[2025] UKUT 190 (LC)

Boundaries depicted on title plans by HM Land Registry are general boundaries only; they do not show precisely where a boundary is. Section 60 of the Land Registration Act 2002 provides:

“(1)

The boundary of a registered estate as shown for the purposes of the register is a general boundary, unless shown as determined under this section.

(2)

A general boundary does not determine the exact line of the boundary.

(3)

Rules may make provision enabling or requiring the exact line of the boundary of a registered estate to be determined …

(4)

Rules under this section must provide for applications for determination to be made to the registrar.”

The relevant provision is made by the Land Registration Rules 2000. Applications for a determination tend to be made in order to resolve a quarrel; if a neighbour objects to the line proposed by the applicant and the registrar takes the view that the objection is not groundless then the matter must be referred to the First-tier Tribunal pursuant to section 73(7). It is well-established that if the location of the boundary is in dispute the FTT can decide where it lies, and will then make a direction to the registrar setting out what is to happen to the application. Rule 40 of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Property Chamber) Rules 2014 provides:

“8(1) The Tribunal must send written notice to the registrar of any direction which requires the registrar to take action.

(2)

Where the Tribunal has made a decision, that decision may include a direction to the registrar to—

(a)

give effect to the original application in whole or in part as if the objection to that original application had not been made; or

(b)

cancel the original application in whole or in part.

(3)

A direction to the registrar under paragraph (2) must be in writing, must be sent or delivered to the registrar and may include—

(a)

a condition that a specified entry be made on the register of any title affected…”

If the location of the boundary is in dispute the FTT will examine the title and decide where it lies. The FTT may decide that the precise boundary proposed by the applicant is entirely correct and direct the registrar to respond to the application as if the objection had not been made. If the FTT decides that the boundary proposed is partly right and partly incorrect it may give the same direction, subject to the condition that the registrar record that part of the boundary follows a line different from that proposed by the applicant; and where the boundary proposed is found to be entirely wrong the FTT can direct the registrar to reject the application, with or without a direction that the registrar record the exact line of the boundary in the position determined by the FTT.

There will be occasions where it is impossible to determine the boundary with the precision envisaged by section 60 of the 2002 Act; Farrow v Boag [2023] UKUT 167 (LC) was such a case, but they will be rare. On occasions where precise determination is impossible it may nevertheless be possible and useful for the FTT to find that the general boundary depicted on the register is incorrect and to decide where the general boundary should run, and a direction can be given to the registrar to record that decision (see Derbyshire County Council v Fallon [2007] EWHC 1326 Ch, a decision about alteration of the register but of obvious relevance to disputes about a determined boundary). In the present case, however, the dispute is binary (which side of Area A does the boundary run?); the judge found, and I agree, that despite the imprecision of the plans in the deeds there is sufficient evidence to resolve the dispute, and the DB plan is sufficiently precise for that binary decision to be expressed as a line sufficiently exact for a determination under section 60.

The resolution of a boundary dispute will usually turn on the construction either of pre-registration deeds or of a transfer of registered land; either way the focus will be on the deed that created the boundary. The authorities were summarised by Mummery LJ in Pennock v Hodgson [2010] EWCA Civ 873, who referred to Alan Wibberley Building Limited v Insley [1991] 1 WLR 894 and to the problems that arise when the plan to a conveyance is said to be “for the purposes of identification only”, as in the present case. Mummery LJ said at paragraph 12:

“Looking at evidence of the actual and known physical condition of the relevant land at the date of the conveyance and having the attached plan in your hand on the spot when you do this are permitted as an exercise in construing the conveyance against the background of its surrounding circumstances. They include knowledge of the objective facts reasonably available to the parties at the relevant date. Although, in a sense, that approach takes the court outside the terms of the conveyance, it is part and parcel of the process of contextual construction.

In Chadwick v Abbotswood Properties Ltd [2004] EWHC 1058 (Ch) Lewison J (as he then was) put it this way:

“43.

Where the definition of the parcels in a conveyance or transfer is not clear, then the court must have recourse to extrinsic evidence, and in particular to the physical features on the ground. …

44.

The question is one to be answered objectively: what would the reasonable layman think he was buying?”

The judge in the FTT referred to and sought to follow those authorities, but there is dispute as to whether his application of the principles was correct.