Introduction
Our Boundary Search includes all of the available documents held by the Land Registry referred to in the preceding chapter.
Briefly, these documents are outlined below.
Title Register
The Title Register for each property is included. They often contain different information to each other, including significant differences in the property descriptions and the Deeds that have been copied into the Register.
The Register is divided into 3 sections:
A Section
This section of the Register describes the property, i.e. it contains its address (where it has one), describes it by reference to the Title Plan, states its tenure, and describes matters that benefit the land such as easements, covenants and party wall declarations. If the property is leasehold there will also be a brief description of the lease.
B Section
This is where the class of Title is described, i.e. whether the title is an absolute title, possessory or qualified. The name and address of the owner also appear here, together with any restrictions on their ownership, notices, purchase price and positive covenants.
C Section
The C section of the Register provides details of mortgages and charges, leases and other matters that encumber the Title, such as restrictive covenants.
The Title Register is certainly an important document to examine in any boundary dispute, as it contains a description, a précis from any important Deed clauses that may affect the property (and a note to say whether the document has been retained as a digital copy by the Land Registry). There will sometimes be a note that a Boundary Structure provision has been made in one of the Deeds.
Where there is considerable covenant, lease and other detail in the Register it is often placed into a schedule at the end of the relevant section for ease of reference.
Title Plan
The Title Plan for each property is included. The Title Plan is a large scale plan based on the Ordnance Survey. The general boundary lines are marked in red edging. In urban areas the plans are provided at a scale of 1:1250 and in rural areas at a scale of 1:2500.
The Title Plan often contains coloured markings, either as tints, edging or hatching. The purpose of the colour markings is to describe different areas of the property that are affected by rights such as rights of way, rights of access and rights of drainage, and to show covenants affecting the use of a limited part of the land.
T and H marks do not usually appear on the Title Plan, although the Title Register often refers to them. References to them seen in the Title Register are usually contained in a cited Deed extract and the reference is actually to a Deed Plan and not the Title Plan. Deed Plans are usually attached to a Deed.
Deeds and Plans
The digitally held Deeds and Deed Plans for each property are included with our search. These may include the Deeds from which the Title Register has been created, the purchase Deeds, Agreements, Licences, Deeds of Variation, Deed Plans, Abstracts, Mortgages, etc. The Deeds usually contain the most information for helping resolve Boundary Disputes. There are often many Deeds and they may be quite large, containing a wealth of information.
Not all Deeds are held digitally by the Land Registry, and we are unable to obtain copies of those that are not. You may, however, have them yourself, or they may be with your solicitor or mortgagee. As a general rule the Land Registry will have retained digital copies of the most helpful Deeds, and so they will form part of our Search.
Of particular benefit are the Deed Plans, i.e. Plans which have been drawn onto the Deeds. They will often contain T and H marks, which immediately resolve ownership and/or maintenance of the boundary. Not being affected by the General Boundary Rule, Deed Plans often contain measurements, angles and dimensions.
Lease and Lease Plan
Where one property is leasehold it is likely that both are, and usually each Lease will be identical save for the address. Where the properties are leasehold we provide one of these leases, usually the lease for your own property.
The Lease will contain enormous detail and will define the boundary positions quite accurately. The Lease will often have a Lease Plan attached, which again will show the property boundaries in more detail than the Title plan.
Common Law Boundary Presumptions
Where the above documents are silent on boundary positions and you are unable to obtain any indication of boundary positions it may be necessary to rely on Common Law presumptions. These will apply unless there is evidence to the contrary, and such evidence, if there is any, will usually appear in the above documents. So if you are having to rely on these presumptions it is unlikely that there will be any evidence to the contrary. They are listed and described in the following chapter.