A business couple have lost a four-year legal dispute over a 48cm strip of land after seeking to have their neighbours’ kitchen extension demolished for allegedly crossing the property boundary.
Susannah James, a Cambridge-educated tax company director, bought the £600,000 semi-detached home in Surbiton, south-west London, in 2021.
A year later, she launched a legal challenge against the owners of the adjoining property, claiming their kitchen extension extended 48cm beyond the boundary separating the two homes.
In recent months, ownership of Mrs James’s property was transferred into joint names with her husband and business partner, Chris James.
The dispute eventually reached the First-tier Tribunal this year, where the Jameses faced neighbours Mina Sharma and Neil Deeley, who have owned the adjoining house since 2012.
The couple, who run an insurance tax business, asked Judge Ewan Paton to rule that part of Ms Sharma and Mr Deeley’s kitchen had trespassed onto their land.
They also sought an order requiring the extension to be demolished and removed.
Instead, the judge ruled in favour of the kitchen’s owners, granting their claim to adverse possession—sometimes referred to as squatters’ rights—over the disputed 48cm strip.
The four-year boundary dispute between the business couple and their neighbours centred on two homes in Surbiton, south-west London
Susannah and Chris James claimed their neighbours’ kitchen extension crossed 48cm into their property
Susannah James bought the £600,000 semi-detached property in Surbiton in 2021 and later transferred it into joint ownership with her husband, Chris
The tribunal heard that the kitchen extension had been built in the early 1980s, long before the current owners moved in. Neither Ms Sharma and Mr Deeley nor the previous owners realised that it extended beyond the legal boundary when they purchased the property.
The neighbours had occupied the strip in practice and reasonably believed it belonged to them because their kitchen stood on it. The same assumption had been made by the property’s former owners.
Judge Paton noted that boundary lines shown on Ordnance Survey and Land Registry plans would not necessarily appear as perfectly straight lines on the ground.
“Almost every property will have some kinks, curves, ‘steps’ or similar features along its boundaries,” he said.
He added that buyers could not reasonably be expected to suspect a legal boundary problem simply because a physical boundary appeared stepped or slightly uneven.
“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’—that they are buying a house whose boundaries are ‘as seen’ on the ground,” the judge said.
The case, he said, highlighted the importance of long-established physical boundaries in property disputes. The extension had probably remained in its current position for more than 22 years before anyone challenged it.
“It was entirely reasonable for successive owners of that property to assume and believe that they owned everything within its walls,” Judge Paton concluded.
The tribunal was told that the disputed boundary separates two semi-detached Surbiton homes that were once part of a single Victorian property.
Inside the kitchen of No. 26, which had ‘stepped’ across the boundary by 48cm into next door’s land
Both have single-storey kitchen extensions, but 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 Ms Sharma and Mr Deeley’s property is ‘stepped’ across the boundary by 48cm into next door’s land.
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The judge was told that nobody had noticed this was the case for 40 years – including Mrs James when she first bought her property – due to thick vegetation at the back of the houses masking the border.
When Mrs James began sending lawyers’ letters in 2022, rather than dispute the boundary line itself, Ms Sharma and Mr Deeley – whose daughter now lives in the house – instead chose to assert that the land was theirs now via adverse possession.
In his ruling handing them victory, the judge said: ‘These proceedings concern what might be called, without diminishing its importance to the parties, a ‘sliver’ of land some 480mm wide which currently forms part of number 26’s kitchen.
‘Mrs James believes and has asserted that this portion of land, notwithstanding its enclosure within number 26, forms part of her registered title to number 25.
‘Ms Sharma and Mr Deeley’s case is that they thought that all of the land constituting their kitchen and bathroom ‘belonged’ to them, and that this is what they had bought in 2012.
‘They claim that the extension comprising their kitchen and bathroom has been in situ in its present configuration and location since they purchased number 26 in 2012.
‘They also obtained, and relied on, evidence from one of the previous joint owners to the effect that it was also in this location at the date of his purchase in 2000, and at all times thereafter. They therefore relied on this as evidence of sufficient adverse possession.’
The judge said the evidence was ‘overwhelming’ that the kitchen extension had been in the same location since just before 2000.
He 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.
‘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.
‘A reasonable purchaser and owner, even if they had studied the title plans in detail, could assume that the approximately straight line depicted corresponded to the fence line, and so took in the full physical extent of the extension.
‘At the very least, it would not be clear precisely where the exact boundary ‘shifted’ so as to run along the house centre lines, assuming that it did so. A reasonable purchaser, seeing what they had seen inside, could still assume that all of the kitchen was theirs, and that the boundary did not run right through it.
‘I consider that it is, and was in 2000, an utterly conventional and commonplace case of a property with an undetermined general boundary, with nothing to put even a solicitor – and certainly not a lay purchaser – on alert as to there being a potential boundary issue in the kitchen area.
‘I consider it was reasonable to assume here, as in millions of similar purchases, that what you see is what you get.
‘I therefore find that the applicants did in fact believe, as had [the previous owners], that they owned the full physical extent of the house and garden.’
In her evidence, Mrs 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 continued.
‘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.
‘These proceedings have followed since then. I consider it unfortunate that Mrs James, supported by Mr James, took the stance which she did.
‘This case might serve as an example of the importance of long established physical boundaries in resolving boundary disputes…. [the] extension had likely been in its current location for well over 22 years before any issue was raised over it.
The judge approved Ms Sharma and Mr Deeley’s application for adverse possession of the strip of land.