Title Plans

Jon Maynard Boundaries Ltd, Boundary Demarcation and Disputes, Rights of Way, Expert Witness, Chartered Land Surveyor

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Land Registry's Title Plans

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Title Plans show only general boundaries
What does a title plan show?
Understanding the title plan
What the title plan does NOT show
General Boundaries at Road Frontages
  FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
Boundary definitions: Can I use the title plan to measure to my boundary from the side of my house?

Title Plans show only general boundaries

A Title Plan is a map produced by Land Registry to record the general position of the boundaries of a registered title. Each title plan is in fact an Ordnance Survey map onto which Land Registry has added some information.

It is of the utmost importance to understand that Title Plans do not show the exact (or the precise) position of the boundaries of the land in the title. In an effort to explain this, Land Registry and Ordnance Survey have issued a joint statement that may be viewed at http://www1.landregistry.gov.uk/about_us/ordsurvey/.

The same joint statement may also be viewed at http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/site/contact/boundaries.html, where Ordnance Survey also provides answers to the following frequently asked questions:

  • 1. Can an Ordnance Survey map tell me where my legal boundary is?
  • 2. Does a Land Registry plan show my exact legal boundary?
  • 3. Can I measure my legal boundary precisely from the map?
  • 4. What feature does the line on the map represent?
  • 5. There is a fence and a wall next to each other and only one line is shown on the map, why is this?
  • 6. The mapping in my title deeds is incorrect, what do I do?
  • 7. Ordnance Survey’s mapping of my property is incorrect, can I arrange for a surveyor to come out and amend the mapping?
  • 8. My property/land is unregistered, what do I do?
  • 9. I feel that a feature is incorrectly shown on your mapping; can you tell me why it is represented this way?
  • 10. I require an Expert Witness to comment on the mapping, does Ordnance Survey offer this service?
  • 11. What does the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) do?

 

What does a title plan show?

Two (fictitious) examples of title plans, showing how they relate to their corresponding title registers, are given in Land Registry Practice Guide 40: Land Registry Plans, which can be downloaded from Land Registry's web site http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/. Alternatively, you may view it at http://www1.landregistry.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/lrpg040.pdf and scroll down to pages 22 to 25. If you scroll on down to page 38 you will find a diagram explaining the scheme of colours that Land Registry employs in compiling a title plan.

 

Understanding the title plan

1.  Land Registry is NOT responsible for deciding where to place the boundaries that divide individual parcels of land. That responsibility falls to the owner who divided the land into the present parcels.

2.  The description of the boundary given in the title deeds produced by or for the vendor is usually sadly wanting: see Boundary Definitions of Registered and Unregistered Land, and Conveyance Deeds and Plans. It is the poor standards of boundary descriptions in conveyances that forced Land Registry to adopt the principle of recording only the "general boundary" as early as 1875. See the article 100 years of OS/LR Co-operation.

3.  It is Land Registry's duty to examine the title deeds submitted to them at first registration of the property and to interpret onto the Ordnance Survey map the general position of the boundary. Remember, the Land Registration Act, 2002 tells us that:

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.

4.  The red line shown on the title plan is not the 'general boundary' but is edging placed along the inside of a black line on the Ordnance Survey map, and it is this black line that carries the 'general boundary'.

5.  The Ordnance Survey map is a map of the physical features of the landscape and is a map that was made without enquiry as to the positions of property boundaries. So the line used as the general boundary is a physical feature and the exact relationship between the boundary and the physical feature is unknown.

6.  The Ordnance Survey map is known to contain small errors. There are also issues relating to selection and generalisation of the features, and these factors have an effect upon the relative accuracy of the map (see Using Ordnance Survey maps, where you will also find an Example of confusion arising from map generalisation).

7.  The title plan identifies the land in the registered title and it gives only a general indication of the position of the boundaries of that land. In rare cases (and this will be noted on the register) either a boundary agreeement or a determined boundary will affect the registered title, and it is only via such a boundary agreement or determined boundary that Land Registry is able to tell us the exact position of the boundary.

Title plan for a modern detached house. Note that the red edging is placed to the inside of the black general boundary lines to which it draws attention. Thus the general boundary runs:
(north side) along the back of the roadside footpath;
(west) across unmarked open plan front garden, along garage party wall, along fence;
(south) along the southern of two parallel features; (east) along a fence, along the flank of the house, across open plan front garden.		 Part of the title plan for the developer's land from which the land sold off as new houses (including the house at left) has been excluded.

Each excluded land parcel is indicated by green edging, and its title number (blurred in the above example) is also shown in green. To avoid a clash of red and green edging, the green edging is sometimes shown to the outside of the general boundary to which it draws attention.

 

What the title plan does NOT show

The title plan does NOT show the exact position of the legal boundary nor its relationship to the physical features adopted as the general boundary. Official copies of title plans carry the following warning:

"This title plan shows the general position of the boundaries: it does not show the exact line of the boundaries. Measurements scaled from this plan may not match measurements between the same points on the ground.".

The title plan does NOT show the dimensions: in exceptional a dimension will be reproduced on a title plan, such as the one in the example on page 22 of Land Registry's Practice Guide 40, which may be viewed at http://www1.landregistry.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/lrpg040.pdf

The title plan does NOT normally show T-marks: I have only ever once seen T-marks on a title plan. Whilst it is not a common practice, I have seen many more examples of title registers that quote a portion of a conveyance deed that refers to T-marks shown on the conveyance plan: there is then a note following the register entry that follows a format such as:

"NOTE: T-marks affect the eastern and southern boundaries of the land in this title".

Other examples of notes following register entries may be found on page 25 of Land Registry's Practice Guide 40, which may be viewed at http://www1.landregistry.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/lrpg040.pdf

 

  FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION  
    
Boundary definitions: Can I use the title plan to measure to my boundary from the side of my house? When I do so I find that the fence is nearer to my house than the title plan says it should be. Am I right in thinking that my neighbour must move the fence?

This is, sadly, a common error.

Firstly, Land Registry is not responsible for specifying where the boundary should be: that is the responsibility of the owner who divided the land into its present parcels. It is Land Registry's duty to show only the general position of the boundary.

Secondly, the Ordnance Survey map on which the title plan is based is not a perfect representation of the real world (see Using Ordnance Survey maps): scaling distances from it produces misleading results and cannot, legally, identify the boundary’s position.

The example of the fictitious Acacia Road, illustrated in the drawing at right, demonstrates that distances scaled from a title plan cannot be relied upon.

The owners of 10 Acacia Road scaled from the title plan a distance of 14 ft feet between the side of their house and the boundary. Outside, they measured with a tape a distance of only 13 feet. Armed with this information they accosted the owner of No 8, telling him that his fence was in the wrong position and that he must re-erect it in accordance with the position of the boundary as shown on the map.

Their logic - that "the plan shows the boundary in this position, and the fence is in another position, so the fence is in the wrong place" - can be shown to be false logic if we examine the other flank boundary to No. 10, the one that runs along the party wall that is shared with No. 12, another semi-detached house that is identical to No. 10, but the map shows that No. 12 is 2 ft wider than No. 10. By the same logic that the owner of No. 10 has used to demand the relocation of No. 8's fence, the owner of No. 10 should be offering to relocate the party wall with No. 12 and to give up 1 ft of the space inside his house so that No. 12 can be made up to its "true" width according to the plan. Clearly, the owner of No. 12 would not agree to relocating the party wall. [In case you think that this example is far-fetched, take a very close look at the representation of semi-detached and terraced houses on any Ordnance Survey large scale map.]

For another example of a misunderstanding of a title plan, or rather of the Ordnance Survey map on which the title plan is based, see Example of confusion arising from map generalisation on the Using Ordnance Survey maps page.

 

General Boundaries at Road Frontages

The depiction of road frontage boundaries appears to be a particular problem for Land Registry. With public highways, the surface of the land is vested in the Highway Authority (which is usually the County Council) whilst the adjoining land's boundary might be in the centre of the road. Land Registry is unable to show that boundary in the centre of the road because of other interests that may exist in the surface of the road. So far so good. But Land Registry automatically assumes that the highway extends to include all footpaths and verges lying alongside the carriagerway of the highway. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.


In the photo above, the highway authority and the adjoining landowner agree that the boundary between the road (public highway) and the adjoining unregistered land is located at the junction between the footpath and the grass verge. It will be interesting to see where Land Registry places the general boundary when an application for first registration is made. Land Registry's past form suggests that they will place the general boundary on the brick wall.

In the example below, the deed plan (left)shows that the building plot numbered '2' extends to the edge of the carriageway. In spite of this, Land Registry has excluded the verge, even though the verge was created at the time the house was built. Land Registry is resisting amending the title plan even though the registered proprietor has received written notice from the Highway Authority that it is not responsible for the verge.

Deed plan for 'Plot 2'
Title plan for the land that was 'Plot 2'

With private roads also, the title plans appear to confuse. Figures 5 and 6 in the Digital Boundaries in Eng & Wales article (see also below) show a private road that runs along the western and northern sides of the land to which the two illustrations relate. The property boundary is clearly located in the centre of the road but the title plan shows the general boundary along the fence line. In practice the private road comprises a narrow carriageway between broad grass verges, and the local residents have formed a road fund committee charged with keeping the carriageway in good repair. Land Registry would have been unaware of the existence of the road fund committee, and that committee in any case holds no legal interest in the private road. So there would seem to be little justification for Land Registry to show the general boundaries at the edge of the private road rather than in its centre.

Photocopy of HMLR filed plan for a property

Extract from a conveyance to the same property

In the example below, there is clearly a line on the Ordnance Survey map that better reflects the position of the boundary than the line chosen by Land Registry to represent the general boundary. This is again a private road and the circumstances make it clear that the carriageway of the private road is in separate ownership from the verges on either side.

Conveyance plan: note that the northern boundary of the property encloses the verge on the south side of the road

Land Registry title plan of the same property: note that the southern verge of the road is shown outside of the general boundary.

 

Hopefully this page has convinced the reader that Land Registry title plans do not show the exact line of the boundary. The reader should also be aware that Land Registry is NOT responsible for defining property boundaries.

 

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