A little boundary advice please!

[bhavv]

I was going by Zoopla prices:

Zoopla

Each house is different as some have stupidly tiny parking spaces / drives and gardens, plus the interiors wont all be the same.

It is the parents house though ofc, but theres nowhere else I can afford thats even half as good. As long as you dont go outside, its great

I remember around the time we got the place, terraced houses in the same area were like 30-50k!

I could have afforded one of those now, but wouldnt want one. Its a major craphole, but so cheap!

 

[culvers]

Worth a bit under 400k? The most recent sale of that house type was in 2009 @ 270k and house prices in that area have dropped nearly 6% in the last 2 years so your looking at 250k or less bearing in mind it's not a sellers market atm.

Estate agent valuations are nonsense in most cases, they'll tell you what you want to hear to tempt you to sign with them.

Thank god, finally someone who understands that a house is only worth what people are prepared to pay for it. Just because some greasy little turd (an estate agent) tells you its worth £xxxxxx does not make it so.

 

[Firestar_3x]

Thank god, finally someone who understands that a house is only worth what people are prepared to pay for it. Just because some greasy little turd (an estate agent) tells you its worth £xxxxxx does not make it so.

100%, Parents have just been through 3 months of this, home owners simply refuse to accept that house prices are going / gone down, it's been a right battle. Also we've found Zoopla 'estimates' to be rather wide of the mark.

 

[Dr House]

You are misreading the link. It is just stating that you couldn't just drop a scaled up version of the land registry documents to find 'your land' - it's impossible for it to include every tree root, bush and tree that might affect what people have access to. For example, does the land to the right of a boundary include the land which houses the fence the separates the land, or does it only include the land to the right of the fence?

By and large and for pretty much all practical purposes, what's on the land registry documents is conclusive of the land you own.

Buyer 2 has a claim against his solicitor if this wasn't brought to his attention.

.... he did have a solicitor when buying the house... right?

Thanks for that.

Also his solicitor did tell him that the fence and the boundary line are not the same but he wanted to buy it anyway and take it up with us after he bought the house which is a little unfair also.

 

[Windle]

100%, Parents have just been through 3 months of this, home owners simply refuse to accept that house prices are going / gone down, it's been a right battle. Also we've found Zoopla 'estimates' to be rather wide of the mark.

Zoopla estimates are useless, but historic sale value is good to know so I use it for that. When we put my flat on the market this year the estate agents valued it from anywhere from 65k to 80k.

The Home report value (chartered surveyor survey) came out at 72k but was done by a friend of my brothers who basically said it's somewhere between 65k and 75k.

We went to market at fixed price 72k, dropped a few months later to 67k. Had a grand total of 3 viewers in 4 months and ended up part-exchanging on a new build and getting 65k for it. The flat was immaculate, in a popular rental area and ready to live in with no decoration/upgrades required. The house builder we part exchanged with dropped the price to 60k straight away with a further drop to 54k after 3 months and have now dropped the price to 49k. For reference we paid 69k for it in 2005.

One of the other flats in the building went up for sale a couple of months after we did and was valued by the same surveyor at 60k because of the issues we'd had. Both surveyors and estate agents will base their value on historic sale value and current market prices in the area, however estate agents will always over estimate the price to get you to sign. As mentioned above, house prices really fall down to current market value and these are completely depressed in most areas (bits of london excluding!) and if you are selling atm you are going to make a loss unless you got it for a bargain and can let it go for a bargain.

Anyway enough derailing the thread!

 

[Dr House]

Ok I got a little more info from a boundary forum.

As Sudynim has just explained the seller can only sell a piece of land once before it becomes the property of someone else who takes occupation of it.

The Law of Property Act which was passed ion 1925 still applies to all land sales in England and Wales and Section 62 of that act clarifies what is being conveyed unless a particular clause is inserted into the sale deed that excludes this Section of the Act, which doesn't often happen.
Section 62 is very precise about what is being sold.
62 General words implied in conveyances.
(1) A conveyance of land shall be deemed to include and shall by virtue of this Act operate to convey, with the land, all buildings, erections, fixtures, commons, hedges, ditches, fences, ways, waters, water-courses, liberties, privileges, easements, rights, and advantages whatsoever, appertaining or reputed to appertain to the land, or any part thereof, or, at the time of conveyance, demised, occupied, or enjoyed with, or reputed or known as part or parcel of or appurtenant to the land or any part thereof.
(2) A conveyance of land, having houses or other buildings thereon, shall be deemed to include and shall by virtue of this Act operate to convey, with the land, houses, or other buildings, all outhouses, erections, fixtures, cellars, areas, courts, courtyards, cisterns, sewers, gutters, drains, ways, passages, lights, watercourses, liberties, privileges, easements, rights, and advantages whatsoever, appertaining or reputed to appertain to the land, houses, or other buildings conveyed, or any of them, or any part thereof, or, at the time of conveyance, demised, occupied, or enjoyed with, or reputed or known as part or parcel of or appurtenant to, the land, houses, or other buildings conveyed, or any of them, or any part thereof.


On the date that you completed on the purchase, the fence was already erected to define the extent of the land being sold as all that land was "appertaining or reputed to appertain to the land, or any part thereof, or, at the time of conveyance, demised, occupied, or enjoyed with, or reputed or known as part or parcel of or appurtenant to the land or any part thereof"
The fact that the words include "reputed" is sufficient to pass ownership to you.

When the other neighbour bought his land, you already owned property which meant that the developer was unable to sell the area of disputed land for a second time.

You need to inform your neighbour of that fact and explain to him that he needs to look at Section 62 of the LPA 1925 or have it explained to him by his conveyancer.
That is sufficient to establish that you now own all the land

This along with the fact that he saw the fence was up, was aware that the plans on the transfer document was not correct at the time of exchange will play very well in my favour if we go to court.

The developer has also confirmed that the fence was put up according to how he wanted to split the land.

 

[skyripper]

How about asking your neighbour to sign a document agreeing the legal boundary is where you both say it is, then lease him the land he wants to stick the fence on at £5 a year.

Save a bloody fortune in legal fees.

 

[Dr House]

How about asking your neighbour to sign a document agreeing the legal boundary is where you both say it is, then lease him the land he wants to stick the fence on at £5 a year.

Save a bloody fortune in legal fees.

Well the line I plan to take is that we move the fence a little to give him extra land which will make his access to his garden area a little easier if he agrees that the fence is the final and legal boundary which we will have measured and sent to the land registry. The total legal costs should only be 2k for this. If we go to court we have estimated it will cost 40k+ which we would be prepared to do if we had to.

Ideally I want to come to a compromise.

 

[m4cc45]

I agree it's nice to save on legal costs, however, as stated above, it sounds like it's 99% positive that if it went to court you would win and then you should be able to recoup your legal costs.

In this climate I would not be giving land away - you may as well get your money and burn it. Lease the land or sell the land but do not give it away.



M.

 

[Dr House]

does anyone else any thoughts on this

 

[Castiel]

does anyone else any thoughts on this

Can you not enter into arbitration rather than a court ruling.....my initial thoughts are that the boundary is where the developer put the fence as both you and the neighbour bought on that basis, arbitration would to my mind support your current boundary as the defacto legal one and any compromise made would be from your position and not your neighbours based on what I have read in this thread.

Personally I would be very careful in allowing or offering any movement of a current boundary, especially as you are the advantaged party as that may be seen as an acceptance of the other parties position in court, and thus shift the advantage toward them. These kind of things can get very nasty, very quickly even with the best intentions.....

 

[Dr House]

Thanks for the advice it may be worth looking into if the guy does not back down.

Sad thing is that this has caused so much family tension my old man has had enough and want to sell the house

 

[Castiel]

Thanks for the advice it may be worth looking into if the guy does not back down.

Sad thing is that this has caused so much family tension my old man has had enough and want to sell the house

I can understand the frustration....your home is the one place where you should feel stable and relaxed....something like this can often disrupt that and it can affect all aspects of your life.

My advice is to seek legal advice on your options regarding arbitration and before you see a solicitor compile all the evidence and legal documentation that supports the current boundary as well as the plans and deeds and see a solicitor....if your position is strong enough, a letter from a solicitor to the neighbour pointing this out may suffice to either forestall or force the neighbour into acceptance or an arbitrated compromise of your position.

Good luck, let us know of any developments....if I dig up anything (my father-in-law is an architect so I'll show him this thread see what he says when I see him next) I'll let you know.

 

[cheets64]

Thanks for the advice it may be worth looking into if the guy does not back down.

Sad thing is that this has caused so much family tension my old man has had enough and want to sell the house

Is it your house or your dads?

Who will be living there, can see boundary issues being the worst thing to deal with and the fact you have to life right nextdoor to them and bumping into them every day.

 

[Dr House]

Is it your house or your dads?

Who will be living there, can see boundary issues being the worst thing to deal with and the fact you have to life right nextdoor to them and bumping into them every day.

My parents are retired and live there but I bought the house and I want to sort out the issue also.

The real issue is that my mum is making my dads life miserable about this to the point now that he just wants rid of the place (and wants to leave my mum).

Thanks for the advice I just spoke to the solicitor I normally use and he is going to do some work on this for us. He thinks we have a strong case to argue that the plans submitted where wrong.

 

[Slade2]

I would advise agaisnt selling the house with the current dispute still running it can be a real nightmare and you would have to legally tell any potential purchasers of the ongoing case anyway so I would think most potential purchasers would be put off by that but you might get lucky. Is there no talking to the neighbour about this at all?

 

[Stretch]

Is the boundary fence obviously in the wrong place when compared to the land registry plans?

 

[Dr House]

I would advise agaisnt selling the house with the current dispute still running it can be a real nightmare and you would have to legally tell any potential purchasers of the ongoing case anyway so I would think most potential purchasers would be put off by that but you might get lucky. Is there no talking to the neighbour about this at all?

I hope we manage to come to an agreement, I just want to know the cards I hold before I sit down and try and work something out with him.

Is the boundary fence obviously in the wrong place when compared to the land registry plans?

Its hard to say but he believes it is yes. I know the shape of the fence is definitely wrong. I think if we moved it so the same way the land register document shows we would gain some land and lose some. The problem is the area we would lose is important as it would cut off the side access to our house and possible even go through the corner of our half built conservatory