Boundary wall altered without permission

freddyuk

My neighbour has just altered the height of my boundary wall without notifying me. It is higher and impeding our view. We have a shared driveway access but my land and road boundary is to one side of the access way. He has assumed ownership of my boundary!
In Irish law surely that needs some serious action. If I do nothing he could have an assumed ownership?
I don't want a dispute but my options must be geared towards legal redress.
Anyone had this problem before?

Kristopherus

Is that boundary wall on your left or right? Back in the day, where 2 boundaries existed, each neighbour maintained the boundary on their left. Not sure if this tradition still exists, or the legality of rising a boundary wall to an excessive height.

GerardKeating

freddyuk wrote: »

My neighbour has just altered the height of my boundary wall without notifying me. It is higher and impeding our view. We have a shared driveway access but my land and road boundary is to one side of the access way. He has assumed ownership of my boundary!
In Irish law surely that needs some serious action. If I do nothing he could have an assumed ownership?
I don't want a dispute but my options must be geared towards legal redress.
Anyone had this problem before?

First thing to check, is exactly where the property boundary is, sometimes the wall might be entirely on one person property, in which case, they can do want they want mostly.

freddyuk

Property goes down to a public road to a narrow triangle point which is a wall abutting the road about 12 feet. Common access is to one side so this wall is our short boundary to the road and shown on the register. There has to be a boundary around a property. The common access is up one side to the house entrance. He has taken ownership of this boundary which is to one side of the common entrance way and is not in any way around his property which is much further up the common access way.

gozunda

freddyuk wrote: »

Property goes down to a public road to a narrow triangle point which is a wall abutting the road about 12 feet. Common access is to one side so this wall is our short boundary to the road and shown on the register. There has to be a boundary around a property. The common access is up one side to the house entrance. He has taken ownership of this boundary which is to one side of the common entrance way and is not in any way around his property which is much further up the common access way.

Map / drawing would help ...

freddyuk

Just an update to this issue: if you do not have a legally defined boundary established for your property (that means a legally defined decision by a judge) you do not really know what you own. Property can change hands and deeds can be handed over year in year out but unless the courts have dictated where the boundary is you have zero rights if a neighbour decides they want a chunk of what you think is your land. You have to sort it out between you (unlikely from a land grabber) or go to court. This is clearly a bigger problem in rural Ireland.

Mr. Incognito

well you can check online if you know what Folio number your house is at landregistry.ie to check where the boundary is mapped in the land registry.

Party walls are usually joint ownership where there is no defined boundary.

Before you go all legal eagle have you spoken to your neighbour?

NUTLEY BOY

If it is definitely a boundary wall then that is yours alone and the neighbour has no right to meddle with it.

At a minimum the neighbour is impertinent and presumptive in acting without prior consultation.

However, as with a lot of property matters "the use it or lose it" principle applies. In this case failure to assert rights in response to the neighbour's action can be taken as acquiescence to what was done if it was out of order.

With shared arrangements the title deeds, if you have them, can help.

For example, we have a shared drive with a neighbour. Each property has an obligation to the other to permit the passage of vehicles (and horses !) over the full width of the drive. This allows me to drive over our neighbour's half of the drive and visa versa. Our deeds have a specific provision within them that this right of passage vests permanently and binds any future owners of our house if we sell.

There might be documentation in title deeds that might help to answer your question. Of course, not all properties now have title deeds in which case I would expect to find a land registry compliant map that might also help.

Peregrinus

NUTLEY BOY wrote: »

If it is definitely a boundary wall then that is yours alone and the neighbour has no right to meddle with it.

Not at all. A wall along a boundary line may belong to the landowner on on one side or the landowner on the other side or - and this is much the most common arrangement - it may belong to both of them jointly. It depends on whether it's built on one side of the line, the other side of the line or with the boundary running down the centre line of the wall.

Hippo

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

well you can check online if you know what Folio number your house is at landregistry.ie to check where the boundary is mapped in the land registry.

It's a start but PRA maps are not conclusive as to boundaries.