Neighbours garage on my land

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So i have a parking space out the back of my property (separated by a path and stairs down to road level) and i'm wanting to build a garage on it. Lots of the other spaces have already had garages built including the space directly next to us.

their garage is 3.6 metres wide which leaves us with 3 metres of parking space to build on, we were happy to do this if we can have a party wall, using their side of the garage as one of our walls and building 3 extra etc.

They originally agreed to this but have now stopped us from doing it saying that they don't want ours attached and we should build a separate wall.

I'm in the process of trying to find out now if they've built over our boundary (it certainly looks like they have)

This is my first house and i thought anything to do with property was very precise, that's obviously not the case as I've spoken to land registry who basically say the boundary line can't really be determined by any measurement.

Apparently they've had this garage their for 20 years and had planning permission at the time, does this leave me a leg to stand on? from my research i've found that anyone occupying some land for 12 years or more can claim ownership of it?

Seems ridiculous that my best option is to just suck it and build a smaller garage as they've basically stolen part of our land. I'm going home to measure in a minute but from the deeds it looks like our parking space boundary is directly in line with the edge of our house so i should be able to figure that our roughly. I've also left a voicemail with my solicitor for some advise and am waiting for a quote from a boundary surveyor to come and have a look.

Anyone dealt with anything like this before? I'm a bit lost here.
 
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planning permission in this case means nothing
it simply means the building has been passed as complying who owns the land is not there concern
in other words it doesnt help or hinder the boundary argument

i can put in plans for a house i am thinking off buying for a side extension and get it passed without even owning the house
 
planning permission in this case means nothing
it simply means the building has been passed as complying who owns the land is not there concern
in other words it doesnt help or hinder the boundary argument

i can put in plans for a house i am thinking off buying for a side extension and get it passed without even owning the house

Ok thanks so that can be completely disregarded then.

I'm home now and had a visual check against our deeds and it doesn't look they are obviously on our plot but the measurements don't add up.

Their garage is 3.6 metres, our space is 3.0 metres and the one next to us is 3.3 metres, surely this suggests they should all be 3.3 metres
 
You will have to do your best to try and establish the position of the boundary. The best way to do this is take measurements from fixed known points such as existing walls and in particular party walls, the steps and path etc. and try to relate that to the deed plan.

The best option for you is the neighbour has build the flank wall astride the boundary. It then becomes a default party wall and you have the right to use it as the separating/party wall of your new garage.
 
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maybe maybe not if you are a mid terrace for example your garden is house width
if you are end off terrace your garden is house width plus path width
 
Really why not just build your wall 25mm away from theirs, its single skin presumably? So your garage will be 125mm smaller. Is that really worth all the hassle that could entail with opening a boundary dispute?
 
Really why not just build your wall 25mm away from theirs, its single skin presumably? So your garage will be 125mm smaller. Is that really worth all the hassle that could entail with opening a boundary dispute?

It's not just that though, it seems as though they have taken some of our land so their garage is 3.6 metres wide and ours will only end up 3 metres wide.

I might just do that though, I can't deal with all the bullshit that comes with this, i honestly can't believe that there is no measurements for the land you own, absolutely baffling
 
Well sometimes it is more obvious than others, what they've given you is a caveat answer, on terraces its a bit more obvious and generally you could take it that the boundary is in line with the party wall but did you notice I said generally, its not always. And looking at a tiny plan from your deeds that was originally drawn 100 years ago, has been photocopied multiple times and lost a bit of scale in the process and now has a hand written red line on it is why they will say its hard to determine.
 
Well sometimes it is more obvious than others, what they've given you is a caveat answer, on terraces its a bit more obvious and generally you could take it that the boundary is in line with the party wall but did you notice I said generally, its not always. And looking at a tiny plan from your deeds that was originally drawn 100 years ago, has been photocopied multiple times and lost a bit of scale in the process and now has a hand written red line on it is why they will say its hard to determine.


Could I not just use the same reasoning and take a slice off my other neighbours space and just say well the deeds are hard to determine, sorry.

It is a terraced house and it does appear that the boundary is in line with the border of the house (the neighbour with the wide garage isn't actually a side neighbour but across the road, their space is just next to ours)
 
remember if you start a dispute and its not resolved when you come to sell you must declare it possibly costing you far more than the value off the land in legal costs reduced asking price and increased tension with one or more off your neighbours
 
So how do I know how far to build my garage the other side? There are no measurements on the deeds.

There are some white lines painted on the spaces to separate them (except on the annoying neighbours side as they've clearly gone too far over them)
 
Unless explicitly stated or marked on plans, house boundary lines will tend to be straight between two obvious points, or parallel or square off the house walls. So it's not that difficult to determine.
 
Unless explicitly stated or marked on plans, house boundary lines will tend to be straight between two obvious points, or parallel or square off the house walls. So it's not that difficult to determine.

Ok thanks, it's a bit different for us because the space we are building on is down on the road away from our house.

From the deeds, our boundary runs from the edge of our house (it's terraced) and the other side is kind of in the middle
 
See if this works... we are plot 9

image.jpeg
 

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