A couple have lost a four-year boundary battle over a 48cm “sliver” of land after trying to force their neighbours to demolish a kitchen wall that had been there for 22 years.
Susannah and Chris James bought a £600,000 semi-detached house in Surbiton, south-west London, in 2021. In 2022, the couple began a legal dispute with their neighbours, claiming their kitchen extension had been built 48cm over the boundary between the two properties.
Mina Sharma and Neil Deeley, bought their house, which neighbours the James’ home, in 2012.
The James’s, who run an insurance tax business, asked the property arm of the First-tier Tribunal for a declaration that part of the kitchen of their neighbours’ house was “trespassing”.
The couple sought an order that the kitchen wall be demolished and “removed”.
The judge found for Sharma and Deeley, allowing their claim for adverse possession – sometimes known as squatters’ rights – over the 48cm strip of their neighbours’ land.
He said the kitchen extension was built in the early 1980s, well before the current owners bought the house and that neither they nor the previous owners had any idea that it strayed over the boundary when they bought the property.
The judge found Sharma and Deeley were in possession of the strip of land and had held a “reasonable belief” that it was theirs, as did the previous owners.
Judge Ewan Paton said: “The Ordnance Survey and Land Registry index map will not actually be dead straight lines. Almost every property will have some kinks, curves, ‘steps’ or similar features along its boundaries.
“Even if they come across such a step or a kink, I consider that they are nevertheless entitled initially to assume that ‘what they see is what they get’ – they are buying a house whose boundaries are ‘as seen’ on the ground.
He said this case should “serve as an example of the importance of long established physical boundaries in resolving boundary disputes”, remarking that the extension had likely been in its current location for well over 22 years before any issue was raised.
“It was entirely reasonable for successive owners of that property to assume and believe that they owned everything within its walls,” he added.
The trial heard that the disputed boundary in Cottage Grove, Surbiton, lies between two semi-detached houses that once formed a single Victorian property.
While the boundary between the two kitchens is in line with the garden fences of the properties, a comparison with the dividing line of the two roofs of the houses shows that the kitchen of the neighbours’ house is “stepped” across the boundary by 48cm.
The judge was told that nobody had noticed this was the case for 40 years due to thick vegetation at the back of the houses masking the border.
Susannah James began sending lawyers’ letters in 2022. Rather than dispute the boundary line itself, their neighbours instead chose to assert that the land was theirs now via adverse possession.
In his ruling, the judge found the evidence was “overwhelming” that the kitchen extension had been in the same location since, at the latest, just before 2000.
The judge said “the construction and enjoyment of part of a house on neighbouring land is possibly the plainest example of factual possession with intention to possess”.
He added: “To the extent, therefore, that any parts of number 26’s kitchen encroach across the boundary line assumed for the purposes of this application, there can be no doubt that the successive owners of that property have been in adverse possession of such additional land since at least 30th October 2000. I likewise have little hesitation in finding that such a belief was entirely reasonable.
He remarked that “all of the hundreds of apparent ‘straight line’ boundaries shown in this vicinity in Surbiton on the Ordnance Survey and Land Registry index map will not actually be dead straight lines”. He added: “Almost every property will have some kinks, curves, ‘steps’ or similar features along its boundaries.”
In her evidence, Susannah James had told the judge she did not notice that the kitchen extension was over the line when she bought the house and did not think she was acquiring a slice of her neighbour’s kitchen. “She was then perfectly content with what she did think she had bought,” the judge said.
“She too referred to the fact that view from the rear was ‘obscured by vegetation’, so that any difference between the extensions’ boundary and the roof line was not obvious.”
