Neighbour has planning on part of my site

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baldyman27

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I finally got planning permission after two and a half years, three attempts and a lot of expense on a family site.

The site is part of an original farm which my father sold about ten years ago, keeping back a portion of it for sites for myself and my sister. The person who bought the land applied for and received planning on a site that was bordering the portion of land on which I now have planning.

When this most recent application was made and subsequently posted on the council website, my engineer brought it to my attention that the council's interpretation of the maps showed my neighbour's site jutting into mine by approx. 6m. Both sites are large, in excess of an acre each so the loss of ground isn't a major issue but the way that the site is laid out means that my access is severely narrowed as a result.

My engineer said that it may just be the council's drawing of the boundaries that is the problem, that what's on the maps may be fine. However, I would like to get this cleared up as who knows what may happen in the future if either myself or my neighbour sell our property.

Does anyone with experience in these matters have any suggestions as to how I should approach this matter? I might add that the land registry maps are fairly difficult to interpret.

I hope I have given enough information.
 
Just because someone has obtained planning permission for a site, it doesnt mean that they own it and the granting of planning permission does not allow them to annex the land. And the maps attached to the deeds of the properties, not those in the council database, are what determine ownership. While it is good practice for local authorites to establish that an applicant for PP either owns the land or has permission from the owner, it doesnt always happen.

In the end of the day, regardless of what planning permissions are in place, your neighbour cannot develop the land owned by you without your permission. Also, if you yourself apply for PP for this portion of land in your ownership, and mention in the PP that you will not be giving permission to your neighbour to develop this land (therefore effectively cancelling their PP), then your neighbours proposed development will not be taken into consideration when considering your application.
 
Thanks csirl. I neglected to say that there will be no building on the bit of ground that is overlapping. Both his house and mine are outside of the area in question. I'm just wondering what's the best way to deal with it. Its all fine and well for us to agree it verbally and to put up a fence or ditch but I want it reflected officially. Would it negate his PP were I to go to the council and point the error out to them and ask that the boundaries be drawn properly? I don't necessarily want this to happen but have to do what I have to do to make sure that all is in order with my site.
 
baldyman27 said:
Thanks csirl. I neglected to say that there will be no building on the bit of ground that is overlapping. Both his house and mine are outside of the area in question. I'm just wondering what's the best way to deal with it. Its all fine and well for us to agree it verbally and to put up a fence or ditch but I want it reflected officially. Would it negate his PP were I to go to the council and point the error out to them and ask that the boundaries be drawn properly? I don't necessarily want this to happen but have to do what I have to do to make sure that all is in order with my site.
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Again, its an engineer involved.
No wonder there's so little work for architects around!

Anyway...

Planning Permission doesn't supersede the law of the land.
Showing land in your possession to be part of the other party's land may be termed a slander on your title, whether accidental or deliberate, and should be defended legally.
Given that you seemed to have spent considerable time obtaining permission on your own behalf, why weren't you aware of this sooner and submit an Observation during the other persons planning application on this matter.
A "revision to previously approved" application can be lodged by the other party, but getting them to do that will be the problem.
A solicitor's letter may be an effective way of dealing with this matter.
 
onq said:
Given that you seemed to have spent considerable time obtaining permission on your own behalf, why weren't you aware of this sooner and submit an Observation during the other persons planning application on this matter.
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The honest answer to this is that I was aware of it. My neighbour got his PP after his third attempt also, in 2008. At that stage I had applied and been refused twice and was formulating this latest application.When my engineer was doing up the drawings he told me that the maps I gave him weren't matching what the council had on their site. We agreed that we would adjust my boundaries to fit and push on with the application. Things were sensitive enough re my PP that we decided not to make an issue of it, not to draw anyone's attention to any potential problems until I got PP.
 
Again, its an engineer involved.
No wonder there's so little work for architects around!
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whats the problem? correct me if I am wrong but an Architect is not qualified to layout a site. You need an engineer or charted surveyour ?
 
picene said:
whats the problem? correct me if I am wrong but an Architect is not qualified to layout a site. You need an engineer or charted surveyour ?
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You stand corrected.
Architects are trained, competent and qualified to do this and to give sworn evidence in this regard.
Architects are usually asked to sign off on Declarations of Identity for sites of land in sale, houses in sale and apartments in sale.
Architects do surveying, usually in first second and/or third year of a five year course [depending on the particular syllabus].
It is preferred by architects to use a chartered surveyor to carry out tachometric [digital] site surveys in cases like this, but the comparison of the survey with the older maps and on-site visual inspection of boundaries with sworn photographic evidence is usually done by an architect when preparing a High Court book of evidence.
 
baldyman27 said:
The honest answer to this is that I was aware of it. My neighbour got his PP after his third attempt also, in 2008. At that stage I had applied and been refused twice and was formulating this latest application.When my engineer was doing up the drawings he told me that the maps I gave him weren't matching what the council had on their site. We agreed that we would adjust my boundaries to fit and push on with the application. Things were sensitive enough re my PP that we decided not to make an issue of it, not to draw anyone's attention to any potential problems until I got PP.
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That all looks very sound where there was a possibility of refusal, but now you have to defend a slander you appeared to acquiesce in earlier. This may mean you'll need to "shout louder", and to do this you might need to undertake a digital survey of the property [if you haven't already done so] showing the extant boundaries.

You might find that this is a two edged sword, since 1:2500 Ordnacne Survey maps [the usual ones for most rural areas] are made to an accuracy of +/- 2M at the corners [at least they used to be] so things can be up to 4M adrift.

Land Registry doesn't allow for this and you may discover other boundary discrepancies between the relevant OS Map and boundaries that have existed for decades.

FWIW

ONQ.
 
Yeah, the Land Registry maps seem to be 'loose' to say the least. When the original land was sold to the neighbour (as agricultural land), the engineer my father used to map the new boundaries also did the planning application for the neighbour and also did my first two applications. So I'm hoping that he has some records of it even though he used a separate engineer to do the surveying.
 
onq said:
That all looks very sound where there was a possibility of refusal, but now you have to defend a slander you appeared to acquiesce in earlier.
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As it stands at the moment, the land is still in my father's name. Would this make any difference to my case?
 
In relation to your planning situation; -

Is your father still alive?
If he is then, and is the owner of the property, normally you should have declared his ownership of the land on the planning application form and included a letter of consent in relation to you making the application if I recall correctly.
However in some local authorities these requirements might be relaxed.

In relation to your legal position; -
You have none, per se.
All the advice given above in the preceding posts was based on you being the owner.
You father may have a legal position.

You say the engineer he used to survey the land also made the neighbours application.

  • Are you saying there was a basic error in the original survey that has carried through to the planning drawings?
OR
  • Are you saying there was no error in the original survey and that he made a later error in the planning drawings. i.e. the survey and the planning drawings by the same engineer show different site bonudaries?

ONQ
 
onq said:
In relation to your planning situation; -

Is your father still alive? Yes, although terminally ill. Land will be coming to me.


If he is then, and is the owner of the property, normally you should have declared his ownership of the land on the planning application form and included a letter of consent in relation to you making the application if I recall correctly. You're correct, all this was done and in order.
However in some local authorities these requirements might be relaxed.

In relation to your legal position; -
You have none, per se.
All the advice given above in the preceding posts was based on you being the owner.
You father may have a legal position.

You say the engineer he used to survey the land also made the neighbours application.

  • Are you saying there was a basic error in the original survey that has carried through to the planning drawings? I don't think so.
OR
  • Are you saying there was no error in the original survey and that he made a later error in the planning drawings. i.e. the survey and the planning drawings by the same engineer show different site bonudaries? This is more of a possibility although it may just be an error by the council in how they drew up the boundaries on their website. This would be the sixth planning application altogether between the two sites, possibility that the lines got blurred (literally) although it looks quite definite to me that the boundary line is significantly different this time around on the website.
ONQ
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Councils don't draw up site boundaries, except sometimes in an indicative way if they have online maps showing visual locations of planning applications/permissions.

The documents on their websites are usualy scanned images of what the applicant submitted and while these can sometimes be corrupted by the publication or the scanning process, its rare in my experience.

Okay you need someone to look at this and depending on what's gone on it may need to be done by someone independent of either of the engineers.

One engineer may have caused the discrepancy and the other may be party to facilitating it, albeit on your instruction and for what seemed at the time to be good reasons.

If the existing boundary is demonstrably the original and it differs from the one shown on the most recent planning application then one course of action is for you to commission a Chartered Surveyor to carry out a digital/tachometric survey of the land in question.

This survey can then be agreed between the parties as the definitive survey or it could be used by you as a basis for asserting your title/defending any slander on your title.

It would be useful to do this while your Dad is still alive as he may have to swear a statutory declaration stating which is the correct boundary.

BTW, I'm sorry to hear about your Dad and didn't mean to pry - it was a comment on a planning issue and you appear to have handled it correctly.

ONQ.
 
onq said:
Councils don't draw up site boundaries, except sometimes in an indicative way if they have online maps showing visual locations of planning applications/permissions. This is the only place that I can see the problem described.

The documents on their websites are usualy scanned images of what the applicant submitted and while these can sometimes be corrupted by the publication or the scanning process, its rare in my experience. When my engineer was overlaying the map attached to my application he spotted the discrepancy when trying to match up with the images available from the council.

Okay you need someone to look at this and depending on what's gone on it may need to be done by someone independent of either of the engineers.

One engineer may have caused the discrepancy and the other may be party to facilitating it, albeit on your instruction and for what seemed at the time to be good reasons.

If the existing boundary is demonstrably the original and it differs from the one shown on the most recent planning application then one course of action is for you to commission a Chartered Surveyor to carry out a digital/tachometric survey of the land in question. Is it safe to presume that the land registry maps that were drawn up at the original sale of land would be the definitive source of resolution? If so, then I'd be quite confident that getting a surveyor to plot the boundaries from those maps would give me the desired result.

This survey can then be agreed between the parties as the definitive survey or it could be used by you as a basis for asserting your title/defending any slander on your title.

It would be useful to do this while your Dad is still alive as he may have to swear a statutory declaration stating which is the correct boundary.

BTW, I'm sorry to hear about your Dad and didn't mean to pry - it was a comment on a planning issue and you appear to have handled it correctly.
Its quite important to him that the matter be resolved while he is still alive. Don't be sorry at all, your help here has been brilliant and has stopped me from bulldozing in and building a wall! Thanks again.

ONQ.
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Is it safe to presume that the land registry maps that were drawn up at the original sale of land would be the definitive source of resolution? If so, then I'd be quite confident that getting a surveyor to plot the boundaries from those maps would give me the desired result.

No - the Land Registry maps are only accurate insofar as the accuracy of the maps submitted when registering the property. If the map submitted when the property was first registered was wrong, then the boundaries shown by the Land Registry will be wrong too. There are also issues with scaling, and map revisions by the Ordnance Survey. Because of these reasons, the Registration of Title Act specifically provides that the boundaries shown on the Land Registry map are not conclusive.

Having said that, it is strongly persuasive, and in the vast majority of cases there is no issue.
 
j26 thanks for that - I didn't know that about the act.

Having said that I think that if the trasfer of land was carred out on the basis of incorrect land registry maps the OP may have a tangled web to unweave, or - to use the Alexandrian solution - to chop through with a sword.
I understood that a Map forms part of a contract for sale and - in the absence of any dimensioned plan and/or description - it is the Map that defines what is being sold.
Given a sizable holding and a relatively minor but significant variation affecting one small piece of it, the affect of this on any certified area noted on the map may well be negligible.

As you seem to imply, normally these are never checked microscopically and just as well - 1:2500 OS Maps [on which Land Registry Maps are usually based] are supposed to be to an accuracy of + or - 2 M at the corners and I have found discrepancies of that order in the middle of one Map.

So I'd echo your advice and rely on the survey and affadavit to clarify matters

:)

FWIW

ONQ
 
Guys you've answered the question of where I stand perfectly. The maps that were submitted with the original sale of land should be good for me so. Originally, I stuck two posts in the ground to mark either end of the boundary line between the land that was sold and what is now my site. All surveys used these posts as the baseline and this line would have been used to define the bounds between us. So if I can get hold of those maps and the original survey things should be straightforward.

Thanks for the advice again lads, much appreciated.
 
baldyman27 said:
Guys you've answered the question of where I stand perfectly. The maps that were submitted with the original sale of land should be good for me so. Originally, I stuck two posts in the ground to mark either end of the boundary line between the land that was sold and what is now my site. All surveys used these posts as the baseline and this line would have been used to define the bounds between us. So if I can get hold of those maps and the original survey things should be straightforward.

Thanks for the advice again lads, much appreciated.
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Careful there - what you own is quite likely to be what is on the ground - not what is on the map.

Adverse Possession (i.e. squatting) kicks in after 12 years subject to certain caveats. Talk to your solicitor before you do anything. The reason is that it is possible that a misstatement by you at this point in time could prevent you from having legal title to land you would have but for that misstatement.
 
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