Where is your boundary?
Many farms and estates are going through the process of voluntary registration resulting in the issue of a plan by the Land Registry showing the registered land edged red. Many people assume that such a plan is a definitive determination of the boundary. This is not necessarily the case.
Land Registry plans are taken from Ordnance Survey maps at 1:2500 scale. A solid line on an OS map represents a feature that is more than one foot high. Ordnance Survey confirms that the placing of such lines is not 100% accurate. As a general rule they state that when you measure a distance on the map between two points that it will only be accurate to within plus or minus 2.8 metres when compared to measuring the actual distance on the ground. However, accuracy of Land Registry maps can be as good as plus or minus 0.4 metres or as bad as plus or minus 4 metres depending where the property is and what surveying techniques they used! The first problem therefore is that the maps from which the Ordnance Survey plans are taken are not guaranteed to be accurate.
The next point to be borne in mind is that whilst a line on the plan will show a feature, it does not indicate a boundary. This is confirmed by HM Land Registry Rule 278 which states that “in such cases the exact line of the boundary will be left undetermined – as for instance, whether it includes a hedge or wall and ditch, or runs along the centre of a wall or fence, or its inner or outer face, or how far it runs within or beyond it: or whether or not the land registered includes the whole or any portion of an adjoining road or stream”.
This perhaps recognises the fact that the red line shown on the Land Registry plan can itself, when scaled up to be over three metres wide, if not more.
The Land Registry themselves work on the information that is available to them. If they undertake a survey they are likely to do so by reference to the conveyance plans supplied to them and these can be ambiguous. Unless there are specified fixed points and measurements and no slopes are involved, surveys can themselves result in errors.
In recognition for all of this the HM Land Registry Practice Guide 6 issued in June 2004 states “you cannot use a title plan to establish the precise position of features on the ground simply by scaling from the title plan”.
We are increasingly being consulted about boundary issues. Contested boundary disputes are one of the most unsatisfactory and stressful forms of litigation. Evidence is rarely unambiguous making the result unpredictable, and the courts are notoriously reluctant to award costs in such disputes. Accordingly, our advice at the outset is that the parties should endeavour to agree the boundary by adopting a flexible approach. Only very rarely does the value of the land disputed bear any proportion to the costs involved in asking the courts to determine the line of the boundary.
Take professional advice and don’t be led immediately into a dispute until all the opinions have been clearly explained to you and you have given these careful consideration.
For further information contact Andrew Wiltshire on 01722 427555 or aw@wilsonslaw.com