"Going to see my Solicitor on Monday"
"The best thing to do, regardless of comments made here"
The best thing to do is check your house insurance first, if you start this action on your own you will be paying or trying to recover costs, if your house insurance covers this action you can be sure of not losing money. That would be my first concern!
My solicitor was on site only last week to give advice on a right of way issue, no charge as he was on his way somewhere else 8-), mind you I have put a few conveyances etc his way in recent years.
Surely the OP is not taking action, he's been accused and is just getting advice on his position, likely as not the advice will be to do nowt and wait for the neighbour to spend his cash is he's daft enough. Then a simple solicitors letter rejecting the accusation and pointing out the futility of it is likely to end the matter as it sounds to me as if the neighbour is just trying it on in the hope the OP will be scared into something. Greg
I'm a tight arse, why should he pay for a letter if his insurance will? Solicitors "charge" to visit site, we had ours out to look at a septic tank problem last week, covered on the house insurance so no charge for us... (;-) If he starts "any" action on his own a legal insurance policy may become void...check first is best advice.
A fair point, insurance companies will get out on any grounds if they can. Greg
Yes the established boundary is very important, far more so than the deeds in many cases which people just don't understand. If there is a slight discrepancy, as in this case, the established boundary is what matters because the deeds aren't accurate enouygh to say otherwise, and anyone moving it is generally in the wrong regardless of the deeds.
Also, if a boundary has been there for over 15 years it overrides the deeds even if the differences are large, as in the case of my neighbours, I forget the exact jargon but it's something like "established use". Greg
The Law did change on this last year, adverse possesion is no longer so easy, you would still have to buy the title to the land if there is a registered owner who disputes your ownership. Went to Law last year about this before the law changed. Land Registry are hard to get moving on anything BTW.
The Land Registry doesn't appear to be a definitive Registry of Land!! Our village hall had a dispute a couple of years ago when a new housing estate was built on adjacent land, and the owner of the nearest house found the lean-to greenhouse he wanted to put on the back of his garage overlapped the ancient boundary line... so he just planted a new hedge around it, taking a strip of our car park. We got all the plans from the Land Registry, which showed an undoubted straight line between 2 points, and used a laser marker which showed that he had strayed 3 feet onto our property.
But the Land Registry shilly-shallied, saying that the line "hadn't been tested" -- ie, until the dispute had been taken to court and a ruling made, they were only holding on record what ONE party (the builder) had put on his plans. Because our hall had been built some years before compulsory registration of plans in our area, there was no definitive record of OUR boundary.
Fortunately we didn't need to go that far, as our insurance paid for a lawyer to wave a big stick in the householder's direction, and he backed down (and soon after moved away!!)
GRAEME ALDOUS Yorkshire
No it definitely isn't, the new compulsory registration is aimed at making it that way but will take decades to get anywhere near as you only have to register when there's a transfer or re-mortgage.
Even after compulsory regulation it's not definitive, when someone submits a first registration they seem to accept the plans they are given by the solicitor so long as it doesn't overlap an existing registration. That's how my neighbour ended up with only half of his garden registered, they didn't question the fact that the solicitor had drawn the red line right down the middle of the garden even though there was no line shown there on the OS map.
That's almost always the way, people try it on thinking they can get away with it but when faced with a simple solicitors letter they realise the error of their ways. Although I do know someone who'se family had a fight for years with a stupid idiot who tried to nick half their garden, it went all the way to the high court who threw it out as a joke and awarded costs against the idiot who lost his house to pay the costs. Greg
Good thing they checked their insurance first! (;-)
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.