Counting the Cost of a Boundary Dispute
Few disagreements turn neighbours into adversaries as quickly as an argument about where one property ends and the next begins.
The strip of land at the heart of such a dispute is often small, sometimes only a few feet wide, yet the feelings it generates, and the costs it can run up, are anything but small. The recent case of Cunningham v Holehouse [2026] UKFTT 00771 (PC) illustrates the point with unusual clarity. It deserves to be read by anyone tempted to take a boundary disagreement to a formal determination, because it shows how a confident and apparently well documented case can still fail, and how much that failure can cost.
A dispute over a strip of land
The case concerned a narrow strip of land at the rear of a property near Colne in Lancashire. The owners of the neighbouring property, Mr and Mrs Cunningham, applied to HM Land Registry to fix the exact line of the boundary between their land and the strip, which belonged to Mr and Mrs Holehouse. When the Land Registry referred the matter to the Tribunal, the dispute proceeded to a two-day hearing in March 2026, with each side having instructed its own expert surveyor. Both couples represented themselves.
The Cunninghams believed their case was strong. A conveyance from 1987, later corrected by a deed of rectification in 2000, described the strip as fifteen feet wide and recorded that measurement on the plan. They had obtained a surveyor's plan placing the boundary accordingly. On the face of it, a fixed measurement in a deed sounds like the kind of hard evidence that ought to settle an argument. The Tribunal decided otherwise.
Your title plan does not show your exact boundary
Before turning to why the application failed, it helps to understand a feature of the system that surprises many property owners. The red line on a Land Registry title plan does not show the exact legal boundary. Under section 60 of the Land Registration Act 2002, it shows only a general boundary. The line indicates roughly where the boundary lies, not its precise position to the centimetre.
For the overwhelming majority of homeowners, this never matters. The general boundary is perfectly adequate, and the exact line never needs to be settled. It is only when neighbours fall into dispute, or when someone insists on absolute certainty, that the question becomes live. An owner who wants the exact line fixed can apply for a determined boundary under rule 118 of the Land Registration Rules 2003. That is what the Cunninghams did. As their case shows, such an application is neither simple nor sure to succeed.
Why the application failed
The Tribunal's task was not to choose between the two surveyors. It was to decide what the 1987 conveyance meant. The starting point in any boundary dispute of this kind is the deed that first divided the land, construed objectively in the light of the circumstances known to the parties at the time. The leading authorities, Pennock v Hodgson and Ali v Lane, establish that the physical features on the ground when the deed was made, and the way the parties behaved afterwards, can both be taken into account. The ultimate question, as the courts have put it, is what a reasonable buyer would have understood themselves to be acquiring.
Applying that approach, the judge reached three conclusions that were fatal to the application. First, the fifteen feet recorded on the plan was indicative only, not an exact measurement. The plan was expressed to be for the purpose of identification only, it was a rough sketch, and there was nothing to show from where the fifteen feet was meant to be measured. Because the Cunninghams' entire case depended on the measurement being precise, this finding alone was enough to defeat it. Second, a shed and a carport stood on the strip when the deed was made, and a reasonable person would have understood the boundary to leave those structures within the strip, rather than running a line through the middle of the shed, which is what the Cunninghams' own plans in fact showed. Third, a fence erected shortly after the sale, in compliance with a fencing obligation in the deed, was the best evidence of where the parties had intended the boundary to be.
The result was that the application was refused. The Chief Land Registrar was directed to cancel it, and the title plan remains a general boundary, exactly as before. After more than two years and two competing expert reports, the boundary ended up precisely where it had been at the start.
The downsides, in plain terms
The time involved
The Cunninghams made their original application in November 2023. The Tribunal's decision was issued in May 2026. That is around two and a half years, and the underlying disagreement will have been simmering for longer still. A contested boundary dispute is not resolved in a matter of weeks. It becomes a feature of your life, and of your relationship with the people next door, for a very long time.
The cost, and the rule that catches the loser
Here is the point that anyone considering this route most needs to understand. In many types of proceedings, the position on costs is more forgiving, and in some tribunals each side simply bears its own. Land registration cases are different. The usual rule is that the unsuccessful party pays the costs of the successful party. In this case the Tribunal's preliminary view was that the Cunninghams, having lost, should pay the Holehouses' costs, to be assessed if the parties could not agree them.
That means the losing side faced not only its own outlay, including the fee for its own expert surveyor, but also a liability for the other side's recoverable costs. It is worth adding that both couples represented themselves. Even so, costs are recoverable by parties who act in person, at a fixed hourly rate set by the Tribunal. Had either side instructed solicitors and counsel throughout, as many people in a contested boundary dispute do, the figures would have been very considerably higher.
A warning about costs In land registration disputes, the usual rule is that the party who loses pays the costs of the party who wins. Before making a determined boundary application, obtain a clear and honest assessment of both the strength of your case and the costs you would face if it failed. A confident case is not the same as a winning one. |
Certainty is something of an illusion
People often pursue a determined boundary in the belief that a tribunal will hand them the clean, final answer that has eluded them across the garden fence. The reality is messier. The two expert surveyors in this case disagreed with one another, and the Cunninghams' own expert revised his opinion as the case developed. The outcome turned on a point of legal construction, namely what a deed from 1987 actually meant, rather than on the precision of anyone's measuring equipment. A party may enter such a dispute convinced that the documents are on their side, and leave it having lost on an argument they never anticipated.
Winning may not end the matter
Even the successful party did not walk away with everything tidied up. The Tribunal noted that fencing the Cunninghams had erected in recent years encroached on the Holehouses' land, even on the Cunninghams' own case, and that the neighbours remained at odds over a hedge. A determination fixes one question. It does not necessarily dissolve the wider friction, and it may expose further problems that then demand their own resolution.
The land in dispute was a strip a few feet wide. The cost, in time, money, and goodwill, was out of all proportion to it.
There is usually a better way
None of this means that boundaries can never be clarified. It means that a contested application to the Tribunal should be close to the last resort, rather than the first. Where neighbours can still talk to one another, a boundary agreement is a far less destructive route. This is a written agreement between the two owners, recording where they accept the boundary to lie, which can then be noted at the Land Registry. It is quicker, it is cheaper, and it does not require anyone to win or lose. Mediation, whether informal or through a professional mediator, can also resolve matters that feel intractable when they are conducted through solicitors' letters.
It is telling that the Tribunal itself, having heard all the evidence, encouraged the parties to deal with the remaining issues by agreement, in what it described as a neighbourly and pragmatic manner. The very body with the power to impose an answer was still urging the neighbours to find their own.
If you are facing a boundary dispute
Practical steps before you escalate
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In closing
A boundary dispute can feel like a matter of principle, and to the people living with it, a few feet of ground can come to represent something far larger. Cunningham v Holehouse is a reminder that principle is expensive, that the law of boundaries is more subtle than a single measurement on an old plan, and that the surest way to lose a great deal over a very little is to fight about it before a tribunal. Before you take that step, take advice, count the cost, and ask honestly whether the line on the ground is worth the line you would be drawing through both your finances and your relationship with the people next door.
This article is intended as general guidance and does not constitute legal advice. If you are in dispute with a neighbour over a boundary, or wish to clarify the extent of your property, please seek advice from a conveyancer or solicitor experienced in boundary matters before taking any formal step.
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