Don't fence me in

Just a simple exercise that anyone can participate in.

Stand with a vantage point over either the front garden or back garden of the place that you call home.

You may have done it many, many times and taken comfort in the neat demarcation of fence, wall, hedge or other boundary markers. There is a definition and certainty in the enclosure of land and that which you can claim and call your own. It is a matter of feeling in possession whether you are an owner occupier, a tenant or just a casual custodian.

In the UK successive generations have been brought up under the culture of outright ownership, From the earliest documented records such as the Domesday Book completed in 1086 the title and respective rights attached to land ownership have formed the basis for wealth and power. In a small country such as hours a relatively small number of individuals control a disproportionate amount of it hence the motivation of the smallest denomination of a single householder to guard, protect and perpetuate that parcel of ground that represents our own compact kingdom and tiny, mainly rectangular domain.

What do we know or perceive about out own particular land holding?

I have moved house quite a few times over the years and when summoned into the lawyers offices to sign a contract to purchase there is usually a brief disclosure of the Deed Plan, outlining in thick red the extent of the purchase. Not every time but on a few such occasions I have been asked if the plan accurately represents what I think is being sold to me. Even the most diligent prospective purchaser on multiple viewings and wanderings would place a lower priority on the physical boundaries around the place than say, the condition of the kitchen and sanitary arrangements or even the age and serviceability of the domestic installations.

However,  in my professional experience any subsequent irregularities, factual discrepances and encroachments in boundaries and their markers can cause significant ruptures and schisms in the lives of those drawn into dispute, squabbles and personality clashes which are inevitable consequences of a falling out.

Some situations are obvious. Take when a property becomes vacant. This may be down to owners moving on and leaving the house until a buyer is found, where a death occurs or in between the modern phenomena of a tenancy. To a mischievous neighbour the absence of a watchful adjoining owner affords an ideal opportunity to put up a new fence, grub up that hedge or demolish a wall and what if, in the process, a piece of land becomes annexed deliberately. This happens more frequently than you might expect. The new owners or occupiers will certainly notice a brand spanking new boundary marker but in that honeymoon period in the early months and indeed years there is a natural reluctance to point out what seems to be a change and encroachment.

I have seen cases of boundary dispute where adjoining owners have co-existed for a quarter of a century.

Upon reaching that milestone of making the final payment in the long term commitment of a mortgage a bundle of papers is usually sent by the lender amongst which is to be found the Title Plan. This may provide the first opportunity for many to appreciate what they have owned in physical form and taken for granted. Imagine the emotions dredged up by comparing the paper document and the lie of the land and finding that something is missing and has been enjoyed by someone else for all of those years.

In most of our lives paying off our mortgage usually coincides with, or at least it used to, more leisure time from early retirement or in the winding down process to leave the rat race. Statistically most boundary disputes are entered into by a person of mature age with the time and inclination to devote to what is an intensive and almost full time occupation in itself. I attended a seminar by a Surveyor whose specific sphere of expertise was in such disputes. He recounted that main protagonists fitted a certain profile not just in age and demographic but funnily enough with a high percentage driving a beige Austin Allegro and with a grown up daughter living in Canada.

Ever since disclosure of that information I have been keen to establish the motoring preferences and wider family tree of those approaching me to provide a professional input to what is invariably already a long running conflict and war of attrition.

I have, in describing a few of my own cases, intentionally avoided naming names and locations. This is partly out of my own ethical approach but mainly to protect those foolish enough to get into a boundary dispute in the first place.

Many are spawned from a clash of personalities, ideals, social background and manners. Such motivations cannot be quantified with a tape measure or discussed rationally and calmly in terms of common sense and practicalities. Take the two neighbours each occupying nice bungalows in half acre manicured grounds. You would expect to live out the rest of your years in quiet solitude in half an acre, independent and self sufficient from human contact but yet the two adjoining owners were fighting tooth and nail over the position of a line of concrete fence posts.

Some unscrupulous and bullying neighbours have taken liberties over frail and timid adjoining owners in the form of an aggressive land grab. These are the worst kind of dispute because of the atmosphere of intimidation and fear. I have had to spend more time in the guise of a therapist and social worker in such situations than in my survey work.

Modern housing estates are a rich seam of boundary disputes with in particular a lot of aggravation potential for a shared service road of the type that serves a number of houses from the end of a cul de sac. The house at the far end usually has ownership with those properties with frontages being granted a right of way. There is unfortunately only a sense of citizenship and reasonable behaviour between co-operative use and a decline into anarchy.

On one large residential development the builder had failed completely to provide any proper referencing of individual plots at the Land Registry but a larger failing was in the erecting of boundaries in a haphazard way so that successive owners could not identify what was and was not their territory.

I have spent many an hour studying legal documents trying to find some correlation to physical features on the ground in order to establish the true position of a boundary and return a war zone to a place of civility and peaceful co-existence as it may once have been remembered.

The best advice to those thinking about becoming embroiled and immersed in such issues. Just Don't.