Three different disputes people run together
The boundary. Where your property ends and the neighbouring one begins. The answer lies in the cadastre and the documents, not in the fence and not in what the fathers remembered.
Access. A property that cannot be reached without crossing someone else’s. That is not a dispute about ownership but about a right of way.
A burden on your property. A pipe, a cable, a pole or someone else’s track running across your land. Sometimes lawful and registered, sometimes not.
The route to resolving each of the three is different. So the first job is to work out which one is yours.
The fence proves nothing
This is the most common disappointment. A fence that has stood for forty years does not create ownership simply because it has stood a long time.
What gets checked is what the cadastral map says, what the title documents say, whether the two agree, and whether there is an error in the cadastre itself. Errors happen, and they are corrected through their own procedure.
Sometimes the dispute turns out to be with the map rather than with the neighbour.
A property with no access
The situation looks hopeless and is not. A right of way exists precisely so that a plot is not rendered useless merely because it is surrounded by other people’s land.
It is created by agreement, and where there is no agreement, through the court, against compensation payable to the neighbour. The conversation is tried first, because it is faster and cheaper.
Before you build a fence or a gate
Call before, not after. A fence built in the wrong place is removed at your expense, and turns one conversation into litigation.
If you bought recently
Check that the property you bought is the one you saw. A difference between the area on the documents and the area on the ground is a classic problem, especially with older village properties.
What I will need
The title document, a current cadastral extract, photographs of the site, and any older documents about your property or the neighbouring one. If letters have already been exchanged with the neighbour, bring those too.
This page provides general information and does not constitute legal advice on any specific case. Rights and deadlines depend on the facts and the applicable law.