Mistake on boundary line discovered after purchase

otherumber

I bought a house nearly 20 years ago, and did not realise a dotted line on title was not boundary line. There was a ‘dog leg’ in the large garden!
The conveyancing solicitor did not pick it up either!
A series of neighbours, when talking about this with them, could not have cared less as they assumed the land was mine.
Fast forward 10 years and a new neighbour starts cutting out adjoining boundary hedge and cutting trees my garden in an attempt, I believe, at claiming possession. 

A very acrimonious boundary dispute ensued. I won, and have had harassment for years since. 

So….was I supposed to have picked up this mistake on title or was the solicitor?
For the stress this has caused, I would love to sue. 

canaldumidi

Solicitor never visited the property. You did. Solicitor had no way to compare the physical boundary with the boundary marked on the LR Plan. You did. Solicitor almost certainly sent you a copy of the LR Plan and asked you to confirm if it matched what you saw and were expecting to own.

otherumber

Yes, thankyou. I guessed so…

user1977

otherumber said:

For the stress this has caused, I would love to sue. 

Sue whom? Your solicitor, about something from 20 years ago, and which you found about 10 (or more?) years ago? You're out of time, even if you had a case.

lookstraightahead

My solicitor asked me to check my deeds. I did and it showed half the garden belonged to someone else and we had it transferred before we bought. Totally my responsibility - and my solicitor lives 200 miles away.

Bendy_House

Sounds horrible, otherumber.

As said, tho, part of the conveyancing process is for the buyer to confirm that the ACTUAL boundaries ARE as outlined in the deeds.

That's often a hell of a responsibility, say if there are trees and dense hedges hiding the actual borders, and the last time I helped someone with their purchase, I was surprised at how little emphasis was placed on this by their conveyancer. I mean, it was almost 'casual'. No sense of the potential agonies that could ensue.

May I ask how your case went? Did you have Legal Protection on your house insurance, for example? Did this end up costing you money? What about your neighb - were they landed with a bill? (I hope so...)

But, to answer your Q, there's no 3rd party to blame.

On the harassment issue, are you tackling this? Give no quarter.

Ath_Wat

lookstraightahead said:

My solicitor asked me to check my deeds. I did and it showed half the garden belonged to someone else and we had it transferred before we bought. Totally my responsibility - and my solicitor lives 200 miles away.

Did they not want it?

TBagpuss

As others have said, it's highly unlikelythat you would have had any claim agaisnt the soicitor, as they don't visit the property so have no way of knowing whether the plan and the actual fotprint on the ground are the same, although they will ususally send you a copy of the plan and recommend that you check you are happy it is what you thought you were buying. Isuppose if they didn't do that you might have been able to argue they were negligent in not doing so, but there is normally a limitation period of 6 years in which to make any claim, and 15 years under the latent damages act. Since you appear to have found out fairly soon after moving in , I think the 6 years would have run from when you first knew, and I suspect the absolute latest you could argue would have been 6 years from when the new neighbour movied in and tried to claim the land, or 15 years from when you bought, whichever came first.