Land Registry plans record the general position of property boundaries. This means that lines drawn on title plans are not definitive. However, it is possible to apply to have a boundary shown on the register as a “determined boundary”: see section 60(3) Land Registration Act 2002 and rules 118 and 119 of the Land Registration Rules 2003.
The legislation was not designed as a means of resolving boundary disputes, but to allow proprietors to designate boundaries as having been determined if they can show their exact location. What then is the role of the Property Chamber of the First Tier Tribunal when dealing with a contested application to designate a boundary a “determined boundary”?
The Tribunal may have heard all the evidence necessary to make a decision as to the exact location of the boundary. However, Murdoch v Amesbury [2016] UKUT 3 (TCC); [2016] PLSCS 14 suggests that the tribunal does not have any jurisdiction to do so, because the Land Registration Rules do not make any provision for adjoining landowners to lodge rival plans, or for the tribunal to ascertain that the boundary lies in a position different to that shown on the application plan. Consequently, if there is an argument about the position of a boundary line, the parties must use alternative dispute resolution, or take their boundary dispute to court, and then make a determined boundary application based on the parties’ agreement or the findings of the court.
The Law Commission responded to this in its consultation paper Updating the Land Registration Act 2002 by recommending that the tribunal should be given express statutory jurisdiction to determine where a boundary lies. It believes that this will reduce lengthy litigation between neighbours and costs to both the parties and the court service, putting paid to multiple applications regarding the same boundaries. Many will agree that this would be a sensible expansion of the tribunal’s jurisdiction. However, it will take time for any legislation emanating from the Law Commission’s proposals to reach the statute book.
Meanwhile, Bean v Katz [2016] UKUT 168 (TCC); [2016] PLSCS 205 suggests that the tribunal’s jurisdiction may not be as narrow as Murdoch suggests. In Bean, Judge Elizabeth Cooke decided that the First Tier Tribunal does have jurisdiction to dispose of determined boundary references where the objection is not to the quality of the plan (as was the case in Murdoch), but to what the plan says about the boundary and where, therefore, it is necessary to look at the titles to the properties concerned.
The judge ruled that, if that were not the case, the First Tier Tribunal would be unable to apply the Land Registration Rules, which require a determined boundary application to be assessed not only on the accuracy of the application plan, but also on whether the line shown on the plan demarcates the boundary. In cases where this latter point is in issue, the First Tier Tribunal will have to examine the evidence and make findings about the position of the boundary in order to reach its decision – in which case, forcing the parties to make further applications to resolve the problem would be a waste of resources.
Allyson Colby is a property law consultant
