UKC

hi, just after a bit of advice here...

We have owned our terraced house for 6 months and have just realised an issue with the boundary wall between us and our neighbours on the right. Neither our surveyor or us spotted this until now)

The brick garden wall (which I’m pretty sure the neighbours built) ends about 30 to 40cm into our house (which incidentally the have painted from our side of our chimney all the way to the ground) 

I feel pretty stupid for not realising this before we bought the house. Anyone know what our rights are now? The land registry image is pretty low res but it shows the line going straight from the edge of the house all the way to the bottom of the garden. 

You can't rely on the land registry plan, as it says on the plan it is only an indication. The thick red line when scaled up could be around 2m on the ground. Not getting into the issues of stability of paper records, the ability to accurately scan or copy the plans, or even the accuracy of the base plan or how accurate the boundary was measured /transfered to the plan.

The best source of your boundary location will be in the description in your deeds. 

The problem in the UK is that historically we have relied on General Boundaries Rules, which do not (unlike in, say, Australia where the system there is that boundaries are fixed precisely by cadastral survey) specify precise boundaries. See:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/land-registry-plans-boundaries/l...

Hopefully your deeds will have something in them which expresses in writing where the boundary lies.

If the deeds still exist. If the OPs unlucky the solicitors will have destroyed the deeds as ‘you don't need them, its all electronic now'...

They can’t paint the wall of your house. That’s your property on your land. 

It’s not even what’s known as a party wall, I don’t understand what you mean here if it’s a terraced house.

The same with the brick wall, it should be on their property. Establishing that boundary would probably be an expensive endeavour now, but I would have thought any boundary would run from the corner of your house down the garden. If the wall overlaps the corner of your house or abuts it, it would be strange for it to be on their property. 

You could sue for trespass if it’s definitely on your land. Think you can probably sue for trespass if they’ve painted the side of your house as well. Assuming you are in England. 

Thanks for the replies

The house is a standard terraced house in Sheffield

Basically we share a chimney stack - If you dropped a plumb line from the middle of the chimney down to the ground, the line would be the centre of the party wall.

The neighbour's paint and render is 30 to 40cm on our side of this line, all the way down 3 stories to the ground.

The brick garden wall is well inside our side of this line too, which is the biggest issue tbh

The old surveyor we dealt with when purchasing said on a home-buyers survey they don't comment on boundaries, but said after showing him the photo of the back of the house that they have rendered and painted well into our side.

He said that as for the brick wall we'd need to take that up with the neighbour and see what they say

We used to live in a terraced house, our neighbours garden kicked slightly across onto what appeared to be our land, this was obvious as it extended about 30cm across our back wall.

After a bit of investigation, we came to the conclusion that at one time there was a shared path to something  (toilet?) at the bottom of the garden, this path was entirely on our land, but neighbours had right of access.   A decision seemed to have been taken to split the path in half along its lenght with a fence, we kept one half and the neighbours got the other.

None of this was very clear in the deeds, although there were some references to a right of way that didn't make any sense.  Possibly something similar happened at your house?

There wouldn't be a path as there is no gap between the 2 houses.

From what I can see it is a case of boundary creep. And painting and rendering from our side of the chimney down the ground to seal the deal. 

I am a solicitor and I deal from time to time with boundary disputes.

My strong advice to you is to forget about it entirely, and spend a small fraction of the money you would otherwise have spent on it on (i) organising a climbing trip and (ii) inviting the neighbours for dinner and making friends.

You will thank me for this advice in the long run. Especially if you don’t take it.

jcm

I know the first thing we have to do is contact them and we will do, but its a pretty grotty house converted into flats and the owner doesn't live there.

What do you mean especially if we don't take it?

We can't forget about it unfortunately as we are about to extend our ground floor basement into the garden...

My house is on a terrace built on a curve, the boundary is convoluted to say he least and the wall on one side appears to encroach onto our land but in fact it is just that the garden was divided between the properties and doesn't follow the obvious line of the house and is simply offset slightly.

Steve D

You don't know who built the wall?

Maybe it was your predecessors?

Are you going to have to demolish it?

i think you need to speak to the owner of next door, and previous owner of your house if possible to shed light on the whole situation - at the moment you are just guessing

if there is no easy resolution, and having also had some dealing with neighbour disputes, I would urge you to take johncoxmysteriously's advice and forget it. you would not believe the world of sh*t that a few centimetres of boundary can create. that said, you are not dealing with farmers who have generations of bile stored up about access to some knackered shippon or other, so you may get somewhere

enjoy

If you have planning permission for your basement, will you need to take down the garden walls during the build - if your basement has its walls to your 'actual' house boundary. You can either re build the wall in its correct place then, or use this to point out the error of the wall, and try and agree the actual boundary - otherwise they might claim you have built into 'their' property.  

At least its a good reason to highlight the issue with the build taking place rather than just - hey shift the wall please its in the wrong place.  Especially if you are going to re build it?  

Excellent advice.

After all, what does the OP intend to do with the 30 cm to 40 cm they believe they may have lost? It's unlikely to be worth losing sleep over, and the last ting they want to do is to get into a formal boundary dispute, which, should they want/need to sell in the future will have to be disclosed to a potential purchaser and probably bugger up the sale.

It's a narrow terrace. We can't build small our garden extension unless we move the wall.

johncoxmysteriously is right, try and settle this situation amicably, and avoid a formal dispute arising for the reason I gave. Of course you can point out to your neighbour that the converse applies to them. 

Boundary disputes can be messy and expensive. Legal and surveyor's fees will accumulate, particularly if the matter comes to court and you need to call a surveyor in as an expert.

It might be worth trying to trace previous owners of your home even it that means going back many decades to get a statement from them as to where the boundary line was in the past?

When I was practising I found a previous owner from 40 years previously and she had family photographs clearly showing that the boundary (visible in the background) of a property had been moved. 

You’ll be needing a party wall agreement anyway.

That should start the conversation about the wall anyway.

This is a civil matter of course so your only 'rights' are to sue for any damage that you think you may have suffered.  But as others have said that wick ain't worth the candle.

I advise that you demolish 'their' wall as you build your extension and let the adjoining owner be the one faced with the unpleasant prospect of engaging "m'learned friends" if he wishes to

Problem is the neighbour would see the plans before they get approval and you can break ground. 

I'd talk to the owner in advance.

Along the lines of "we're building an extension and it looks like the wall between us has moved into our garden at some point in the far distant past, you see how it isn't in line with the middle of the chimney breast? Anyway, when we build the extension the wall will have to come down and the new wall of the extension will be in line with our internal wall which is unsurprisingly, in the centre of the chimney breast. Hope that's ok with you."

Thanks Erik, I'll use this tack

Yeah we are planning on rebuilding it. Only issue is it will make the brick steps on there side of the wall 30 or 40cm narrower!

What do you mean?

Because you will have to apply for planning permission. The construction involves a shared wall. The application won't even get approved without consulting the neighbours. 

The council could still pass them even if they weren't happy, but they will most certainly know. 

It sounds like the wall was originally built by the owners of your property, but did it leaving the original fence up. Your neighbours then removed the old boundary fence, hey presto, extra land. 

I have seen this a few times in the past. 

Just as an fyi

go inside and measure from the window reveal to the inside party wall. Now go outside and measure the same to the garden wall. If the measurements match, then there’s no problem, the chimney stack has been built off centre. It depends how the brickwork narrows from double breast depth to the stack itself. There are lots of examples in shef where the shared stack is completely one side if the party line.

I’ve renovated loads of Sheffield terraces, and this isn’t unusual. The ones down near Endcliffe Park are interesting, where the internal party wall zig zags, and the front rooms and back rooms dimensions across the width are radically different.

You say there are steps the neighbours' side of the wall, do you think there was once a shared path up the gardens between the houses to the toilets? At some point in the past the wall has been built presumably with the consent of the then occupants of both houses one side of the path after the privies were decommissioned and the shared path made redundant? Assuming that was the case there was probably some quid pro quo for the lost path you years later maybe no longer benefit from (perhaps the wall itself was the price of the land).

I'd consider revising your plans to make them a bit narrower. Any value you add could easily be gobbled up in legal fees and buyer reticence if you're at war with your neighbour when you come to sell.

jk

Hi Paul

Inside the house, if you measure the line from the edge of the door to the back of the chimney alcove it's 30 to 40cm more than the outside measurement (the neighbours side of the garden wall)

Planning is already in

Is the back of the chimney alcove the relevant measurement? What's the result like if you measure to the wall instead?

Approved? 

The back of the chimney alcove is our end of the party wall