what if someone is trying to take 2 ft of my land how can i prove its mine
Information technology may come as a shock to the reader to learn that:
the exact positions of the boundaries of the land in that championship.
Land Registry'southward web site admits:If you lot live in England or Wales, there's usually no record of:
- the exact purlieus between two properties
- who owns the hedge, wall, tree or fence between ii backdrop
This page explains the limitations of title plans.
For an explanation of the limitations of the Ordnance Survey maps on which Land Registry's title plans are based, see Using Ordnance Survey maps.
Land Registry does not ascertain belongings boundaries. Land Registry compiles and maintains a register of titles to land. The boundaries of each registered title were created by the landowner who divided his country in order to sell off a office of it. There are no laws or regulations governing the standards past which the boundaries are described by the seller/vendor/transferor or by his or her conveyancing solicitor or manor agent: and it is usually not known which of these people made the original description of the purlieus.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION | ||
| Does my Country Registry title plan define the verbal lines of my boundaries? Country Registry plays no part in deciding where boundaries are located; that conclusion falls to the possessor of a larger piece of land who divides his land in society to sell the divided-off part. Land Registry's title program is but an interpretation of the transfer deed that attended the division and sale of the land: the title plan is not the primary source for the description of the boundary. | ||
Often ASKED QUESTION | ||
| Can I utilise the title plan to work out the verbal position of my boundary by scaling the distance from the boundary to the side of my house? Firstly, the title plan is based upon the Ordnance Survey map, and as to the accuracy limitations of the Ordnance Survey map, 1 need but consult the table of relative accuracy of Ordnance Survey maps to appreciate how dangerous it might exist to calibration a distance from a title plan. Moreover, there is a alert in red text at the human foot of the title plan that states: This title plan shows the general position, not the exact line, of the boundaries. It may exist field of study to distortions in scale. Measurements scaled from this plan may not lucifer measurements between the same points on the ground. | ||
Oft ASKED QUESTION | ||
| Surely title plans must be right as they are backed by the national land registration potency and by the national mapping authorisation? Land Registry is required by Section sixty of the Land Registration Act, 2002 to evidence only the full general position of a purlieus. Department 12 of the Ordnance Survey Deed, 1841 decrees that Ordnance Survey maps "shall not extend, or be deemed or be construed to extend, to ascertain, define, alter, overstate, increase or decrease, nor in any style to bear on, whatever Boundary or Boundaries of .... any Land or Holding". These two pieces of legislation effectively mean that a championship plan cannot testify the exact line of a boundary. | ||
To reinforce the bulletin, I volition now quote the thrice repeated banner in Nicholoas Isaac's article Resolving boundary disputes - Lesson 1: Boundaries and Country Registry plans, which reads:
where the boundary is.
Championship Plans show just general boundaries
By police, Country Registry is required past Section 60 of the Land Registration Deed 2002 to show just the general positions of the boundaries of the land in a registered title.
A Title Plan is a map produced by State Registry to record the full general position of the boundaries of a registered title in accordance with Rule 5 of The Land Registration Rules 2003. This states:
Contents of the belongings register
5 Except where otherwise permitted, the property register of a registered estate must comprise-
(a) a clarification of the registered estate which in the case of a registered estate in country, must
refer to a plan based on the Ordnance Survey map and known as the championship plan;
Ordnance Survey maps are prevented by Department 12 of the Ordnance Survey Act 1841 from showing property boundaries. There are also problems concerning the accuracy of Ordnance Survey maps.
The mention of the general position of the boundary and the implications of using Ordnance Survey maps ought to be enough to alert land owners and their professional and legal advisers to the limitations of the championship plan. In example it is not, Land Registry prints a warning in crimson text at the foot of every title plan that it issues. This says:
This championship plan shows the full general position, not the exact line, of the boundaries. It may exist subject to distortions in scale. Measurements scaled from this programme may not match measurements between the aforementioned points on the ground.
It is of the utmost importance to understand that Championship Plans do non prove the exact (i.e. the precise) position of the boundaries of the land in the title. In an effort to explain this, a joint statement by Land Registry and Ordnance Survey was prepared in about 2009 and revised in 2014.
What does a title plan bear witness?
Ii (fictitious) examples of title plans, showing how they relate to their respective title registers, are given in Land Registry Practise Guide 40, supplement 5: Land Registry Plans: title program. Y'all volition likewise notice at Appendix 1 to that supplement a diagram explaining the scheme of colours that Country Registry employs in compiling a championship programme.
Agreement the title plan
1. Land Registry is NOT responsible for deciding where to identify the boundaries that dissever private parcels of land. That responsibility falls to the owner who divided the country into the present parcels.
two.The description of the boundary given in the title deeds produced by or for the vendor is usually sadly wanting: meet Boundary Descriptions, and Conveyance Deeds and Plans. It is the poor standards of boundary descriptions in conveyances that forced Land Registry to prefer the principle of recording only the "general boundary" as early on as 1875. See the article 100 years of Os/LR Co-operation.
three.Information technology is Land Registry's duty to examine the championship deeds submitted to them at start registration of the property and to interpret onto the Ordnance Survey map the full general position of the purlieus. Remember, the Land Registration Act, 2002 tells us that:
The boundary of a registered estate every bit shown for the purposes of the register is a full general boundary, unless shown as determined under this section.
4.The red line shown on the championship plan is not the 'general purlieus' but is edging placed forth the inside of a black line on the Ordnance Survey map, and information technology is this blackness line that carries the 'general boundary'.
five.The Ordnance Survey map is a map of the physical features of the landscape and is a map that was made without enquiry as to the positions of property boundaries. So the line used as the general boundary is a physical feature and the exact relationship between the boundary and the physical feature is unknown.
vi.The Ordnance Survey map is known to contain minor errors. There are also issues relating to choice and generalisation of the features, and these factors have an event upon the relative accurateness of the map (meet Using Ordnance Survey maps, where you lot volition too notice an Instance of confusion arising from map generalisation).
7.Sometimes developers build and sell houses faster than Ordnance Survey is able to survey them. In such instances State Registry has based its championship plans on the developer's transfer plans. As nosotros accept seen, at Programmer'due south layout plans on the "Conveyance Deeds and Deed Plans" folio, such transfer plans are often a argument of the blueprint intentions rather than a record of what was really congenital. Such transfer plans are likely to be especially misleading as the case further down this folio also deomonstrates .
eight.The title plan identifies the land in the registered title and it gives only a general indication of the position of the boundaries of that land. In rare cases (and this will be noted on the register) either a purlieus agreeement or a registration of the verbal line of the purlieus will bear on the registered title, and it is only via such a boundary agreement or determined purlieus that Land Registry is able to tell us the exact position of the boundary.
 |  |
| Title plan for a modernistic detached business firm. Note that the red edging is placed to the within of the black full general boundary lines to which it draws attending. Thus the general boundary runs: (north side) along the back of the roadside footpath; (west) beyond unmarked open programme front garden, along garage political party wall, forth debate; (south) along the southern of two parallel features; (eastward) along a fence, along the flank of the house, beyond open program front garden. | Part of the title program for the developer's land from which the land sold off as new houses (including the house at left) has been excluded. Each excluded land parcel is indicated by green edging, and its title number (blurred in the above example) is too shown in light-green. To avoid a clash of red and light-green edging, the green edging is sometimes shown to the outside of the general boundary to which information technology draws attention. |
What the championship plan does NOT bear witness
The title plan does Non testify the verbal position of the legal boundary nor its relationship to the physical features adopted equally the general boundary. Official copies of title plans carry the following warning:
"This title plan shows the general position of the boundaries: it does not show the exact line of the boundaries. Measurements scaled from this plan may non match measurements between the same points on the ground.".
The championship plan does NOT show the dimensions: in exceptional circumstances a dimension will exist reproduced on a title plan, such as the one in the case at paragraph 12 of Land Registry's Land Registry plans: title plan (practice guide 40, supplement five)
The title plan does NOT normally bear witness T-marks: I accept only once seen T-marks on a title program. Whilst it is not a common practice, I take seen many more examples of title registers that quote a portion of a conveyance deed that refers to T-marks shown on the conveyance plan: there is so a annotation following the register entry that follows a format such as:
"Notation: T-marks impact the eastern and southern boundaries of the land in this championship".
Ofttimes ASKED QUESTION | ||
| Purlieus definitions: Can I use the title plan to measure out to my boundary from the side of my business firm? When I do so I find that the fence is nearer to my house than the title plan says information technology should be. Am I right in thinking that my neighbor must move the fence? | ||
| This is, sadly, a common error. Firstly, Land Registry is not responsible for specifying where the boundary should be: that is the responsibility of the owner who divided the land into its present parcels. Information technology is Land Registry's duty to prove simply the general position of the boundary. Secondly, the Ordnance Survey map on which the championship plan is based is not a perfect representation of the real world (see Using Ordnance Survey maps): scaling distances from it produces misleading results and cannot, legally, place the boundary's position. The example of the fictitious Acacia Road, illustrated in the cartoon at right, demonstrates that distances scaled from a championship program cannot exist relied upon. |  | |
| The owners of ten Acacia Route scaled from the championship plan a distance of 14 ft feet between the side of their business firm and the purlieus. Outside, they measured with a tape a altitude of only 13 anxiety. Armed with this data they accosted the owner of No 8, telling him that his fence was in the wrong position and that he must re-erect it in accord with the position of the purlieus as shown on the map. Their logic - that "the programme shows the boundary in this position, and the debate is in another position, so the fence is in the wrong identify" - can be shown to be false logic if nosotros examine the other flank boundary to No. 10, the ane that runs along the political party wall that is shared with No. 12, another semi-detached firm that is identical to No. 10, but the map shows that No. 12 is 2 ft wider than No. 10. By the same logic that the owner of No. 10 has used to demand the relocation of No. 8's fence, the owner of No. 10 should be offering to relocate the party wall with No. 12 and to surrender 1 ft of the space inside his house then that No. 12 can be made up to its "true" width according to the plan. Conspicuously, the possessor of No. 12 would not concord to relocating the party wall. [In case yous think that this case is far-fetched, accept a very shut expect at the representation of semi-detached and terraced houses on any Ordnance Survey big scale map.] For some other example of a misunderstanding of a title plan, or rather of the Ordnance Survey map on which the title program is based, see Example of confusion arising from map generalisation on the Using Ordnance Survey maps page. | ||
General Boundaries at Road Frontages
| The depiction of road frontage boundaries appears to be a particular problem for Land Registry. With public highways, the surface of the state is vested in the Highway Authority (which is usually the Canton Council) whilst the adjoining country's boundary might be in the eye of the road. State Registry is unable to prove that boundary in the center of the road because of other interests that may exist in the surface of the road. So far so skilful. But Land Registry automatically assumes that the highway extends to include all footpaths and verges lying alongside the carriageway of the highway. Sometimes it does, sometimes information technology doesn't. | ||
 | Update on the above photo and caption: The 1970 conveyance plan is shown at left, and the championship plan issued on first registration (in 2010) is shown at right. The greenish tinted front garden of the conveyance plan abuts a brown tinted private footpath (afterward adopted every bit public highway) whilst the title plan shows the part of the greenish tinted area that falls outside of the wall (which was built in about 1987) as if it is not function of the land in the title. |  |
| The point to sympathise here is that Land Registry prefers to place the general purlieus along the solid line on the Ordnance Survey map (in this example, the wall) even though it has incontrovertible evidence (the conveyance plan) that the boundary runs along the dashed line on the Ordnance Survey map (in this example, the junction between the paved footpath and the grass verge / shrubbery). | ||
| Title Plan 2010 version | In 2012 the possessor of the above property noticed that his garage, driveway and a modest role of his rear garden were shown outside of the full general purlieus on the championship plan. He contacted Land Registry with a view to correcting this error and at the same time tackled them on the road frontage issue. Uniquely in this author's feel, State Registry moved the general purlieus from the solid line (wall) onto the dashed line (path - verge junction line). |  Title plan 2012 version |
| The following examples stand for the typical handling of the general boundary at a road frontage. In the instance beneath, the deed plan (left) shows that the building plot numbered 'two' extends to the edge of the carriageway. In spite of this, State Registry has excluded the verge, even though the verge was created at the fourth dimension the house was built. Land Registry is resisting amending the title programme fifty-fifty though the registered proprietor has received written find from the Highway Authority that it is not responsible for the verge. | |
 Deed plan for 'Plot two' |  Title programme for the land that was 'Plot 2' |
| With private roads also, the championship plans appear to confuse. Figures 5 and 6 in the Digital Boundaries in Eng& Wales article (come across likewise beneath) show a individual road that runs along the western and northern sides of the land to which the two illustrations chronicle. The belongings boundary is clearly located in the centre of the route simply the title plan shows the general boundary along the debate line. In practise the private road comprises a narrow carriageway between wide grass verges, and the local residents have formed a road fund commission charged with keeping the carriageway in practiced repair. Land Registry would have been unaware of the beingness of the road fund commission, and that committee in whatsoever instance holds no legal interest in the private road. So at that place would seem to exist little justification for Land Registry to show the general boundaries at the edge of the private route rather than in its centre. |  Photocopy of HMLR filed plan for a belongings |
 Extract from a conveyance to the same property | |
| In the example below, there is clearly a line on the Ordnance Survey map that ameliorate reflects the position of the purlieus than the line called by State Registry to represent the general purlieus. This is again a private road and the circumstances make it clear that the carriageway of the private road is in carve up ownership from the verges on either side. | |
 Conveyance programme: note that the northern purlieus of the holding encloses the verge on the south side of the route |  State Registry title plan of the same property: notation that the southern verge of the road is shown outside of the full general boundary. |
| The obvious inference of the preceding examples is that you should assume that Land Registry's general boundary at the road frontage is shown in a position that differs from the truthful position of the purlieus. | |
Example history - Title plan misleads when based on design plan
Example history - transfer programme misleads Land Registry
It is Land Registry's practice when creating a new title plan to attempt - every bit a desk-bound do - to reconcile to the Ordnance Survey map the data submitted with an awarding for first registration. Simply if they encounter a complexity will they send someone out to site to resolve the complication.
The instance that is illustrated at Case of a Full general Boundary on the "Understanding Full general Boundaries" folio demonstrates how an inaccurate title plan can effect when a transfer plan is taken at face value with no ground check as to whether it reflects what is really on the ground.
It also demonstrates the misunderstanding to which landowners can fall prey when they place besides much reliance on the full general boundary shown on an inaccurate title plan.
 | As a reminder of what happened in that example, one company endemic a packet of country stretching along the w side of one road, all the way from i route junction to the next road junction. That company decided to split its country into two, and marked the sectionalisation betwixt the two with a fence. When the smaller, northern role of the land was sold, a transfer plan was drawn up. The transfer plan was based on an Ordnance Survey map, but the argue was not shown on the Ordnance Survey map and the vendor mistakenly used a map filigree line to represent the southern boundary of the land that was beingness sold. |  |
| When drawing the title plan, Land Registry took the information it was given and placed the general boundary forth the grid line. The full general boundary does not represent the true line of the boundary, which of course follows the line of the fence. This instance illustrates two points: 2. Land Registry'south practices do not always place those erroneous boundary descriptions - that require on site investigation - in the deeds submitted to them for beginning registration of title, with the event that title plans sometimes perpetuate the errors. | ||
Hopefully this page has convinced the reader that:
Land Registry title plans do not show the exact line of the boundary.
The reader should also be aware that
Land Registry is NOT responsible for defining belongings boundaries.
Links to State Registry's web site
HM Land Registry Weblog
See all of State Registry'due south blog posts since 24 Feb 2014.
LR Blog: Drawing the line on boundaries
Your property boundaries
HM Land Registry plans: practice guides
This series brings together all HM Country Registry guides relating to plans.
Source: http://www.boundary-problems.co.uk/boundary-problems/titleplans.html