What checks does a conveyancer do regarding boundaries?

[FNG]

Can't go into great detail as I've had to engage a solicitor to try and sort this issue out, which is preventing us from getting the house to market.

Bought a semi detached house in 2011. It's an old railway station master's house, the signalman's house is the other half of the semi detached. We bought from a fella who had extended our side. He had bought from the last stationmaster, who had bought both houses in 1968 from British Rail when the station was decommissioned.

Searches raised some covenants imposed by the BR board at the time, which were dealt with in the usual ways. Our seller had to complete a form regarding the boundaries of the property, which includes the area we are having trouble with. And we needed an indemnity to cover lack of FENSA certificates and lack of building regs signoff for the extension but nothing else was raised during the purchase.

The problem is that when looking at the land registry plans, there is a sliver of unregistered land between the front garden of our plot and that of the neighbour. It only became apparent to us when overlaying next door's plan over ours (as we don't have access to the land registry portal to see them all at once - something I would expect a conveyancer to be able to do?).

I got this from a very helpful PHer about a year ago while trying to resolve another matter. Dotted line I've added is the fence that's actually in place and is coincident with our party wall. We need to own the unregistered portion before we tackle the correctness or otherwise of the fence vs the line on the map (and that's a whole, complex, mad-cat-lady-ridden can of worms for another day).



I can understand that a conveyancer won't have seen a property in the flesh, and so can't be expected to know whether the plan agrees with the actual fences etc, but would they normally take a look at the plans of the whole area? as if they'd done this, they would be able to see the ambiguity and flag it to us. If they had flagged it, we would certainly have taken out an indemnity if it practical. As it is, we are at £8k and counting, and no guarantee that we will get that land added to our title.

The relevance of the seller's submission about the boundaries is that he declared the boundary to be an existing fence, which is technically not ours as no-one currently legally owns the land it is on. No idea if that is relevant in any way.

I should add that Land Registry have also said it's a complex matter relating to how the properties were split (for which there is limited record and no living witness), how the boundaries were drawn, and how the conveyances were written, so is by no means a slam dunk and we absolutely need expert help to make the application.

I'm really wanting to know whether our conveyancer were negligent in their searches, as this looks to be the sort of check that they can readily do (and a PHer on here has ready access to the LR map so can also easily do) but a buyer (I assume - I may be wrong) cannot, or wouldn't normally expect to need to.

Any thoughts and experiences based on the above?

Edited by FNG on Thursday 25th February 13:05

[Ocho]

I don't quite understand the issues you have (weekend brain still stronger than Monday one), but in answer to your subject question, I am buying and I was simply sent a copy of the land registry document with the boundaries marked and asked to confirm that this is my understanding of the boundaries of the property I was buying. I don't think they check any more than that, unless you were to point out a discrepancy..

[HappyMidget]

This might apply https://www.gov.uk/squatting-law/squatters-rights-... if that fence has been up for over 10 years. IANAL

[FNG]

Ocho said:

I don't quite understand the issues you have (weekend brain still stronger than Monday one), but in answer to your subject question, I am buying and I was simply sent a copy of the land registry document with the boundaries marked and asked to confirm that this is my understanding of the boundaries of the property I was buying. I don't think they check any more than that, unless you were to point out a discrepancy..

Thanks.

It’s been nearly ten years so I just don’t remember, but it’s not helped by the conveyancer doing it all online and changing their portal since, so I can’t access my old documents. Am dealing with that now to see if they said anything at the time one way or the other.

[FNG]

HappyMidget said:

This might apply https://www.gov.uk/squatting-law/squatters-rights-... if that fence has been up for over 10 years. IANAL

Thanks. Keeping that one until we own the land I think should be added to our plan. By then we will have been there ten years and can apply in that way. But we need to own the adjoining part first.

[Chrisgr31]

I must admit I don’t understand what the problem is and why it prevents you marketing the property. There are numerous reasons why fences are always on the actual boundary and in this particular case you will never prove from the land registry plan where the fence should be unless it matches a building line as the thickness of the line drawn on the plan represents a width wider than the fence on the ground!

There is no need to move the fence, the piece of land the other side of it will make no difference to the value of it.

As regards the piece of unregistered land one of my neighbours suggested there was a piece of unregistered land at the end of my garden. I had a look at my deeds and the neighbours but it was difficult to see. I also asked on here and Equus kindly provided the overall view from the Land Registry which showed there was no unregistered land. What it did show though was the boundaries of my property that the Land Registry hold are slightly different to the Registered Plan I have. I have gained a very small bit. What the Land Registry seem to have done is adjusted the registrations of the houses adjacent to this very smalll piece of land to get rid of it. They might do the same for your bit.

[FNG]

Chrisgr31 said:

I must admit I don’t understand what the problem is and why it prevents you marketing the property. There are numerous reasons why fences are always on the actual boundary and in this particular case you will never prove from the land registry plan where the fence should be unless it matches a building line as the thickness of the line drawn on the plan represents a width wider than the fence on the ground!

There is no need to move the fence, the piece of land the other side of it will make no difference to the value of it.

As regards the piece of unregistered land one of my neighbours suggested there was a piece of unregistered land at the end of my garden. I had a look at my deeds and the neighbours but it was difficult to see. I also asked on here and Equus kindly provided the overall view from the Land Registry which showed there was no unregistered land. What it did show though was the boundaries of my property that the Land Registry hold are slightly different to the Registered Plan I have. I have gained a very small bit. What the Land Registry seem to have done is adjusted the registrations of the houses adjacent to this very smalll piece of land to get rid of it. They might do the same for your bit.

Thanks for the reply.

Taking the second point first, there definitely is a piece of unregistered land between our two plots in this case, and since identifying this, Land Registry have looked into it and found some ambiguities with how the plots were first drawn and potentially how the conveyances were raised. Hence needing a specialist barrister to look at it and make the application for the unregistered portion.

Regarding the fence line, the discrepancy between its position on the ground and the line on the plan was important enough to put off a builder who was going to buy our house in 2019, who didn't want a survey and had plans to massively extend it despite being in green belt. If he was prepared to proceed on those lines but the boundary issue scared him off, my view is it would scare anyone off.

The thickness of the line on the drawing is generally accepted to be c.1ft / 0.3m I belive. We are talking about c.4ft here.

If the unregistered land were to be added to the neighbour's plot, I'd have a fence extending from my front door frame, no front garden, and my living room would overlook her garden. No matter how much I fell in love with the house, if that was the arrangement I wouldn't buy it.

[FNG]

Bumping this back to the front page in case it’s been missed.

It’s an unusual one but any expert feedback regarding normal checks done against Land Registry plans would be much appreciated.

[EW109]

As I have pointed out on other threads, the Land Registry plan shows merely what is called a “general boundary”. It leaves the exact line of the boundary undetermined. You cannot simply scale from the plan (which may not be to scale anyway) and say where on the ground the boundary is.

See the guidance here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/land-re...

Note in particular what is said under section 5:

“We [ie, HMLR] will complete a first registration without making detailed enquiries as to the precise location of the legal boundaries.”

“Unlike the tolerances applied to Ordnance Survey mapping, there is no standard tolerance, measurement or ratio that can be attributed to the relationship between the position of the general boundary mapped on an HM Land Registry title plan and the position of the legal boundary.”

And see also this case:

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2011/1279...

In the present case, it improbable in the extreme that it was intended to leave unregistered land, and the obvious solution is that the two registered titles meet each other at a boundary. Quite where that lies is a different question.

I repeat – you cannot simply overlay the two plans, see a gap, and assume there must be an area of unregistered land.It does not work like that.

[surveyor]

As a staring position I would want to see the original registration plan. Land reg do make mistakes.

[FNG]

EW109 said:

As I have pointed out on other threads, the Land Registry plan shows merely what is called a “general boundary”. It leaves the exact line of the boundary undetermined. You cannot simply scale from the plan (which may not be to scale anyway) and say where on the ground the boundary is.

See the guidance here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/land-re...

Note in particular what is said under section 5:

“We [ie, HMLR] will complete a first registration without making detailed enquiries as to the precise location of the legal boundaries.”

“Unlike the tolerances applied to Ordnance Survey mapping, there is no standard tolerance, measurement or ratio that can be attributed to the relationship between the position of the general boundary mapped on an HM Land Registry title plan and the position of the legal boundary.”

And see also this case:

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2011/1279...

In the present case, it improbable in the extreme that it was intended to leave unregistered land, and the obvious solution is that the two registered titles meet each other at a boundary. Quite where that lies is a different question.

I repeat – you cannot simply overlay the two plans, see a gap, and assume there must be an area of unregistered land.It does not work like that.

I agree with what you say, but Land Registry have told me the land is unregistered, as has my (ex) buyer's solicitor, my conveyancer at the time, the solicitor I've since engaged, and the barrister I'm engaging next Tuesday.

It's as a result of two conveyances being raised at different times, and an error being made on one leaving a gap between two properties. I agree there's no suggestion there was intent to leave a gap, the question is what mistake was made - was the plan accompanying the second conveyance incorrect, or there was an error in translating it to the LR plan?

My question is not about who is at fault regarding the gap or the misalignment, it's about the fact that it was missed when I bought the house but not when I tried to sell it. It's about whether a conveyancer would, in the normal line of business where there's an odd shaped boundary such as this, take a look at the whole LR plan of the area to check that everything looks sane and sensible. Because plainly my buyer's conveyancer did, but my conveyancer did not. I'm trying to establish whether they were complacent or negligent, or whether my buyer's conveyancer was especially diligent or anal.

As an aside, one of the lines in question is aligned with an internal wall (not the party wall) so the vagary of its position because of fence line thicknesses vs the thickess of a line on a drawing becomes a red herring. There's a relationship established between the physical wall and the line. Where there is an offset between a physical wall and the fence line, I completely agree with you that the plan is not proportional and cannot be relied on to place a boundary precisely. In general I'm then advised (by LR) that the normal process is to commission a survey to establish the correct position, and only update the plan should it be materially different to that shown - not in proportion, but if misaligned to immovable features.

[Jobbo]

FNG said:

Bumping this back to the front page in case it’s been missed.

It’s an unusual one but any expert feedback regarding normal checks done against Land Registry plans would be much appreciated.

Ocho's post earlier in the thread sets out what usually happens. Even if there's unregistered property adjoining that would not raise any flags unless, after comparing the title plan to the physical property, you said there was a discrepancy with the boundary features compared to the Land Reg plan.

I should add that the above is a statement of what to expect as a minimum from a conveyancer, not necessarily what every one will do. You get what you pay for!

Edited by Jobbo on Thursday 25th February 12:51

[Muncher]

The only way a conveyancer would see the plan above is by using the mapsearch feature on the LR portal, I would normally check for context but conveyancers traditionally request title documents from the sellers, which means they would only see the title plan, so would not pick up on this.

What they should however be doing is sending the client the plan to verify pre-completion.

[FNG]

Jobbo said:

Ocho's post earlier in the thread sets out what usually happens. Even if there's unregistered property adjoining that would not raise any flags unless, after comparing the title plan to the physical property, you said there was a discrepancy with the boundary features compared to the Land Reg plan.

I should add that the above is a statement of what to expect as a minimum from a conveyancer, not necessarily what every one will do. You get what you pay for!

Edited by Jobbo on Thursday 25th February 12:51

OK so seems this is the normal way of things. My buyer obviously did get a better conveyancer than the one I used

[FNG]

Muncher said:

The only way a conveyancer would see the plan above is by using the mapsearch feature on the LR portal, I would normally check for context but conveyancers traditionally request title documents from the sellers, which means they would only see the title plan, so would not pick up on this.

What they should however be doing is sending the client the plan to verify pre-completion.

This is probably what's happened - my conveyancer likely only looked at the plan relating to this house, not looking at the wider area.

We did similar, and even when our buyer pulled out, our regular conveyancer didn't look at the neighbour's title to check it. She then raised a query to LR, that they didn't fully check either, resulting in a notice being issued to my neighbour stating they were "taking" some of her garden. Even though that was rescinded once the error was spotted, it's soured her view of us so much that I now can't get her to open the door to me...

Anyway I will continue the application to add the unregistered land to my title. Moving the boundary line so it aligns with the party wall is much less of a priority, but still worth doing in due course.

Thanks for the feedback, all.

[littlebasher]

In the course of selling my FIL house, yesterday our buyers solicitors have sent us a copy of the house as it appears on the LR plan and asked us to confirm the boundaries match those shown.

So they've kinda left the ball in our court, presumably so they can sue if any issues arise later!