I bought a four-bed semidetached house in 1998. The garden is approximately 25m x 10m with a block wall at the end of the garden. The wall was built to comply with a planning condition to protect the existing native hedgerow on the other side. The wall was constructed a metre from the hedgerow. The local GAA pitch is on the other side of the wall.
The day I moved into the house, I saw a JCB on the GAA grounds removing the hedge; I was shocked. At the time I made a complaint to the local council. The GAA lands now extend up to the wall.
As I understand it, my land folio would extend to my back wall, the GAA land folio would extend probably to the centre of the native hedgerow and the land between us would still be on the original land folio of the land my house was built on.
Is this a correct interpretation of the situation? I want to access the far side of the wall to plaster the wall; am I entitled to do this? Can I make a claim on the strip of land? Potentially I could extend my garden by 1m.
Your interpretation of the situation is substantially correct. The boundary arrangement you describe, in which garden walls or fences of new developments are offset from the original boundary of the lands under development, is quite common in urban areas. It’s usually convenient and more economical for developers to offset the new boundaries. The strip of land between the new boundary and the original boundary inevitably becomes problematic leading to ownership disputes or because some residents use it for disposal of grass cuttings or other unwanted materials.
I assume that you are referring to a GAA club from what you write, and that the local authority took no enforcement action or directed that tree planting be provided elsewhere on the club’s property.
While the developers of your estate are likely to be the title holder of the strip of land concerned, factors including the lapse of time, many years of occupation by the GAA club and the lack of involvement by the developers and/or their successors in title, mean that the club is likely to have a strong claim to adverse possession if it has not already formally acquired it.
The only time you had a realistic chance of acquiring the strip of ground was when the developer was in possession of it at the time you purchased your house. Since then, time has worked against you and has eventually created a strong case for the GAA club to claim adverse possession. Attempting to claim it now would be problematic as the club is likely to resist a claim.
Your chances of accessing the far side depend on the goodwill of the club. They may be puzzled by your desire to plaster the side of the wall that faces their pitch. If it was the wall of a shed, you would have a good reason to plaster it as it would help to insulate it and prevent dampness seeping through.
If the club does not co-operate in giving you access, there is provision in the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 (sections 43 to 47) to get a works order from the District Court to gain access to adjoining property in order to carry out maintenance or inspections to otherwise inaccessible, or difficult to access, parts of your property on or adjacent to the boundary.
A works order application is a relatively straightforward process. The best approach is to prepare a brief outline of the work you need to do, the reason why it needs to be done, the reason why you need access to the adjoining property to carry it out, the consequences of not carrying out the work and present this to your solicitor when getting advice about obtaining a works order. The obvious weakness in your case is that plastering a side of a wall as you describe may not appear to the court to be necessary maintenance work.
Patrick Shine is a chartered geomatics surveyor, a chartered civil engineer and a member of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland
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