Boundary Disputes Can Be Swiftly Resolved With the Right Legal Advice

16/01/2018


Boundary disputes can be intractable and painful for all concerned. However, as one case concerning adjoining terraced houses showed, obtaining specialist legal advice is the best means of achieving a swift, decisive and cost-effective resolution.

The houses, one to the north and the other to the south, were mirror images of each other and had a drain-down pipe between them that became the focus of the dispute. The owner of the southerly house claimed that the boundary lay at the centre point of the pipe and that his neighbour had built a wall on his side of the line.

The owner of the northerly house argued that the true boundary lay to the south of the drain pipe, in line with a fence that had been removed some years earlier, and that the wall had therefore been constructed on her land. After the neighbours failed to reach agreement, the matter was submitted to the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) under the Land Registration Act 2002 for a determination of the precise boundary.

The FTT noted that small-scale plans attached to the title deeds of the properties were of no assistance. Physical features on the ground post-dated construction of the terrace and were equally unhelpful. It could also not be assumed that the boundary lay exactly half way between the two properties.

In the circumstances, it was necessary to consider the conduct of the owners, and former owners, of the properties in order to determine whether there had in the past been express or tacit agreement as to where the boundary lay. On that basis, it was likely that the pipe, and a hedge that had once grown between the two houses, had both been in single ownership and had not marked the boundary. The FTT preferred the boundary line contended for by the owner of the northerly house.

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