Adverse possession over terraced house boundary

sunrisesunset

mobilejo said:

housebuyer143 said:

You can't claim adverse possession on registered land simply by fencing it off. If it's registered the land registry would write to the owner to give them an opportunity to dispute you taking it, at which point they would. 

That is an oversimplification.

Adverse possession of registered land is more difficult than it was pre-2003, but is still possible.

Yes, if registration via adverse possession is applied for the Land Registry will write to the registered proprietor and allow them the opportunity to object, and yes, if the application is opposed, it will often be be rejected. 

However there are a few caveats to that. Where the proprietor objects, registration will usually be rejected unless either:

(1) it would be unconscionable because of an equity by estoppel for the registered proprietor to seek to dispossess the squatter and the squatter ought in the circumstances to be registered as proprietor

(2) the squatter is for some other reason entitled to be registered as proprietor

(3) the squatter has been in adverse possession of land adjacent to their own under the mistaken but reasonable belief that they are the owner of it, the exact line of the boundary with this adjacent land has not been determined and the estate to which the application relates was registered more than a year prior to the date of the application.

Scenario 3 is designed precisely for situations such as the OP's, and this particular type of application often succeeds (provided the other criteria for adverse possession have been met).

Thanks. Do you know if all three of those points 3 have to be met?

RAS

It would be a good idea to get next door's land registration as well; after all its only £3. Scan both and the planning application, redact and post here

theoretica

sunrisesunset said:

I bought the £3 Title Plan from the land registry. We have a mortgage so the bank has the deeds.

I drew a little picture. It's not to scale and looks bad, but it's the best I could do.
The black lines show what the garden looks like on the Title Plan.
The blue rectangle shows what their extension would be like on our side.
The red line shows how they think our fence currently lines up.
They have extra space from the other neighbour's garden, so their garden is still larger than ours.


Despite what someone said, we don't want to "steal" from them. We just don't want our garden to be ripped up and an extension right next to our window.

That potentially makes things simpler.  How do you think your neighbours will react to a 'surely some mistake, I just checked the deeds and they confirm... what other evidence was your architect looking at'?  Though there may remain an issue at the back of the garden where red and black don't line up.

sunrisesunset

We're going to ask the neighbours about their planning permission plan to check we've understood everything right. I'll upload the redacted plan depending on what they say. Thanks for your help so far!

babyblade41

Did you not question the plan when you bought the house ?

aoleks

I would take the neighbour aside, say I want to have a chat and make them aware that once I start saying a few words, it officially becomes a legal dispute that might lead, in extreme cases, to inability to sell the property or financial disaster. I'd want them to understand this is not usually a trivial matter.

then explain nicely that you know about their extension and you just wanted to check your understanding of where it would go, as it seems to you that it would cross the property boundary. explain the facts first, facts such as the boundary doesn't mean the fence and vice versa, but rest them assured that you're not against the extension itself.

try to solve this in a nice way, boundary disputes are of two kinds: trivial issues where neighbours live in the same property their entire lives, don't take each other to court and are miserable to each other (funny case) OR life destroying events that could force either of the neighbours to sell their property to pay legal fees (tragic case). being right and being given that right by a court are two very different things. the fact that the boundary line, even where properly documented, is an imaginary line that can always be argued to be an infinitely small distance either side doesn't make things easier.

sunrisesunset

aoleks said:

I would take the neighbour aside, say I want to have a chat and make them aware that once I start saying a few words, it officially becomes a legal dispute that might lead, in extreme cases, to inability to sell the property or financial disaster. I'd want them to understand this is not usually a trivial matter.

then explain nicely that you know about their extension and you just wanted to check your understanding of where it would go, as it seems to you that it would cross the property boundary. explain the facts first, facts such as the boundary doesn't mean the fence and vice versa, but rest them assured that you're not against the extension itself.

try to solve this in a nice way, boundary disputes are of two kinds: trivial issues where neighbours live in the same property their entire lives, don't take each other to court and are miserable to each other (funny case) OR life destroying events that could force either of the neighbours to sell their property to pay legal fees (tragic case). being right and being given that right by a court are two very different things. the fact that the boundary line, even where properly documented, is an imaginary line that can always be argued to be an infinitely small distance either side doesn't make things easier.

Yes, we definitely want to keep things civil. We've been fine as neighbours for all these years. Helped each other out.

babyblade41 said:

Did you not question the plan when you bought the house ?

I was a baby when we moved in. My family never wondered about any boundary lines until now. We'll definitely check boundaries whenever we sell or buy from now on.

TheJP

aoleks said:

I would take the neighbour aside, say I want to have a chat and make them aware that once I start saying a few words, it officially becomes a legal dispute that might lead, in extreme cases, to inability to sell the property or financial disaster. I'd want them to understand this is not usually a trivial matter.

Pretty sure blackmail is illegal in this country.

ProDave

sunrisesunset said:

I bought the £3 Title Plan from the land registry. We have a mortgage so the bank has the deeds.

I drew a little picture. It's not to scale and looks bad, but it's the best I could do.
The black lines show what the garden looks like on the Title Plan.
The blue rectangle shows what their extension would be like on our side.
The red line shows how they think our fence currently lines up.
They have extra space from the other neighbour's garden, so their garden is still larger than ours.


Despite what someone said, we don't want to "steal" from them. We just don't want our garden to be ripped up and an extension right next to our window.

So regardless of whether the present fence is on the red line or the black line, your neighbour still believes he owns land that is presently on your side of the fence?  Is that the issue.

Download the title plans for HIS house and have a look and compare that ti the title plans for your house.

Object to the planning permission on the grounds of it being too close to your window, and on the grounds that he is proposing to build on land that you own and you won't allow that.

sunrisesunset

Thanks for your help. We might have read the plans wrong because two drawings showed two different things.  They want to remove part of the fence at the boundary line. Based on what they've said, we'll have a wall there instead of the fence and it appears that we won't lose any space. My parents are okay with this. I'd prefer the fence, but I understand that future owners might like to add an extension without a gap in the middle.

The neighbours will explain everything to us in person soon.

Apologies for wasting people's time. I appreciate the advice and hope it'll help someone else.