THE BOTHER OF BOUNDARIES
You may not be disposed to raise as a conveyancing preliminary enquiry ‘is the property haunted?’, although I would advocate it. Pedants might more usefully now throw in as a supplement to standard questions: ‘Has the seller or any predecessor in title been a party to an oral or written boundary demarcation agreement as referred to in White v Alder [2025] EWCA Civ 392 and, if so, provide full details?’ This is an agreement the purpose of which is to define a previously unclear or uncertain boundary, even if it includes the conscious or unconscious transfer of a trivial amount of land. It is to be distinguished from an agreement whose purpose is to move a boundary so as to transfer land from one neighbour to another and which would be subject to the necessary formalities for land transfer.
The Court of Appeal
