Vijay Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) Having a discussion with a friend today and he was saying fences are not the property boundaries. When you purchase a piece of land and are given site plans showing the plots (and the land is still un-fenced), are your boundaries the site plans that were given to you and registered with the LR, or do the fences make up the boundaries? Edited March 16, 2017 by Vijay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 A land registry map will rarely show enough detail to determine the boundary without some reference. That reference is usually the fences. If the fence is NOT on the boundary, then it will usually be shown on the plan as inside not at the edge, of your land. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calvinmiddle Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) Fences aren't boundaries they are features that may or may not be the boundary, Land Registery works on the basis of General Boundaries. From this Link When Land Registry shows a general boundary on a title plan then it is telling you that somewhere nearby there is an exact legal boundary at an unknown distance from and not necessarily parallel with the general boundary. So if you go to look at a property and there is a fence near the general boundary then the fence is normally taken to be the boundary. Other options are agreed or determined boundaries, have a read through that site, loads and loads of information on it Edited March 16, 2017 by Calvinmiddle Clarifying a point Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 (edited) 5 hours ago, Vijay said: Having a discussion with a friend today and he was saying fences are not the property boundaries. When you purchase a piece of land and are given site plans showing the plots (and the land is still un-fenced), are your boundaries the site plans that were given to you and registered with the LR, or do the fences make up the boundaries? It depends :-). They can be "boundary features"; a concrete post obviously put in in the 1950s, wartime railings, or the corner of a 100 year old house will be given more weight than eg a Wickes post put in last week. A surveyor would make a judgement call based on all the information, giving much more weight to significant features. It is like scholars looking at 28 scrolls and fragments to find the original text of a bit of the Bible - they look at everything the give a weight to each source of 'authority'. We hope that there a small number of features which nail it down quickly. The easiest way is to be on good terms with the person the other side of the fence, and be able to have a conversation. As I am about to do with our new neighbours about their tree and the crack in my wall it is leaning on. I think the answer to your question is "your boundaries are what you accept for several years", because at that stage it becomes too much touble to fix. So check and measure against solid features - developers get things wrong from time to time. If you have lived with a boundary in the wrong place for some time you have not really lost (or gained) anything except an opportunity, unless you have a towering sense of theoretical injustice. My view is that life is generally too short to chase such things, unless there is a very important reason in the particular case. Instead take the trouble to get it right first time. Ferdinand Edited March 17, 2017 by Ferdinand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToughButterCup Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 I am in the course (curse) of ripping out old, semi-dead badly maintained fences. Part of the process is talking to testy neighbours about what the actual line is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 When my site-for-sale was surveyed we had about 4 hedges and fences in one section. Their surveyor decided the one he wanted to survey was the one on my side (we kept some land). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 Exact boundaries only become a "problem" when there is a dispute. As many others when I bought my plot, the hand drawn plan in the deeds was very poor and not definitive, so my solicitor went through a process of obtaining a "P16 report" where the land registry try to match the parcel of land with something on their maps, and came up with a pretty close match, so we then agreed to buy it on the basis we were buying what was enclosed by the current fences. But our is not build close the the boundaries so if there was ever a boundary dispute and we lost a small bit of garden it would not be a big issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vijay Posted March 17, 2017 Author Share Posted March 17, 2017 Looking at my LR paperwork that I received back when I purchased my plot, it clearly shows the boundary edged in red on a copy of the site plan (the same as the one I was given when I purchased the plot). Between me seeing the plot bare and haven been given site plans, they then put up fences - but these are not in the right place. So what would be right, the site plans that I was given and also outlined in red by the LR, or the fences? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 Should be the plan with the conveyance. Was it moved in your favour or not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vijay Posted March 17, 2017 Author Share Posted March 17, 2017 conveyance being the paperwork that the solicitors dealt with? From first investigations, it seems all 3 fences are wrong and none in my favour Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ragg987 Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 The plan with land Registry is meant to be the definitive one (and not the physical fence), though as we know a thick red line on an unscaled drawing leaves it open to interpretation. How much out are you talking about - are there any landmarks (e.g. trees) on the plan that might assist with resolving this? I believe fences are meant to sit on your land if you own them, hence you lose a bit of land on that boundary. However, it seems unlikely that you would own the fence on all sides so you should not lose that narrow strip on all sides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 (edited) My experience, with the two plots that we looked at in depth (including the one we bought) was that both had large boundary errors. The Land Registry plans were massively in error for both plots, one having a 14m boundary error, the other having a 5.5m boundary error. In the first case we withdrew our offer and wrote off the expenses we'd incurred, as it was clear the error was going to take a couple of years to sort out (complicated because a public footpath had been moved). In the second case our plot purchase was held up for around 12 months whilst the vendor sorted out the boundary error and got the Land Registry Title Plans corrected for both the plot and the adjacent land. We ended up paying for a boundary survey, just to prove to the vendor that there was a big error on the Title Plan. Edited March 17, 2017 by JSHarris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 (edited) 3 hours ago, Vijay said: conveyance being the paperwork that the solicitors dealt with? From first investigations, it seems all 3 fences are wrong and none in my favour So now it is the Cadbury Chocolate Wrapper competition. Solve this puzzle using your skill and judgement, using as little time and money as possible. Edited March 17, 2017 by Ferdinand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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