LE17 4JA, Lutterworth, Leicestershire, England, United Kingdom
Your property boundaries
Boundary Services and Mediation
PCL Surveyors have considerable experience of dealing with boundary disputes, we can provide part35 expert witness reports, act as joint expert and act as mediators to resolve boundary disputes
We can also provide detailed plans for determining boundaries acceptable to Land Registry
Your property boundaries
If you live in England or Wales, there’s usually no record of:
- the exact boundary between two properties
- who owns the hedge, wall, tree or fence between 2 properties
Definition of a boundary
The word ‘boundary’ has no special meaning in law. There are 2 senses in which it can be used: legal boundary and physical boundary.
Legal boundary
An imaginary or invisible line dividing one person’s property from that of another. It is an exact line having no thickness or width and is rarely identified with any precision either on the ground or in conveyances or transfers and is not shown on Ordnance Survey mapping. Ultimately the exact position of a boundary, if disputed, can be determined only by the court or the Land Registration division of the Property Chamber, First-tier Tribunal.
Physical boundary
A physical feature that we can see such as a fence, wall or a hedge, which may, coincidentally, also follow the line of a legal boundary. The legal boundary may run within the physical boundary structure but it might just as easily run along one particular side of the structure, or include all or any part of an adjoining roadway or stream. Living boundary structures such as hedges can be prone to a certain degree of movement: for example, if a hedge is left untended it might take root where it touches the ground and become very wide, making its original line hard to discern. So even if it is clear that the legal boundary ran along the hedge, identifying this boundary on the ground may become very difficult.
Identifying the position of the legal boundary
Case law establishes that the position of the legal boundary will depend on the terms of the relevant pre-registration conveyance or the transfer as a whole, including, of course, the plan. If the plan is insufficiently clear for the reasonable layperson to determine the position of the boundary, the court can refer to extrinsic evidence and in particular to the physical features on the ground at the time.
This is the case whether or not the plan is ‘for the purposes of identification only’. The question for the court is: what would the reasonable layperson think they were buying? Evidence of the parties’ subjective intentions, beliefs and assumptions is irrelevant. See, for example, Cameron v Boggiano [2012] EWCA Civ 157.
Ownership and/or maintenance of boundaries
There are various notions that the way a wall or fence is constructed indicates ownership, for example that the posts and arris rails of a fence are on the owner’s side. There is, however, no legal foundation for such beliefs. Deeds may contain covenants to maintain a wall or fence but on their own, such covenants do not confer ownership. Where the ownership or responsibility for maintenance of a boundary cannot be determined, that boundary feature is generally best regarded as a party boundary. Any alterations or replacement of the boundary should only be done with the agreement of the adjoining owners.
The register will only show information concerning the ownership and/or maintenance of boundary features when this information is specifically referred to in the deeds lodged for registration. The most common marking on deed plans that relates to boundaries are ‘T’ marks. An entry referring to a ‘T’ mark is normally a statement concerning the ownership of a boundary structure or the liability to maintain and repair it.
If the ‘T’ marks are expressly referred to in the deed lodged for registration and the text of the provision(s) is set out verbatim in the register, then we will:
- reproduce them on the title plan and refer to them in the register, or
- describe the boundaries affected by ‘T’ marks verbally in the register, for example “The ‘T’ mark referred to [in paragraph/clause…] affects the [north western] boundary of the land in this title”, or
- make a note to the said register entry that a copy of the plan to the deed is filed
‘T’ marks on deed plans which are not referred to in the text of a deed have no special force or meaning in law.
The above information is taken from HMS Land Registry.
PCL Surveyors
PCL offer an initial 30 minutes to help assess you boundary problems.