A year and a half ago we bought a brand new house from George Whimpey.
All was fine until Friday..
To cut a long story short -
The boundary to our property is on the edge of an existing house / garden. It turns out that George Whimpey have erected our fence 300mm onto someone else's land - However, ive checked the title deeds and the land as it lies at the moment is correct to the deeds. So its wrong on them too.
It seems that Ive bought land from a home builder which wasnt theirs to sell, 32 Square foot of it.
Going to see my Solicitor on Monday, but before i go is there anyone clued up on this kinda stuff so i can at least go with some knowledge!
Boundary disputes are infamous for being an endless revenue source for the legal profession.
belonging to us, it seems that whatever the Land Registry has on record is the bottom line. The trouble is though that line could easily be 300mm wide! We got the Land Registry to sort out the drawing (by that I mean they looked through the history, found the error and out it right) , which they did. But then we weren't in dispute with anyone. I don't envy you!
"Mark Solesbury" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net...
Mark, we had exactly the same thing, farmer next door claimed the builder had nicked his land. It took some serious GPS & measuring to find out they hadn't. If they had, you will get compensated if they take the land back, wont bring yer garden back mind. Get a good solicitor.
I did a site setup last week, they had the plans with all the houses on at one scale and the compound at another scale, needless to say the compound didn`t fit in the space provided. If they cant get the size of a portacabin right on the plans, you have no chance at all with a house.
"Mark Solesbury" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net...
"Mark Solesbury" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net...
Going back into my dim memory of land sales about 35 years ago I think there is a term called "adverse possession", if you enclose private land for a year and one day and can prove occupation, its yours. Whether thats been legislated out of existance since I came across it I dont know.
The law on adverse possession has changed. It "was" 12 years use without interruption to be able to claim the land. It's now much harder to claim AP. However if there is a "title holder" to the land you will have to pay them for the land even if it's yours to start with as the title holder is the owner in law. We have been going through this for the last 10 years and it is better to speak face to face and agree to settle. Go to court and lose money.... In your case if the builder sold you land that was not theirs to sell or somehow made a mistake you have right to sue them for breach of contract, breach of trust etc. Also if the place had a survey done before you bought it this information should have come to light there as well so you may have a claim against the surveyor. Check your house insurance as most good ones include legal cover for this sort of thing, if it does you can buy me a drink!
Nothing to do with the surveyor. They propably didnt even go inside the property if it is a new build, especially if you bought off plan?
The breach of contract route is the best one to take as your contract was to purchase the property including land as reigstered with The Land Registry. Your conveyancer will still have copies of the registry submissions or may well have sent them to you for safekeeping.
"Mark Solesbury" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net...
Why not speak to Wimpeys legal department first since they sold the house erected the fence and notified the land registry of the boundaries, the responsability must be theirs and I don't expect you need to pay them owt to rectify the problem.
Presumably you used a solicitor when you bought the house. If so, it is his problem, not yours!
I had a similar problem here though it involved at least 5 acres. Old practice for farm leases in Scotland was often to let land on the arable acreage -- you got the "rough" for nothing. So when my farm was sold, the vendors took the total acreage to be what was arable. My solicitor told me it would cost me to get it sorted out.
Not so fast! I phoned The Law Society of Scotland. They told me it was for the solicitor to sort out at his cost adding, "That is why you use a solicitor". I just mentioned this to the solicitor who capitulated and paid for an insurance policy against possible legal disputes in the future. (I've since found boundary markers so even that is not needed).
True, I am in Scotland but I am betting the situation will not be much different in England. Speak to The Law Society, then your solicitor. Didn't he do the searches as he should have? Wot a naughty man!
If the property was bought with a mortgage it "should" have had a survey done. You should have a survey done "whenever" you buy a house even a new one!! If it's not a surveyors job to check on your behalf that the area of land and property matches the title for the land who do you think would pick it up? As I said there may be a claim against a surveyor as well if a service was purchased and not done properly. Breach of contract x 2....
The Land Registry state that their plans do not show fences exactly as they may be, usually just as shown on the original building plans which may not have been adhered too on the ground. You cannot therefore rely on Land Registry maps for boundary disputes. For example, our drive is curved but the LR show it and our neighbours fence line as straight, a new stroppy neighbour next door shoved his Land Cert in Sue's face one morning and complained nastily but as those maps cannot be relied on, we had been here since the houses and our drive were built (about
25 years), and we still knew the builder that built them and laid it, I put his hat on straight! The drive is right, the Land Registry is wrong. He moved, lost face, ignorant little man.
Firstly, the land registry is not accurate to 300mm because their lines are thicker than that!, so your neighbour will find it almost impossible to prove his claim based on the deeds.
Secondly the OS maps the deeds are based on are notoriously inaccurate, the one for my land shows errors of up to 1.5m between existing buildings so there's absolutely no chance of resolving where a fence between then should be placed.
Thirdly the conveyancing process makes horrendous errors, one neighbour who wants to build in his garden discovered what I was aware of for years, that his deeds only showed him owning half of his garden!. A search of the register I did showed a wide strip that was unregistered and I'd been approached by a solicitor to buy the land which on the ground is clearly his garden 8-). He has had to pay for the error in conveyancing many years ago to be traced, and prove it to the land registry, before they would correct the deeds, they are notoriously unhelpfull when it comes to correcting their errors but without it he could not sell.
Lastly, when you can't prove exactly where a boundary is, it's assumed to be where ever the fence is now.
Don't assume that, does he have some specific reason for making the claim such as trying to get planning permission and needing the extra foot? or is he just on the make and thinks he can get rich quick from this?
The best thing to do, regardless of comments made here. I would be very surprised if he didn't say your neighbour hasn't a case because he must be measuring from deeds or would have seen the new fence being moved over when it was erected, and deeds just aren't that accurate. Greg
A mortgage company only has a valuation done, the idea that they measure the plot is quite laughable!, my neighbours plot was conveyed
3 times since the mistake was made and we're talking half of his garden not on the plan, not 300mm! 8-).
Even if you pay for a more comprehensive survey they won't measur ethe land, it's the building they survey.
Technically it's the solicitor who should spot large errors such as my neighbours as they are clearly visible from the deeds, and I believe he may claim his costs from his solicitor, but even if he got out there with a tape he would not spot 300mm, the deeds are just not that accurate. Greg
It might be worth doing a Time-Team and dig around for old fence posts etc. One house I looked at the neighbour had removed the old fence and moved it across by about 2ft, giving him room for 2 cars and the vendor none! Unfortunately for him he'd not grubbed out the concrete that supported the old wooden fence posts, just covered them with gravel....
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