What to do if Neighbour is Encroaching onto Your Land

There are instances when you think that your neighbour knowingly or not has placed their boundary fence in the wrong place. This can occur when part of their structure or driveway overlaps onto your property. In that case, there are options available before taking the case to your lawyer.

It is crucial you understand the nature of the dispute. You will need to know where the exact boundary is, as any fence placement may not represent the legal boundary line. With the right facts and knowledge, you will have the right to dispute any encroachment on your land.

The best way to determine the exact boundary line of your property is by getting a licensed surveyor. The surveyor will assess the property and professionally proceed to mark the actual boundary physically.

Defining and Identifying Property Line

We operate as a team of licensed surveyors who can offer assistance in all surveying matters, including getting existing land office title records, physical surveying to mark property boundaries, prepare a plan with survey results, and advising on the best way forward in resolving the issue. After getting the boundary survey facts, you can then respectively talk to your neighbour. It is possible your neighbour is not aware of any encroachment involving both properties.

For further help, you can contact a Mediation Service via the local council, they will help to provide a mediator who can take you and your neighbour through the right dispute solving steps. If both of the above disagreement solving methods fail, you can then contact your solicitor to give you legal advice and the next step to take. For you to proceed to a full trial, certain information relating to your property and your neighbour's is required.

This includes an appraisal, survey, and an official title search. You might have got all these details when you bought the property and can still use them. But, if it is a full trial, new and un-expired documentation may get required. For the survey, a Chartered surveyor undertakes a physical exercise of locating your property boundary using your title deed legal description. A survey report is issued and used in determining whether there is any encroachment or not, and the encroachment extent.

An appraisal gets carried on the property to determine the current market value of the particular piece in dispute. The title search is carried out on the property with the land office to establish actual ownership. It will show your title's chain of documents, deeds, or easements that may affect the interest you have in the title. As an example, you can think of a situation where your neighbour got granted an easement or a full deed to the property by the previous owner. Both permissions should have been discovered when you were buying the land.

The possibilities of such a thing happening get increased by you not having conducted a title search, If you purchased your property through a mortgage, you were required to buy an insurance policy covering the property. In which case, the title company should have discovered the above issues, and it falls on them to cover the costs involved in this case.

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If you need advice on defining your boundaries or resolving a boundary dispute, consult a chartered surveyor to discuss your needs.