garden boundaries

Nikki

Just want to get people's thoughts on a potential boundary problem. Our house is in such a position that we share boundaries with 6 gardens. I have dug my deeds out and found that we own or are responsible for all the right hand boundaries. Now the son of one of the owners of these properties has taken it upon himself to complain about us laying a small piece of concrete up to his fence(quite a while ago we did this) and that our composter was also touching it. Fine I have moved the composter and chopped out the concrete touching his fence. I think he's being funny because he hasn't built his fence to the ground leaving a gap(their garden is lower than ours) and soil falls into their garden occasionally. I won't go into the other rubbish he spouted, but he pointed out that the old concrete posts are our boundary line. He's erected his fence a couple of inches inside the boundary line and then a couple of inches over the boundary to fix the end post flush with one of our concrete posts(he doesn't appear to have noticed this). Now we don't really care about couple of inches and have complied with his request despite the concrete being on our boundary. What do we do if he carries on making an issue of this, we don't want to get into a boundary dispute and we have to maintain his couple of inches because he's put 6 ft fence panels in front of it, but then he complains because our stuff is on that couple of inches?!

MOONLIGHTVELLA

do you have a copy of the land registry details when you purchased the house the solicitor would have had copies of this you need the scale of 1/1250 from the land registry and it will show you there is a T on your boundry and where ever there is a T on your land then thats what you are responsible for never mind what the neighbours say, we live in a semi and on a corner plot so have one connected neighbour and a bungalow to the rear of us and they both claimed that the boundries were theirs and i kept calm about this but hunted out my paper work from our solicitors and found this document from the land registry and we own both boundries so now we have neighbours who don't speak so we living in lovely quiet corner plot now as the previous owner said because they built a concrete pillar and wooden fence they could have the boundry(how bizarre but never mind ) let me know how you get on or pm me if you need any info and i can try and help you

[Deleted User]

Check out www.gardenlaw.co.uk you'll get great advice. :beer:

ormus

if you know the exact boundary line, erect a simple wire fence and then tell him to look after his own 6 inch strip!

ps. my deeds are in no way detailed enough to determine the exact boundary.

ping_2

Hi,
even your land registry deeds are only accurate to within+/- i meter. Anything more accurate than that and your need land suveyor.

Nikki

MOONLIGHTVELLA wrote: »

do you have a copy of the land registry details when you purchased the house the solicitor would have had copies of this you need the scale of 1/1250 from the land registry and it will show you there is a T on your boundry and where ever there is a T on your land then thats what you are responsible for never mind what the neighbours say, we live in a semi and on a corner plot so have one connected neighbour and a bungalow to the rear of us and they both claimed that the boundries were theirs and i kept calm about this but hunted out my paper work from our solicitors and found this document from the land registry and we own both boundries so now we have neighbours who don't speak so we living in lovely quiet corner plot now as the previous owner said because they built a concrete pillar and wooden fence they could have the boundry(how bizarre but never mind ) let me know how you get on or pm me if you need any info and i can try and help you

The house only had one owner before us and they had all the original deeds and plot layouts and they clearly show the T marks all along the right hand side of our plot in our garden. The houses were built by the council for sale in 1959, I'm assuming that the small concrete posts along right side of our garden once would have had a wire through them and this would have been the (our) original boundary line. Fences have been erected over time and probably long before we moved in 2 years ago. 3 of the fences belong to the gardens that back on to us, the fence panels and privet hedge that run along the other garden that backs onto us were put up by the previous owners of our house. The bloke that got shirty doesn't live there as it's his parents house, but he maintains the garden for them and erected the fence - no idea how long ago. I think When I see him next I will point out his fence errecting errors, tell him if he's fed up with stuff falling under his fence to put kickboards along the bottom, respond the other rubbish he spouted with some home truths and inform him if he persists I could be as petty as he's been and make him remove the fence that is encroaching on my boundary, however I will also point out that as we really don't care about the position of his fence he should just go away and never get shirty with us again over boundaries. Will update if we get the chance to speak to him

Nikki

ormus wrote: »

if you know the exact boundary line, erect a simple wire fence and then tell him to look after his own 6 inch strip!

ps. my deeds are in no way detailed enough to determine the exact boundary.

Good idea, but also that he cannot come into my garden to maintain it, he will have to remove the fence to do it. My deeds are not that detailed either, there are some old concrete posts that once had wire running through them I'm assuming they were the boundary line when the houses were built.

ormus

Nikki wrote: »

Good idea, but also that he cannot come into my garden to maintain it, he will have to remove the fence to do it.

exactly right!

takoo

Hi Nikki
Unless he has power of attorney over his parents property you may find it easier to talk to them over a cup of tea - he is not the owner and unfortuneately such matters get blown up and out of proportion.

The "boundary" is an imaginary line between two plots. The "boundary marker" is a wall, fence, wire etc. One can never be sure but he appears to have left your fence intact with "allowance" for footings(2 inches). From what you say he may have made an incurion with the post.

Land Registry plans tend to be issued as general indications and are not usually accurate enough for "solving" problems.

Owners erect boundary markers their land, eg concrete posts are bedded in concrete (which is wholly on the land of the owner putting up the fence) - as is yours I suppose.

The original deeds may or may not be accurate as to ownership (denoted by "T"s). If the origianal fence has gone and the other owner put up a new fence. There may even be two fences.

Before talking to him or his parents again have a word with the Citizens Advice Bureau. They may be willing to act as a mutual friend or suggest a simple inexpensive mediation service.

Hope these random thoughs give you some encouragement.
All the best

Takoo