General Boundaries are not Legal Boundaries
The very first two things you must understand when trying to locate your boundary are that, because England and Wales operates a 'general boundaries' system of land registration:
- Land Registry is not responsible for defining boundaries and
- Land Registry simply does not know (except in a very few cases) precisely where your boundary is.
The red edging on the Land Registry title plan is not definitive, and in some cases is actually misleading.
How did this situation come about? There was a time, before Land Registry was established, when landowners did not need to know the positions of their boundaries with the same degree of precision as is becoming necessary to modern landowners. The legal definitions of the boundaries of land were to be found in the conveyance deeds that recorded the sale of land. Unfortunately, the standards used for describing boundaries in these conveyances generally ranged between lamentably poor and downright inadequate.
Land Registry's attempts (from 1862) to record the positions of boundaries with a high degree of precision proved so frustrating that in 1875 they gave up the attempt and adopted the system of general boundaries, and in 1897 they adopted the Ordnance Survey map as the basis of their boundary descriptions.
Ever since then, Land Registry has tried to make it known that they record only the 'general boundary'. However, it is only since the passing of the Land Registration Act 2002 that Land Registry has added the warning to every official copy of every title plan that "This title plan shows the general position of the boundaries: it does not show the exact line of the boundaries. Measurements scaled from this plan may not match measurements between the same points on the ground."
This is a clear statement that Land Registry is unable to tell you precisely where your boundary is located. So you must fall back on the title deeds.
The title deeds to your land (as distinct from the land certificate and/or register entry and title plan issued by Land Registry) are normally held by your mortgage lender, as security until such time as you repay the loan. If you owe no money on the property then maybe you hold the title deeds yourself, or have deposited them at a bank or a solicitor for safe keeping.
The title deeds should contain a series of documents detailing all of the legal transactions that affect the property. There will of course be at least one "deed of conveyance" (in the nineteenth century this was often called an "Indenture of Conveyance" and in recent years has become known as a "transfer deed") with additional such deeds for each time the land was sold. There may also be a "deed of grant" if a right of way or other easement was created at a time other than a sale of the land, or a wayleave if a utility company was granted permission to run its services across the land. There may be other documents among the title deeds, such as copies of planning permissions, copies of sellers property information forms, searches and enquiries forms.
Some mortgage lenders have been known to take the view that, as title to land is guaranteed by Land Registry, there is no longer a need to retain the historic title deeds. Some such mortgage lenders have destroyed the deeds to save themselves the cost of storing them indefinitely. Other such lenders have offered the title deeds back to the mortgagor (the borrower or landowner). Some mortgagors have wisely accepted the deeds, others have permitted their destruction.
Whilst title to land is guaranteed, Land Registry is unable to point to the precise position of a legal boundary. So the destruction of the title deeds implies the loss of the legal definition of the boundary. However, the title deeds will probably have been shown to Land Registry at the time that the title to the land was first registered. It is possible that Land Registry made and kept a copy of the definitive conveyance deed, but they do not always do so. It is nevertheless worth asking Land Registry for a copy of the definitive conveyance deed (which can usually be identified from information in the register entry for the title that is issued by Land Registry).
Your neighbour's title deeds
A potential reason for a boundary dispute is that your title deeds are in conflict with your neighbour's title deeds, ie. that they give different accounts of where the boundary is. It is therefore desirable to have sight of your neighbour's deeds. You may not wish to consult with your neighbour at this stage, and in any case your neighbour may choose to withhold his title deeds from you (they are private documents after all).
It may be possible to get a copy of your neighbour's most relevant deeds from Land Registry. Anything held on the register by Land Registry is a public document and you may obtain a copy of it. So the first thing to do is to ask Land Registry for a copy of the register entry for your neighbour's title (but if your neighbour's land is unregistered then Land Registry will be unable to help). Land Registry will refer on the register to any deed that they feel is definitive as to rights over the land, including deeds and plans that define the boundary. If the entry is followed by words such as "NOTE: copy on file" then you can obtain a copy of that deed or plan: even if such a note is not present it is still worth asking Land Registry for a copy of a deed referred to in a register entry - they may not have kept a copy but you won't know until you ask.
If the dispute concerns a private right of way then it is quite possible that the very existence of the right of way has gone completely unrecorded in the deeds relating to either the dominant or the servient tenement. Such an omission does not mean that the right of way is invalid or that it doesn't actually exist.
If you are not confident enough to search for title deeds yourself then Land Registry Searches - www.landsearch.net offer a service to obtain them for you.
The legally accepted boundaries of a parcel of land are the boundaries described in the earliest deed that describes the land in its present form. Note that it is not the Land Registry title plan that defines the legal boundary; that plan shows only the general boundary. There are examples scattered over this web site that show, either explicitly or implicitly, how the positions of general boundaries differ from the true positions of legal boundaries.
So if the land
parcel comprises a house and garden ('A' in the diagram at
right) that was created in 1920 by the sub-division of a field,
then it is the 1920 conveyance that defines the legal boundaries
of that parcel. The house (and land) may perhaps have been sold in 1933,
in 1952, three times in the 1960s and again in 1975, but all of
these later conveyances will normally refer back to the description
of the boundaries given in the 1920 conveyance deed.
Now if this same 1920 house had a large garden, then it is possible that in 1985 the then owner of A was tempted to sell half of the land to a developer who went on to build four houses (C, D, E and F)on that land in 1986. The boundaries of the land surrounding each of those four new houses would be defined in their respective 1986 conveyance deeds. The new boundaries of the land remaining with the 1920 house (A) would be the land defined by the 1920 conveyance deed less the land sold to the developer as defined in the 1985 conveyance deed. If the 1920 house (A) was then sold at a later date (say 1999) then it would be necessary to draw up a new description of the land.
If, in 2005, a boundary dispute should arise between the owner of the 1920 house (A) and the owner of one of the 1986 houses (E or F), it would be natural for the owner of the 1920 house to refer to the 1999 deed and for the owner of the 1986 house to refer to the 1986 deed. It would be helpful, in fact it would be necessary, also to refer to the 1985 deed to ensure that the boundaries described in both the 1986 and the 1999 deeds were in fact the same boundary as had been defined in 1985.
Again, if the owners of any of the properties in the discussion above (ie. A, E or D) should fall out with the owner of a (sixth) neighbouring house that was built in 1920 (B), then their 1985 and 1986 or 1999 deeds might not be terribly helpful, and it would be desirable to refer back to the original 1920 deed.
- The
Parcels Clause. This is the clause
that describes the land and defines the boundaries. In conveyance
deeds it always begins "ALL THAT piece or parcel of
land" and is usually found in the lower half of the
first page of the deed. Transfer deeds made using Land
Registry's form TR1 will usually describe the land only in terms
of the registered title number. In other words, they are relying
on the general boundary shown on the title plan, which is neither
precise nor is it likely to be the legal boundary. In this case,
efforts must be made to locate a copy of the pre-registration
title deeds if the true position of the legal boundary is to
be discovered.
- The Words
or The Plan?
The first requirement is to establish whether the words of the
deed take precedence over the accompanying (conveyance or transfer)
plan. A phrase such as "which is for the purpose of
identification only shown on the accompanying plan"
tells us to ignore the plan and to concentrate on the words.
A phrase such as "which is more particularly delineated on
the accompanying plan" tells us to ignore the words
and to concentrate on the plan. Unfortunately, too many conveyance
deeds employ the phrase "which is for the purpose of
identification only more particularly delineated on the
accompanying plan", which only serves to confuse. Even
when the deed clearly tells us to ignore the plan, it is usually
the case that the words of the deed tell us so little that it
is necessary to consider the information shown on the accompanying
conveyance plan in the hope that this will give us additional
information that helps to form a clearer picture of where the
boundaries really are.
Understanding
the Words.
The words of the parcels clause will usually first seek
to identify a parcel of land by giving some form of postal address.
When this is unambiguous it tells you roughly where the land
is, but tells you nothing of its boundaries. Not all land has
a postal address, and a description such as "land to
the south-west of Botley Road" is not terribly
helpful - as the map on the right shows, there are six roads
near Southampton with the name Botley Road, with a combined
length of 14.3 miles, and there are other similarly named
roads in Oxford and in
Chesham.
With luck, the parcels clause will go on to list the lengths of each boundary around the property, and I will say more about dimensions shortly. For now I will comment that a list of boundary lengths tells us nothing about the position of the parcel to which they belong and where it lies in relation to anything else.
It would be really useful if the words of the parcels clause of a conveyance deed told us to start from an unambiguous and readily identifiable point that is publicly accessible, proceed from there in a stated direction for a stated distance to find the first point on our boundary, then list the directions as well as the distances between the identifiable points that define the boundary, making sure to continue all of the way around and back to the first point. It would be really useful - but I have yet to see a conveyance deed for any parcel of land in England and Wales that uses such a "metes and bounds" method of describing boundaries.
- Interpreting
the Plan.
In an ideal world we should have no difficulty in
identifying the boundary of a parcel of land that is "more
particularly delineated on the plan". Unfortunately,
rarely are conveyance plans good enough for this. It must be
remembered that Land Registry title plans show only the general
boundary and are based on Ordnance Survey's maps whose accuracy
limitations are dealt with elsewhere on this web site. Most
conveyance plans are inferior, often far inferior, to Land Registry's
title plans, and Land Registry warns us against using the title
plan to locate the precise position of a boundary: "This title plan shows the general position of
the boundaries: it does not show the exact line of the boundaries. Measurements
scaled from this plan may not match measurements between the same points on
the ground."
The most common error made when
trying to locate a boundary by reference to a plan is to assume
that the plan is a perfect representation of the real world and then to scale
distances between readily identifiable map positions and the boundary’s position. To
explain why this is the wrong approach, I will discuss a common situation that is
illustrated in my drawing, right, of a part of the fictitious
Acacia Road.
The owners of “10 Acacia Road” will scale from the plan a distance of 14 ft feet between the side of their house and the boundary. They will go outside with a tape and measure the distance and find it to be only 13 feet. Armed with this information they will accost the owner of No 8, telling him that his fence is in the wrong position and that he must re-erect it in accordance with the position of the boundary as shown on the map. They have applied the logic that "the plan shows the boundary in this position, and the fence is another position, so the fence is in the wrong place".
That this is false logic can be demonstrated by an examination of the other flank boundary to No. 10, the one that runs along the party wall that is shared with No. 12. Nos. 10 and 12 are identical semi-detached houses, but the map shows that No. 12 is 2 ft wider than No. 12. By the same logic that the owner of No. 10 is using to demand the relocation of No. 8's fence, the owner of No. 10 should be offering to relocate the party wall with No. 12 and to give up 1 ft of the space inside his house so that No. 12 can be made up to its "true" width according to the plan. Clearly, the owner of No. 12 would not agree to relocating the party wall. [In case you think that this example is far-fetched, take a very close look at the representation of semi-detached and terraced houses on any Ordnance Survey large scale map.]
Before we can make any progress in identifying the position of a boundary defined in a conveyance plan we must first accept that a conveyance plan (indeed, any map or plan) is no more than an imperfect picture of the ground. It may omit to show some features that would be of use to us. It may have to be selective and show, for example, only a hedge because the stream and the fence beside the hedge are too close to it for all three to be shown. The plan may show features out of position, either because they are too close to each other to be shown in their correct relationship, or because of simple errors in the plan. Because of all these factors, it is very unwise to simply measure the distances between features on the plan (say, between the side of a house and the flank boundary) and then multiply those measurements by the scale of the plan in order to locate features on the ground (such as measuring from the side of the house to find where "the plan says the boundary should be". Such an exercise usually only quantifies the error on the map in the relationship between the wall of the house and the fence (or hedge) that stands on the boundary. [see picture above right]
The correct way to use a map is as a guide to the physical features that are on the ground. You must read the map and decide what feature is represented by the line on the map that interests you, then go and find the feature on the ground. If the feature appears to have been undisturbed then you can infer that the feature is in the correct place and that if the map says otherwise then it is the map that is incorrect.
For example, it was not uncommon on 1930's housing developments for property boundaries to be marked by wire fences supported on concrete posts. Often, these concrete posts are still standing in the same position where they were first placed. If these posts appear to be undisturbed then it is safe to assume that they still mark the position of the boundary, even if the map shows the wire fence in a different position.
Another example: there may be a stream close to a boundary, but the relationship between the stream and the adjoining houses may be shown inaccurately on the plan. If the map shows that the boundary follows a particular bank of the stream, and if there is a fence standing on the same bank, then there is a strong chance that the boundary follows the fence (or more specifically, one face of the fence) that is present on the ground, regardless of whether its distance from the nearby house matches the distance scaled from the plan.
Developers often re-use design plans as conveyance (or transfer) plans. The reason for this is simple: for cash-flow reasons, developers will often sell a house before it has been completed, sometimes before it has been started. When they come to sell the house and the land associated with it, they cannot produce an as-built survey of something they have not finished building and they rely on the design plan. There is a further cost saving in doing so - and a major danger. The danger is that the design may not have been followed faithfully, and what was actually built may differ from the design plan and thus from the conveyance plan or transfer plan. How much trust can you place in a conveyance plan or transfer plan that shows something other than what is actually built on the ground?
For a description of why roads, houses and fences are built in places other than those specified on the design plan, see chapter 5 of D J Powell's book (see the Further Reading section at the foot of this page).
All too often I hear landowners complaining that the fence must be in the wrong place because the plan says it should be somewhere else. If they look carefully they will probably find that their house should be somewhere else also, as should the road that serves their house. The logic by which they demand that the fence should be moved would also result in their house being demolished and moved, and their road too, and probably also the majority of the houses and roads in the rest of the country. Can their logic be correct? Or is it more correct to accept that the transfer plan is based on a design plan, and that they (or the first owner of their house) bought what was actually built rather than the piece of land depicted on a design plan that was not strictly followed by the builders?
- Understanding
the Dimensions.
If some professional people have difficulty in grasping the concept that
maps are inaccurate and should not be taken literally, then
what chance is there that lay people will display a healthy
scepticism when it comes to the dimensions quoted
in conveyance deeds and on conveyance plans? Why should we trust
dimensions? Who measured them? What with? Is the dimension
a measurement made along the slope or has it been reduced to
an equivalent horizontal distance? Whereas an Ordnance Survey
map comes with an implied quality statement (see what I have
written on the Ordnance Survey Accuracy
Statement), and it is a simple measure to check the map
by means of a few measurements between ground features represented
on the map, there is no quality statement linked to a set of
dimensions in a conveyance and no means of verifying their accuracy.
Dimensions
and shapes:-
Except in the case of a triangle, a list of side lengths is not a definition of the shape of the parcel. In the diagram at right I have shown in black an imaginary parcel of land. Let us imagine that we have no plan of it but we have been given the dimensions of all five sides. Let us also imagine that we have unambiguously identified the frontage of the property. How do we construct the shape of the remaining four sides using just the dimensions? In any number of ways. Using ten other colours, I have demonstrated just ten of the possible ways. Notice the wide variety of shapes that can be made from the remaining four side lengths, some of them bearing precious little resemblance to the original black shape from which the dimensions were derived. It is clear that there is no mathematical method of deriving the shape of a parcel of land from a list of dimensions alone: some other information must be available against which to test potential shapes
Or Thereabouts:-
A further problem in understanding a list of dimensions is the common use in conveyance deeds of the term "or thereabouts" to qualify the dimension. Clearly, it indicates that a distance of "156 ft or thereabouts" may not be precisely "156 ft and no inches and no fractions of an inch". But how much leeway does it give to the size of the dimension? Engineers and land surveyors may be inclined to the view that it is the stated distance plus or minus half of the value of the smallest unit of distance stated, ie. 156 ft ± 6 ins. But what if the conveyance deed had expressed the dimension as "156 ft 0 in or thereabouts"? Does that mean that the distance is 156 ft 0 in ±½ in?
Engineers and land surveyors prefer to work with "tolerances". Take an example in which you ask a contractor to build you a wall 156 ft long: by how much longer or shorter will you allow him to build the wall before you complain that it is the wrong length? Half a brick's length (4½ in)? If so then his tolerance is 4½ in, and we can expect the length of the completed wall to be 156 ft 0 in ±4½ in.
"Or thereabouts" does not amount to a tolerance. "Or thereabouts" is just a vague statement that the dimension is not precise and it does not give the boundary surveyor any limits within which to work.
Ground truth:-
It should be clear from the above that a set of dimensions on its own is not a suitable tool with which to resolve a boundary dispute. However, if by careful measurement you are able to match the dimensions to ground features, then those ground features will be given a validity that assists you in identifying the position of the boundary.
- Boundary
Agreements, Boundary Declarations, Determined Boundaries
Occasionally you will come across a property that is affected by a boundary agreement. Such an agreement will normally contain sufficient information to allow you to identify the position of the boundary with considerably more certainty and precision than normal. There are, however, no standards affecting boundary agreements, so the quality of the information will vary.
Any boundary that has been disputed and taken to court will have the benefit of a declaration by a judge as to its true position. Unfortunately there are again no standards applying to such declarations and the quality of the information contained in the declaration will vary from judge to judge (although it would be fairer to say that the quality of the information will be influenced by the legal teams of the protagonists and by the expert witnesses and not to lay all of the blame for inconsistency on individual judges).
There is a new breed of 'determined boundary' under the Land Registration Act 2002. The recording of such a determined boundary will be triggered either by an agreement reached voluntarily between neighbours or by an application to Land Registry by just one landowner. In the latter case Land Registry will investigate, but may refer the case to the Adjudicator to the Land Registry, who may in turn refer it to the County Court. Whatever the outcome, the standard for the recording of a determined boundary is that it should be possible for any competent surveyor to re-establish the position of the boundary to within 10 mm, based on the information recorded about the boundary. Clearly, there is a high degree of certainty in the position of a determined boundary.
If the boundary under investigation has been the subject of an agreement, a judge's declaration, or a determination, then you can ignore everything else on this page, but the vast majority of boundaries do not have those benefits and their positions must be investigated rather more painstakingly.
- Vendor's
Intentions
When it is simply not possible to ascertain the true position of a boundary from the foregoing, then the courts will attempt to ascertain the intentions of the vendor who first defined each of the two parcels that are in dispute. It may be possible to imply the intentions from the words of the conveyances, but it is likely that other facts surrounding the initial sale of one or both parcels of land will need to be taken into account.
The first four types of documents in the following list may be kept with the title deeds, or they may have been discarded. Any of the documents listed may contain information that is useful to the investigation of a boundary, but reliable information in a conveyance deed will always take precedence over the information sources below.
- Local
searches
Searches are made of the local authority as part of the house buying or conveyancing process. These sometimes reveal useful information concerning boundaries, rights of way, easements and wayleaves.
- Sellers Property Information Form
This is the form the vendor prepares in response to questions from the purchaser's conveyancing solicitor (from 2007 every vendor will have to commission a Home Information Pack in order to sell a house). If the conveyance deed gives no information regarding ownership of the features on a particular boundary (or right of way or some other facet of the land), then it is possible that the vendor's statements on this form will clarify matters.
- Sales
plans
Occasionally, and more often in the case of a sale by auction, there is a sales plan included in the marketing material for the property. These might contain additional information not found in the conveyance plan, but they should be used with caution as they are very often an adaptation of an Ordnance Survey map (ie, a map not drawn as a property map but as a map of physical features that may not represent property boundaries). In any case, they would normally be superseded by the conveyance plan.
- Planning drawings
Sometimes these identify a property boundary. However, it must be remembered that the purpose of these drawings is to convince a council planning department of the appropriateness of a proposed development (eg. a new house, or an extension or a garage) and that the development conforms to building regulations. If the drawing shows a boundary then that boundary is either a physical feature (which may not be a boundary) or is the then owner's estimate of the position of the boundary: either of these might be in error. Further, it is a drawing of what was proposed, and what has actually been built may differ in size and in position from what was drawn.
- Published maps
Because published maps carry a publication date it is tempting to use them to prove whether or not a physical feature stood in a particular position at the date of publication. A few words of warning:
- Ordnance Survey's "new editions" are maps that have been fully perambulated by their surveyors and you can be confident that something shown on the map was present on the ground and something omitted from the map was not present at the date of publication (strictly speaking, at the date of survey, which is usually at least one year prior to publication). You should be able to rely on the OS County Series maps, and for those National Grid series maps that are new editions, ie. that have an edition letter such as < A > or < B >.
- If the edition letter has bars and stars appended, such as < B* > then it has not been fully perambulated and there is no guarantee that it is truly current at issue date.
- Ordnance Survey's digital maps, such as Land-Line®, Superplan® and Superplan Data®, are issued containing the "latest available survey information". This means they may contain information that was surveyed only 48 hours prior to issue, but it does not mean that the map you buy has been fully perambulated and there is no guarantee that the map is truly current at date of issue.
- Ordnance Survey maps are subject to minor inaccuracies (see what I have written on the Ordnance Survey Accuracy Statement).
- Ordnance Survey maps are evidence of the existence or otherwise of physical features. Their evidence is open to some interpretation as to exactly what features are represented by the lines on the map.
- The physical features shown on the map are not necessarily boundary lines.
Even when the OS map has been adopted as the conveyance plan, you should be careful in interpreting the position of the boundary from such a map. Do not simply scale distances from the map and then apply them to the ground. The accuracy limitations of the map are often equivalent to an error of between 0.4 m and 1.4 m on the ground. When attempting to measure distances on a map you will be hard pressed to obtain a precision of 0.1 mm (one tenth of a millimetre) and 0.25 mm is more realistic, which is equivalent to 0.625 m on the ground if you are scaling from a 1:2500 scale map.
Also remember that the line on the map may be deliberately offset from the true position of the boundary, either to keep lines a minimum distance apart (for the sake of clarity) or, for example, because the line represents a hedge whilst the boundary is on the opposite rim of the accompanying but unmapped ditch.
- Aerial photographs
Vertical aerial photographs always carry a date and can be relied on, more than a map, to show you what was present on the day the photograph was taken. Like a map, aerial photographs will show only the physical features, not the position of the boundary. Aerial photographs may hold the answers to questions of historical usage of a disputed piece of land. Enlargements are needed if you are to be able to see enough detail, and expertise may be required to understand the rather unaccustomed vertical view, but interpretation is made easier by viewing in 3D the overlapping part of two adjacent photographs. Detail is often obscured by overhanging vegetation or in the shadows of tall structures such as buildings. Taking measurements from a vertical aerial photograph is possible: a land surveyor will be able to assess only approximate measurements, it takes an expensive photogrammetric operation to obtain any kind of precision.
Oblique aerial photographs are easier for the layman to understand, and are usually taken from a lower height (ie. from closer up) than vertical photography. Their angle of view will sometimes give views of detail that is obscured on a vertical photo. Oblique aerial photographs are very rarely available as overlapping, 3D, pairs. It should be possible to ascertain the date of an oblique photograph, but the companies that take them do not always meticulously record this and you may have to try and work out the date from the detail that you see in the photograph. Taking measurements from oblique photographs is tricky and can produce unreliable results.
- Terrestrial photographs
These are photographs taken using a camera that is held in the hand of someone standing on the ground, or from camera mounted on a tripod that is standing on the ground. In other words, all of the photographs in your family photo album are likely to be terrestrial photos.
It is unlikely that anyone's photo album contains photographs specifically of the boundary, but many photographs taken in the garden will show boundary features in the background. If a reliable date can be attached to the photo then it becomes useful evidence in relation to arguments such as whether or not there ever was a fence on a particular side of a hedge, or whether a piece of land was put to a particular kind of use.
There are a number of presumptions that are commonly employed to help establish the exact location of a boundary. The established ones relate to boundaries formed by (listed alphabetically) beaches, canals, fences, flats (ie. apartments), foreshore, forests, hedges and ditches, highways, houses, islands, lakes, pipe-lines, railways, rights of way, rivers, rooms, seashore, waste land.
These presumptions may apply unless they can be rebutted by contrary evidence.
Example 1: Fences: it is assumed that a fence is built with its posts within the owner's land and with the face of the fence along the boundary. Not all landowners are aware of this convention. Some landowners take the view that as they have paid for the fence, they want its more handsome side to face themselves.
Example
2: Hedge and Ditch: Normally, the hedge sits atop a bank and the
boundary is to be found on the far lip of the ditch from which the
material for the bank was excavated. In the drawing at right,
A claimed that the boundary followed the far lip of the ditch, whilst B
claimed that the boundary was in the hedge. When you examine the
drawing at right you will see that the hedge does not stand atop
the bank, and so this is not a hedge and ditch boundary. In fact
the purpose of the ditch is to provide drainage for B's flat land
that suffers from waterlogging every winter, and the drain was dug
by a predecessor in title of B.
Many more examples
could be given. Suffice it to say that legal precedent is a complex
subject on which you should seek a professional opinion.
Effect of adverse possession and of estoppel
Even when it is clear where the boundary is supposed to be, it is still possible that considerations of adverse possession may have moved the boundary to another position. The adverse possessor must be able to demonstrate both intention to use the disputed land and exclusive enjoyment of the land for a period of at least twelve years.
Further, you may estopped from trying to recover land that has been lost to your neighbour if you acquiesced in your neighbour's enclosing of the disputed land.
Estoppel and
adverse possession can be quite complex legal questions, and it
is best to seek legal advice as to whether these might affect the
position of your boundary.
Affordable, readable texts:
Aldridge, T. M., Boundaries, Walls and Fences (8th edition), Sweet and Maxwell, London, 1997 (ISBN 0 75200413 1)
Anstey, J., Trouble with the Neighbours, College of Estate Management, Reading, 1983 (ISBN 0 902 13281 4)
Barsby, A. W., Protecting your Property, A. W. & C. Barsby, Epsom, 2000 (ISBN 0 9521625 6 3)
Powell, D. J., Anstey's Boundary Disputes and how to resolve them! (3rd edition), RICS Books, Coventry, 2004 (ISBN 1 84219 189 6)
Pugh-Smith, J., Sinclair, G. and Upton, W., Neighbours and the Law (3rd edition), Sweet & Maxwell, London, 1993 (ISBN 042169 320 7)
Expensive, legal tomes:
Halsbury's Laws of England, 'Boundaries', (4th edition, vol. 4(1) ), Butterworth's, London, 1992
Sara, C., Boundaries and Easements (3rd edition), Sweet & Maxwell, London, 2002 (ISBN 0421758406)
This page was updated on 14 October 2005