High hedges Part 8 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 gives local authorities powers to deal with complaints by neighbours in relation to high hedges. A complaint may be made by the owner or occupier of a domestic property on the grounds that his or her reasonable...

Expert evidence in boundary disputes Childs v Vernon [2007] EWCA Civ 305 There is no new law in the case. However, there is a passage in the judgment that may assist solicitors when drafting a direction relating to a single joint expert or indeed drafting instructions...

The owner of land can sometimes lose ownership to a trespasser by "adverse possession". The law is complicated: Where the land is unregistered or where the land is registered but the trespasser notched up 12 years adverse possession before 13 October 2003, when the...

Introduction If parties to a boundary dispute enter into a compromise the agreement settling the dispute will not be binding if it falls foul of the provisions of s2 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989, which sets out the legal requirements in...

Introduction On this page we are considering the following question: "Who owns the disputed land according to 'the deeds'?". That person is commonly known as the -paper owner-. A number of factors will be looked at but as will be seen the key point is to find the...

This page is concerned with the hedge to ditch presumption and the hedge to hedge presumption. Hedge and ditch presumption Introduction The presumption is contained in this classic statement:"The rule about ditching is this. No man, making a ditch, can cut into his...

Who owns the boundary feature? What do T marks mean? Seeckts v Derwent [2004] EWCA Civ 393 This was a dispute as to position of a boundary turning upon construction of a conveyance that used T-marks on the plan. There was some conflict between those T marks and...

Foreshore Prescriptive right Lynn Shellfish Ltd v Loose [2016] UKSC 14 Summary The Supreme Court ruled on the extent of an exclusive prescriptive right to take cockles and mussels from a stretch of the foreshore. Facts The proprietor of land adjoining the foreshore...