You get back from two weeks away and something’s off. The fence line looks straighter than it used to, or the patio next door seems to have crept a little closer to your shed than you remembered. It’s the kind of thing that’s easy to second-guess yourself about — did it always look like this? — right up until you find the old photos and realise it didn’t.
A confirmed encroachment onto your land, however it happened, is capable of amounting to trespass in law — though whether that’s actually what’s happened here depends on establishing the facts first, which is exactly what the rest of this article is about. This covers the position in England and Wales, where HM Land Registry and the processes described below apply directly; Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own separate land registration and legal systems. What you do next matters more than how quickly you react.
Resist the instinct to measure the plan with a ruler
The first move for most people is to pull up the Land Registry title plan and measure the gap between the red line and the new fence. Don’t rely on that measurement alone. As covered in our companion piece on locating a legal boundary, title plans operate under the general boundaries rule, and the red edging is explicitly not intended to be scaled precisely onto the ground. HM Land Registry’s guidance on property boundaries makes clear that there is no standard tolerance or measurement between the general boundary shown on a title plan and the precise legal boundary. It’s a reasonable starting point for understanding roughly where your property ends, not evidence you’d want to lead with if the position becomes contested.
That distinction matters because a fence can have moved without necessarily having crossed the legal boundary, just as a fence that has stood in the same place for decades may not mark the exact line established by the original deeds. If the disagreement concerns a narrow strip of garden, the documents that originally defined the land and the physical evidence of where the boundary stood are likely to be more useful than enlarging a modern title plan and measuring it. Establishing that something has changed is the beginning of the investigation, not necessarily proof that part of your property has been taken.
Build a real evidence file before you say anything
The strongest position comes from evidence gathered calmly, not from a heated conversation on the doorstep. Start with dated photographs of the boundary as it was, particularly anything showing the fence, wall or hedge before the suspected change. Old estate-agent listing photographs, house-move pictures, photographs taken during garden work or even a birthday party snapshot that happens to catch the fence in the background can be surprisingly useful. Historic aerial imagery and Street View history may help narrow down when something changed, while old invoices, photographs of former post holes or surviving paving lines may provide further clues. Keep the original images rather than altering them, and make a note of when and how the change first came to your attention.
The paperwork matters just as much. Your title register and plan are useful starting points, but the original conveyance or transfer document may carry considerably more weight in establishing the actual legal boundary. The principles considered in Alan Wibberley Building Ltd v Insley help explain why: the meaning of the original conveyancing documents, their plans and the physical features existing when the land was divided can all be important in determining what was conveyed. A fence that’s recently moved may be easy to identify from photographs, but proving that its former position corresponded with the legal boundary can require an examination of considerably older evidence.
Keep a dated record of conversations or messages with your neighbour too, including anything that explains why the position changed. A contractor replacing a fence along the wrong line is a different situation from a neighbour who believes the disputed strip has always belonged to them, and both are different again from someone deliberately extending their garden. None of those explanations should be accepted or dismissed without evidence, but it’s worth understanding which situation you’re dealing with before deciding how firmly to respond. Even measurements between permanent features can be useful for recording what physically exists, provided they’re not mistaken for proof of the legal line.
Raise it directly, then escalate only if you need to
Once you have something to work from, a calm, written approach to your neighbour is almost always the right first step — it’s cheaper, faster, and preserves a relationship you’ll likely need to maintain for years. Many situations turn out to be genuine mistakes rather than anything adversarial. Showing an old photograph and explaining that the new fence appears to follow a different line may be enough to establish what happened, particularly where a contractor has recently carried out the work. Follow up any significant conversation in writing so that neither party is left relying on a different recollection of what was said.
If that doesn’t resolve it, a chartered surveyor experienced in boundary disputes can investigate the evidence and prepare a measured plan showing where the existing features stand in relation to the boundary identified from the relevant deeds and historical material. That last distinction is important: a modern survey can establish the physical position of a fence with considerable precision, but it cannot determine a legal boundary simply by projecting the red line from a Land Registry plan onto the garden. Where the disagreement is substantial, the interpretation of the original documents may be more important than the accuracy of the modern measurement.
If both neighbours can agree where the boundary lies, the answer need not involve a tribunal or court. A written boundary agreement can record an accepted line, and in appropriate circumstances the agreement may be noted against the registered titles. HM Land Registry’s guidance on boundary agreements and determined boundaries explains the available procedures, including an important distinction between agreeing where an existing boundary lies and actually transferring land from one owner to another. Simply agreeing to leave a misplaced fence where it stands doesn’t necessarily settle every question of ownership, particularly if the arrangement effectively gives one neighbour land that legally belongs to the other.
Where greater certainty is needed, a determined-boundary application offers a more formal way of recording the exact line, but it isn’t a shortcut by which Land Registry examines the neighbours’ competing accounts and decides who wins. An applicant must identify the boundary claimed and provide suitable evidence and a sufficiently precise plan. Affected adjoining owners are notified, and an unresolved objection that isn’t groundless can lead to the matter being referred to the Land Registration division of the Property Chamber, First-tier Tribunal. A separate claim for trespass, or an application for an injunction requiring an encroachment to be removed, may instead involve the courts. The appropriate route depends on what is actually disputed and what remedy is needed, which is why specialist advice becomes increasingly valuable once the matter moves beyond an ordinary disagreement over a fence.
Each step up that ladder can become more expensive, so it’s worth genuinely attempting the earlier stages rather than treating a solicitor’s letter as the natural first move. There is one important exception: if a neighbour is actively building on the disputed strip, removing valuable features or carrying out work that will soon be difficult to reverse, waiting through weeks of informal correspondence may not be sensible. Early legal advice can be particularly important where an injunction or another urgent remedy might be needed to preserve the position while the ownership question is resolved.
Nor does a moved fence automatically give your neighbour ownership of the land behind it. HM Land Registry’s guidance on adverse possession of registered land explains that acquiring land through adverse possession requires more than simply occupying it for a period. Factual possession, the intention to possess and the absence of the registered owner’s consent are relevant, with a statutory application procedure and opportunities for the registered owner to object. Special provisions can apply to some mistaken boundary situations, so neither “they own it after ten years” nor “they can never acquire it” is a safe general rule. A recently moved fence doesn’t transfer ownership overnight, but a longstanding claim to part of your garden is worth investigating rather than assuming time can make no difference.
Whatever you do, don’t remove or move anything yourself
It’s tempting, once you’re confident the encroachment is real, to simply push the fence back to where it should be. This is one of the easiest ways a legitimate grievance can turn into an additional legal problem for the person who believes they’ve been wronged. If your understanding of the exact boundary turns out to be even slightly off — genuinely possible, given how approximate ordinary title plans are — you may find yourself interfering with your neighbour’s land instead. And if the fence belongs to them, damaging or removing their materials can create a separate claim on top of the original dispute.
That doesn’t mean a landowner can never lawfully take action against an encroachment on their property, but self-help is a particularly risky first response where the legal boundary is disputed. Photograph the position, preserve the evidence and establish what the original documents actually show before attempting to change anything physically. A neighbour who has made an innocent mistake may agree to correct it once the evidence is explained; one who insists the land belongs to them may require a more formal response. Neither situation is improved by dismantling a fence before the underlying question has been properly addressed.
If you’re planning to sell, this can’t just be left alone
An unresolved boundary issue doesn’t stay a private matter once a house sale is on the table. In England and Wales, the Law Society’s TA6 Property Information Form includes questions about boundaries and disputes with neighbours, and sellers need to answer the enquiries made during conveyancing accurately. The Law Society’s explanatory notes for the TA6 form address changes to property boundaries and the disclosure of past and current disputes or concerns involving neighbours. Not every sale uses identical paperwork, but the underlying problem remains: leaving out a known boundary disagreement because you regard it as unimportant, or because you believe it has already been settled, can create a misrepresentation issue if the information given to a buyer is misleading.
A buyer’s solicitor will also want to understand whether the physical extent of the garden matches the title being purchased, and an unresolved claim to part of the land can complicate the transaction. A mortgage lender may have concerns where there is genuine uncertainty about the security being offered, particularly if the disputed area is valuable or affects access, proposed development or the use of the property. That doesn’t mean every fence that’s a few centimetres out will prevent a sale, but a live ownership dispute is a very different proposition from a small, longstanding discrepancy that nobody contests.
Where the matter has been resolved, keep the documents that show how. Correspondence confirming an agreed position, a surveyor’s report or a properly documented boundary agreement can make the position easier to explain to a future buyer. A problem that has genuinely been settled can be presented differently from one where the neighbours remain in disagreement, but it shouldn’t be concealed simply because the fence has stopped moving or the argument has gone quiet.
None of this means every suspected encroachment needs a tribunal, or that the first conversation with your neighbour should take place through solicitors. It means that the earlier a change is properly recorded, the legal boundary investigated and any genuine disagreement addressed, the less likely the problem is to grow into something disproportionate. A fence moving twenty centimetres doesn’t automatically mean you’ve lost twenty centimetres of your property, but neither is the red line on a title plan enough to establish that nothing has happened.
The sensible approach is to work out what the land documents actually say, establish what has changed on the ground and deal with the difference before memories fade, evidence disappears or further work makes the position harder to reverse. Even where the answer is simply a written agreement between neighbours, getting it right early is generally much cheaper — in money and in goodwill — than leaving the same argument for a future buyer or a court to untangle.
Important: This article provides general property information, not legal, financial, surveying or other professional advice for individual circumstances. Boundary disputes and adverse-possession claims can depend on historic documents, possession, physical evidence and the particular facts. If significant property rights or money are at risk, construction is continuing on disputed land or you are considering an irreversible course of action, obtain appropriate professional advice before proceeding.
