Where the record of a property's title at the Land Registry contains a mistake, Paragraph 5(a) of Schedule 4 of the Land Registration Act 2002 allows the register to be altered to correct it. The First-tier Tribunal (FTT) recently granted a homeowner's application to alter the register to remove a parcel of land from the title of a neighbouring landowner and add it to the title of her own property.

The homeowner and her husband had bought the property in 1983, with the vendors retaining the neighbouring land. She contended that a driveway leading to the back of her house was part of the land conveyed to her and her husband, and that there was a mistake on the register as the title plans did not reflect this. The current owner of the neighbouring land disputed her claim.

The neighbouring landowner maintained that a plan attached to the 1983 conveyance related to water rather than conveyancing. However, the FTT noted that although there were lines on the plan labelling an existing and a proposed sewer, that did not mean it was not the conveyance plan. The FTT was satisfied that the conveyance created the boundary between the two titles and that the attached plan was the conveyance plan.

The homeowner argued that the boundary followed the line of a fence she and her husband had put in after purchasing the property. In the FTT's view, it made sense that a fence would have been erected to mark the boundary between the property and the land retained by the original vendors. The FTT also observed that it would not make sense for the title to the property to include the entrance to the driveway but not the part of the disputed land behind the house. As the title plans currently were, the neighbouring landowner would have to cross part of the homeowner's property to access the area behind the house from the road. Moreover, there was no obvious demarcation as to where on the driveway the property's title ended.

The neighbouring landowner claimed that the fence had not been there when she had viewed the land before purchasing it. The homeowner acknowledged that the fence had been replaced and said that the previous fence may have been hidden by vegetation, an explanation that the FTT accepted as plausible. The FTT was satisfied that the fence marked the boundary and that there was a mistake on the register.

The FTT considered that, if the neighbouring landowner's title was to be altered, it would not be to take away land that properly fell within her title but to better record the boundary. It was therefore a case of alteration rather than rectification. The FTT directed the Chief Land Registrar to give effect to the homeowner's application.