How do you resolve a boundary dispute?

Boundary disputes can be quite upsetting when you are living next to your neighbour as you cannot escape the boundary dispute.

The first thing would always be to try and speak to your neighbour and see if you can informally resolve the issue. It might be that a simple conversation with them will just bring this issue to an end. But if you do reach settlement with your neighbour you need to make sure that it’s legally drafted, put in writing and correctly registered.

Otherwise it’s a matter of gathering all of your documents together, obtain your deeds, look at your land registry title and your deed plans. Do the same for your neighbour’s property as well to make sure that they match. When you’re unsure where the location is you may have to instruct a surveyor to prepare a report and it’s always worth photographing your boundaries or filming your boundaries so you know exactly where they were when you moved into your property and if they later alter you can see exactly how they have altered. Another useful idea would be to speak to the former owners of your property or neighbours and ask them where the boundaries used to be.

Ultimately it might be that you have to instruct solicitors to send a letter to your neighbours so that they can then try and resolve the boundary issue for you. That doesn’t necessarily mean going to court there are other ways to resolve matters by way of mediation. A solicitor can always carry out a title check for you, they can go through all of your deeds to look at the history of the property, work out where the boundaries are, but also look to see whether you have carried out any steps that have altered the boundaries or any conduct that means others have claimed rights over your property by way of using your property as their own or accessing over your property.

Here is a video recorded by our Dispute Resolution Solicitor, Emma Cornell: 

Here at Taylor Bracewell our Dispute Resolution team are experts in dealing boundary disputes. If you have any issues or queries you wish to speak to one of our experts about, don’t hesitate to contact them on 01302 341 414 or by filling out our online enquiry form!

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