Property, Boundary and Rights of Way Disputes
Provided it is lawful and within planning laws, no one can prevent a home-owner or land-owner doing what they want on their property. Equally, a person who is not the landowner has no rights over another's property.
If another person comes onto your land, or leaves goods or rubbish on your land, without your permission (these are all forms of trespass) you can apply to the Court for an injunction requiring them to get off and stay off your land or to remove the goods or rubbish from your land.
If the Court agrees that they have no rights over your land, the court will make the order you are asking for, and that third party will also be ordered to pay the majority of the costs of the Court proceedings you have had to take against them.
Boundary disputes
A common property dispute is a dispute as to the exact position of a boundary between two properties. If a party cannot agree the position of the boundary with an adjoining land owner it is sensible for the parties to jointly instruct a surveyor to try to determine the correct boundary position.
If the parties still do not agree on where the boundary should be, one or other of them can apply to the Court for a declaration as to the correct position of the boundary line.
At the ensuing hearing in that court case, the Judge will hear all the evidence and will decide where the boundary line should go.
Boundary disputes regularly find their way into the press because they tend to get out of control which results in huge costs and significant animosity between the parties.
For this reason it is very important to tackle a boundary dispute in a sensible and pragmatic way as soon as the dispute becomes apparent, and before it festers and balloons.
Rights of Way
Sometimes people might have rights to pass over your land - these rights are called rights of way.
Usually these rights will be made clear to you when you buy the property as they will show up on the deeds or in the searches you make at that time.
Sometimes however things are not that clear, as these rights of way can also arise from what is called "prescription”. Briefly, if someone uses your land without your permission but without you objecting for 20 years, the law gives them a right to continue with that use forever.
If someone is claiming a prescriptive right over your land or if you wish to claim a prescriptive right over another's land, you can apply to the Court for a declaration that your use over the previous 20 years has been enough for the use to continue forever and for it to be protected by law.
We are well-versed in acting for people who are claiming such rights, and for people against whose land these rights are being claimed.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have a property dispute. As we say, we are always there for businesses who are in our BLUE LAW scheme, so we invite you to join BLUE LAW now. Once you have joined, we try to answer any legal enquiries that you have, free of charge. If legal work is needed, we give you a price, and you are then free to "shop around". If you wish to speak to us now, please click on "Please Contact Me Now” or call us on 0800 084 3256. We look forward to always being there for you.
