Yesterday I was opening my door to take Jonas out for his jabs when I discovered the back fence was missing and builders from the site behind were standing in my garden. Considering the lead builder (and owner) had been so abusive to me in the past that I had had to call the police on him, I wasn't exactly pleased. I went to speak to them about it and they said they were moving it into my garden by about a foot because apparently it was in the wrong place according to the title plans!

I wasn't really sure what to do about this blatant bullying and land theft. I've been having a look online and no one really covers the issue of what to do if someone just moves a fence, mainly because most sane people would talk to their neighbour before doing something like that.

I don't know if he's right or not, the title plans say on them at the bottom that the boundary lines show the general boundary, not exact positions, which would imply to me that him standing there measuring is not how they are supposed to be used.

Even if the border on the map is in a different place than the fence, he and I both bought our plots after the fence was put up. So on viewing them knew how much space we had. It is rather odd to come 5 years after the fence was put up and move it.

In fact the plots used to be one, he is building in what was the garden of this house. The previous owner separated the bottom of this garden off from the house and added it to the next door property which he also owned, so that he could have parking for the flats he was building. Therefore he put the fence in at the same time as applying to change the title plan, so clearly the fence marked where he intended the property boundary to be and someone just drew the line less accurately.

What is infuriating is that legally I seem to have no way to fight this. At least no way that won't cost far more than the land is worth. So someone can just walk into my garden and steal part of my land and yet it doesn't count as theft, just a "boundary dispute". Apparently I can't even complain about trespass, which seems crazy that a man who has been incredibly verbally abusive to me can just walk into my enclosed garden whenever he wants without any warning and I can't do anything about it.

As unlikely as it sounds I'm not actually angry about this, I mean it's really a very small patch of land, and we don't really use it, it's the principle of the thing. This guy is a thug and a bully and he just gets away with it. As far as I can see the only way I can beat him is to move the fence back once he's finished. An interesting idea. Hmm. There was a property dispute helpline that was meant to give me half an hour of advice from a chartered surveyer, they took my number, but never called back.