what stage would you have stopped adding fences/hedges sandwiches, and actually addressed the issue of a single proper boundary?

And how 'fairly new' is this neighbour?

Anyhoo... I'd start by gathering all the evidence you'll require to confirm the 'true' boundary - ie, photos of the bent posts that held the chain-link fence (which 'is' the true boundary?), and any other evidence you can put together. For instance, is the chain-link fence in-line with the hawthorn hedge that runs to your gate? Are they all in a straight line?

And, do you have any old photos, sales particulars etc which show the old chain-link fence, or the newer timber one? Have you looked at 'historic' maps on Google Earth? Align all that with the map shown in your deeds, along with any unmovable objects - house, garage, walls, etc, and to some degree, gates.

Then, as said above, you need to decide what outcome you want/need out of this. You - very kindly - are not going to insist they take down the new building, (I presume this a timber-framed 'garden building'?) That's great, BUT, unless you want a shed-load (fnurrr...) of problems later on (and possibly even then unavoidable), I suggest you put in place a way of preventing an AP claim in the future. Purely from what I gather from reading other threads on AP and encroachment, a successful AP claim relies on the land to have been used without the true owner's knowledge or permission, as if it fully belonged to the claimant. So - in theory - 'all' you have to do is to give the neighb 'permission' to have their shed partly over the boundary line, with the longer-term agreement being that it is fully removed when it reaches the end of its natural life, and the true boundary line reinstated at the gap left by the shed.

That could still possibly leave open a longer-term right of 'easement', where the neighbour has the legal right to access his full shed, even tho' it's on your land. I have no idea how this might differ from AP - I suggest you get advice.

Do you have Legal Protection on your house insurance? Even if they are reluctant to become involved, they should still at least be able to offer advice.

Now, what are the chances that this neighb made a genuine mistake? I would suggest - but obviously don't know - that if the hawthorn hedge, which runs from your gate, is 'obviously' your true boundary, and this can be seen equally well by the neighbour, then they must have been, er, very careless to have flattened your chain link fence and posts which were presumably along the same line. On the other hand, a truly intentional attempt at setting the scene for a future AP might have seen the potential claimant removing all evidence of this boundary, to make it as awkward as possible to determine.

Get your facts together before approaching them, and act from the point of view that you imagine they made a genuine mistake - big smile. BUT, you are in the process of clearing away all the overgrown hedges along that boundary, and intend to erect a completely new fence in the correct location. Look carefully at their response to this. Any bolshieness = entitled a'oles, and potentially bigger issues. A genuinely mortified reaction will hopefully lead to an agreeable compromise.

Hopefully pre-armed with legal advice that will suggest the options open to you (and I hope that could include the nuclear option of being able to force them to remove their building if needed), then you essentially hold all the cards, and they should be reasonable if they want to avoid trouble.

What's an acceptable 'compromise' should they turn out to be decent folk who are just idiots? I see two, but I don't know how troublesome they could be:

1) You both sign an agreement confirming the rightful owner of the land, but making it clear that future owners might not be as amenable. I would also have in there that the building is removed at the first available opportunity. With this, you then put up your new fence in the correct place - immediately on your side of the old chain-link line - and it will presumably butt up to the side wall of this building, before then continuing from the other side. That should make the situation clear! Or,

2) Agree a price for them to buy a suitably-sized strip of land from you, that will include their building and, I suggest, at least 400mm of maintenance access space. They also take on all the legal fees for this transfer. If that strip of land doesn't mean much to you, the actual purchase cost doesn't have to be much.

Do NOT lose sight, tho', that THEY have made the error - THIS IS ALL OF THEIR DOING, NOT YOURS. Come back to that point as often as you need to. (Apart from you being a bit lax and lazy about your boundary... :-)  )

You DO need legal advice, tho'.

diystarter7

Op
Have a chat and see where it goes and take it from there.
I worry a lot and the longer I leave it the worse it gets.
So have a chat and if they should become nasty/etc and there is no need for that and you feel under threat or abused, no
messing call the cops. It is unlikely to come to that but people like that, you would not gone ahead and done that nor would I, so caution is the magic word but do act as it is your property, you worked for it is is
yours and if they are not so nice, dont feel guilty I'm with you.

Hopefully it turns out to be a lot better and easier and they apologise and sort everything out

Do let us know - I always dread new people next door in front of us or behind us.

Bendy_House

Also post it on here - they seem to have some legal folk on there (I think...): https://www.gardenlaw.co.uk/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=ddf31a28f6b3505155a7e58c9d5e8fc0

vet88

Thanks for your replies.
I do agree Bendy House that the boundary was a bit loose, in fact at one stage the previous neighbours erected a fence on their side of the boundary hedge, so it was a mess. I am very happy to sort out the whole thing, take it all down and start again which is what I thought this guy was doing. 
As an aside he has already extended his house enormously and I do not know how he got away with it. The local rules say no house can be extended by more than 50% of its size on a certain date, he must have doubled his place, but he got planning consent. I assume he bribed the planners.