Establishing ownership of a strip of land

[jon h]

We have lived in our current house for 19 years. At the bottom of the garden is an old field boundary hedge which pre-dates the house. There is a fence on our side of the hedge. 3 houses back onto our garden (built at around the same time) and they also have a fence on their side of the trees. This leaves a 2m wide strip of land between the 2 fences. The hedge is really a row of trees. I like it as it prevents the houses behind overlooking our garden. One of our neighbours would like to have one of the trees removed as it overshadows their garden. Assuming it was on our land, they have approached us to ask us if we would deal with it. We said that it is not ours, but we would look into the issue and come to an agreement on how to deal with it. We have since approached the local council, the land registry and the original developers who built the house. No-one can tell us who the land belongs to! The map below (from the council planning portal) shows the piece of land in question. Our property is bottom right.The narrow strip to the left of our garden on this map is ours now, and the addition of this piece of land (previously a footpath) to our property is all correctly documented.



Are there any conventions on what to do in this situation? The developers say that, for sure, it is not theirs, as do the council. The Land Registry map is surprisingly vague and does not show the hedge as a distinct area, unlike the map above.

Part of me thinks that we say "Ok, it is ours", we pay to deal with the trees (topping, NOT cutting down) and then we have "acquired" an extra chunk of garden! What we want to avoid is someone destroying the trees/hedge, though I can understand that as they are closer to the other houses, and on the south side, they do steal a lot of light.

For what it is worth, one of the houses to the north, the one at the left hand edge of the strip, and not directly behind us, has annexed the bit behind his garden by removing the fence and clearing undergrowth. He currently has a shed on the land.

Any advice gratefully received!

[jon h]

mph1977 said:

mad4amanda said:

looking at that plan I would guess the 2 strips of land were left as alleyways providing rear access the 1930s estate I grew up on had them everywhere they have now all gone and been enclosed as suggested above . I would do the same if it were me . How old are the houses?

that's quite conceivable from the map / plan shown ...

Our house and the ones behind were all built in 1991. The strip of land to our left was originally a footpath crossing the field in which the houses were built.It became part of our garden when the footpath was officially re-routed. The strip of land with the question mark over it was always a hedge even before the houses were built.

[jon h]

A big thank you to both Muncher and Blueg33 for offering to look into this for me. Muncher, with access to the right information, was able to answer the query in a matter of minutes. I also now have the necessary information to dig further if we need to.

Thanks again guys,

Jon