Experience has taught us that boundary disputes are notoriously difficult to solve without recourse to litigation and even if we are able to negotiate a settlement, it almost follows as a matter of course that neither party is satisfied with the result; inevitably a compromise. "It's the principle, you see!".

 

Deed plans on old Conveyances and title deeds are invariably drawn on a very small scale and usually give no indication as to ownership of boundaries. It has only become the fashion on more recent plans to give an indication as to boundary ownership by the convention of a "T" mark facing inwards. Land Registry plans are very much better in identifying the land in question but they rarely assist with the ownership of boundaries. Although the scale is usually larger than that on traditional deed plans, the line on the plan often represents a metre or two on the ground! If all else fails and there is no other indication as to ownership of a boundary, the parties can rely on the ancient presumption that where a boundary is formed by a hedge and a ditch then both belong to the owner of the land on which the hedge is planted. This only applies, of course, if the two properties were in different ownership when the ditch was dug.

 

A case decided by the Court of Appeal two or three years ago exemplified the problems with such cases all too clearly. The issues were first presented to a Court in 1994 when the Judge fixed a 250 yard long boundary by measurements referring to a datum line on two defined plans. One would think that this would nicely solve the problem but not so! The matter reappeared before the Court during the following year when the boundary was re-established using the position of nearby trees as fixed points. The Judge heard new evidence and there was an appreciation that the plans on which the original Order had been based were ambiguous. Needless to say, the new Order failed to resolve the problem because it was only when the boundary came to be marked on the ground that one of the parties realised that this latest Order pushed the boundary back several feet onto what he claimed to be his land. This resulted in an Appeal which was heard no less than four years after the original hearing and many years after the dispute originally came to light.

 

This extremely long-winded and very expensive squabble contains two morals for us all. The first is the old adage that principles are invariably expensive commodities. The second is that boundary disputes rarely produce winners and that good, sensible, professional advice at the outset can prove to be very cheap indeed!