Legal definition of boundaries

Discodog

Are the property deeds the legally accepted definition of a boundary or do surveyors use a difference reference ?

mickdw

The question is too general to answer

In Ireland, land registry operate non conclusive boundary system and as such, a registered folio identifies a property, not an exact boundary.

A mature boundary on the ground would hold more weight in my opinion than a registered folio in alot of cases.

Furze99

Worked in an architects office as a student and when preparing documents for sales of houses in estates, we'd measure the boundaries of each house and make up a separate drawing for each with the figures labelled on it. That would be best practice as it removed all subsequent ambiguity. However I'd imagine in many case, there is just a scaled drawing in the folio and on the ground mature boundaries which may or may not exactly agree.

Peregrinus

Historically, the answer is that title deeds were considered to give the best evidence of property boundaries. But that evidence, particularly in older title deeds, could be quite poor. Older title deeds frequently didn't come with maps attached, for instance. A plot of land might be described as "the land measuring X acres, Y roods and Z perches in the townland of Mursheendurkan in the Parish of Ballymagash, bounded on the north by the road to Galway, on the east by a tributary of the Owenbeg river, on the south by the lands of Patrick Flynn and on the west by the lands of Mary Cosgrove and James Black". All the people who were parties to the deed might consider the land to be adequately described, but a hundred years later you would have to work quite hard to identify it, never mind its precise boundaries. And, even later, when hand-drawn plans came to be attached to deeds as standard, they were of, um, variable quality.

Which means that, when it came to establishing a system of land registration, the land registry maps would be drawn up to a high standard and with considerable care, but there would always remain some doubt, because the surveyors were working off information gleaned from the old deeds, coupled in most cases with some input of local knowledge and lore. (How else were they supposed to know where the boundaries lay?) So there was always provision for rectifying mistakes in land registry maps. And there still is.

Nevertheless, in practice the land registry maps did tend to entrench errors, so that they became the new truth. If your land was registered a hundred and fifty years ago, and has changed hands several times since then, the likelihood at this point that anyone will be able to find, never mind prove, an error in the originally-mapped boundary is very low. But if your particular title was created more recently, and has not been the subject of many dealings since creation, it is quite possible that the map contains an error that can be argued about.

Discodog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553147#Comment_120553147

But what do you compare the measurements to? This a case where a neighbour planted Leylandi that are now 60 feet tall. They have pushed over the boundary wall into my friend's garden. It will be impossible to rebuild the wall in it's original position.

My friend intends to employ a surveyor to determine where the actual boundary lies.

The neighbour is about to sell the house. Are they obligated to inform a purchaser if there's a boundary dispute?

NattyO

As Peregrinus says above, there is not really a hard and fast boundary as most people understand it.

I have come across many instances where boundary maps, title deeds, and survey drawings all contradict one another.

This is why boundary disputes in Ireland tend to be a fools game, and benefit nobody but the lawyers.

Discodog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553710#Comment_120553710

But if the deeds of both properties agree on the boundary surely that would be definite?

Tefral

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553710#Comment_120553710

Even with a GPS mapped boundary, i have seen a susequent issue where the thickness of the red line outlining the boundary became an issue on the map. Crazy, but some people are like that when it comes to land. The land registry dont want to know, their statement of non conclusive boundary gets them off the hook. Usually its a well established boundary on the ground is taken as gospel unless theres something massively wrong. Say a fence that is clearly 5m inside the line.

NattyO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553762#Comment_120553762

Fairly definite! The problem is they often don't, and even if they do, a map may differ, or someone may have put up a fence 30 years ago on a different line, or a ditch may be 4 feet thick on one side but only a foot on the other etc.

You'd be amazed at how dysfunctional it all is.

NattyO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553776#Comment_120553776

Yes, very true, People will initiate years-long court cases over a couple of inches of dispute on property. I'm involved in buying sites and I probably reject more sites because of fuzziness around boundaries, ownership, and rights of way than for any other reason.

There are loads of properties around the country, but especially in Dublin that have sections of the property that are not legally owned by anyone. This can often be right in the middle of a site, and can lead to crazy legal issues.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553776#Comment_120553776

The red line thickness is meaningless. It was/is applied so that the inside edge of the red line runs along the boundary, I did enough of them. So it's the land enclosed by the inside edge of the red line.

As for measurements taken at time of sale and recorded, they would/ should be definitive in terms of resetting out any boundary. These were used for housing estates in my time at it and it should/ would be a simple matter using them to reestablish a boundary.

Tefral

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120554314#Comment_120554314

Try tell that to unreasonable people.....

Lenar3556

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553695#Comment_120553695

If there is a boundary dispute that is known to to any perspective purchaser it will impede the sale.

But there isn’t really a boundary dispute here is there? There is an overgrown hedge and damage to a wall.

Why can’t the wall be put back in the same place? It seems the logical place to put it.

Who is going to fund the cost of reinstating the wall?

Discodog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120554774#Comment_120554774

I wouldn't describe a line of 60 foot trees as an overgrown hedge :) It can't be put back, in the same place, because there are 4 to 6 ft diameter tree trunks in the way. As for the cost - that's a good question. The trees were planted as sprigs but were allowed to grow to where they have pushed the wall over. I would of thought that the owner of the trees is liable but maybe I am wrong.

Oh & there may be a boundary dispute depending on where the boundary actually is. The owner appears to be trying to sell the property quickly & has said that the "trees will be someone else's problem".

Lenar3556

As others have pointed out, there often isn’t a simple answer as to where precisely a boundary lies, so no one is going to pin point a spot on the ground and say this is it.

Although in this case it’s seems clear that the existing wall position formed the boundary of your property, and I don’t see why that is now becoming a difficulty?

What may well be an issue, is damage to your wall and encroachment of trees onto your property. I would be very slow to buy a property if I was aware of a potential liability like this in the pipeline. The seller is perhaps being a little hasty in thinking that this can be foisted onto the new owner.

When did the wall topple?

The remedy to my mind is that the wall be reinstated - where it was previously. Trees etc. in the way need to be removed.

Discodog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120555347#Comment_120555347

It's not my property & I agree that the original position of the wall is probably the boundary. The damage has been ongoing for a few years whilst my friend was trying to locate the owner. The tree removal would be a big job as the roots will be huge.

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120554314#Comment_120554314

On the digital folios, the red line is centered on the boundary.

Peregrinus

If you're creating a new title - e.g. subdividing an existing large property into several smaller properties, e.g. for purposes of development and sale, then you get to create the new boundaries, and you can do that using the best modern practices and the highest mapping standards, etc, etc, and do your best to take care that no error arises. Errors can still arise — e.g. if you create documents in relation to two adjacent lots which contain inconsistent details of the boundary between them — but these are relatively rare and (if you're the developer who is subdividing the property) they are within your control; they only arise if you allow them to.

There's more likely to be a problem in relation to long-standing boundaries, especially boundaries that were in place before the land was brought into the land registration system. The older the boundary, the more likely it is that errors or uncertainties have cropped up in the way in which it has been documented in the past. Older boundaries were often marked by, or defined by reference to, ditches, watercourses, etc and these may have shifted over time.

NUTLEY BOY

If OP's friend raises a formal dispute about the boundary with the neighbouring vendor is that vendor not obliged to disclose the boundary issue to any intending purchaser on the requisitions ? If so, should OP's friend not at least send a solicitor's letter to declare the existence of a boundary issue even if it is never followed up ? Tactically, this might stymy any sale and focus the neighbour on resolving the matter.

I encountered a very similar problem. The tree roots from a neighbouring property had invaded to such a degree that it was not possible physically to reinstate the damaged wall in it's original position. Causally, the wall was damaged solely by the tree roots. Miraculously, the trees were removed entirely because they had become an inconvenience to the neighbour that owned them 🙄.

In principle, tree roots coming from an adjoining property and causing damage are an actionable trespass and or nuisance.

NUTLEY BOY

P.S. +1 to the view that boundary disputes are potentially very convoluted and likely to end in a score draw with much money spent for little, if any, benefit.

ittakestwo

If something that represents a boundary like a wall or fence goes uncontested for 12 years it will become the new boundary regardless of the deeds maps.

So if you discover from the deeds map that the boundary seperating you and your neighbours plot does not match where the wall is today and that you have lost ground but never contested over the last 12 years as you were not aware then it is to late to try and reclaim the lost ground. What physical features on the ground representing boundaries hold alot of legal weight if they have been there a long time uncontested. Basically there would be case of adverse possession by your neighbour if you both acted like that was their land for the last 12 years.

billyhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120568158#Comment_120568158

Where did you get this info from. Is this in legislation?

mickdw

Basically the law on which squatters rights depends.

If someone has sole use of a plot of land for 12 or more years continuous and we're not paying for it, they would have a good chance of having it registered to them so if neighbours wall in in a few feet in your garden and you allow it remain that way, they will eventually claim it as their own.

ittakestwo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120571081#Comment_120571081

It is adverse possession. Most AP cases are to do with boundaries.

However if it is contested it can take years to be sorted and neither party would be able to sell to a purchaser requiring a morgage.

However if both parties accept the mistake and both properties are registered they can apply to the Land registry for a deed of rectification to update map to the new agreed boundary.