My deeds don't match my fence. Will that stop my sale?

Why doesn't my title plan match my garden?

Because it was never meant to. When your home was first registered, HM Land Registry drew the red line as a reasonable interpretation of the old deeds against the detail on Ordnance Survey mapping. It is a working summary of roughly where your land sits, not a survey of where the fence posts went in.

Fences also move. They get replaced a few inches inside the old line to make room for the concrete posts, or set out to follow a hedge that has crept. Forty years of small, sensible decisions by previous owners is the usual reason a modern fence and an old plan disagree.

What is a general boundary?

A general boundary is a boundary shown on a registered title that fixes the approximate position of the border without deciding the exact legal line. Section 60(1) of the Land Registration Act 2002 says the boundary of a registered estate shown for the purposes of the register is a general boundary unless it has been determined, and that a general boundary does not define the exact line.

That is not a gap in the system. It is the system. Registering millions of titles would have been impossible if every boundary had to be surveyed and agreed first.

When does a boundary difference actually matter?

Most of the time it does not, and your buyer's solicitor will treat it as paperwork. It is worth knowing which side of the line your situation falls on.

• Normal: the fence is a few inches off the plotted line, everyone has used the garden the same way for years, and nobody has ever raised it.
• Normal: your buyer's solicitor raises an enquiry asking you to confirm the boundaries have not moved and there is no dispute. Answering honestly is usually the end of it.
• Normal: the title plan shows a curve where the ground has a corner, or a line that runs through the middle of a shared driveway.
• Worth attention: a neighbour who has objected, written to you, or moved a fence within living memory.
• Worth attention: a difference big enough to change what is being sold, such as a garage, a parking space or a strip wide enough to build on.
• Worth attention: an extension, outbuilding or driveway that appears to sit across the plotted line, because a lender will want that resolved.

What will my buyer's solicitor do about it?

Raise an enquiry, in almost every case. An enquiry is a written question from the buyer's solicitor to yours, asking you to explain something in the paperwork before the sale goes further.

• Ask you to confirm the boundaries are as they have been for years and that no dispute exists. This is the most common outcome by a distance.
• Suggest an indemnity policy, which is an insurance policy covering the buyer or their lender against a future claim rather than fixing anything.
• Ask for a statutory declaration, a sworn written statement of how the land has been used and for how long.
• In the rare serious case, ask for the boundary to be agreed with the neighbour or formally determined before they proceed.

Answer the enquiry factually and promptly, and say what you actually know rather than what you assume. A seller who says the fence was replaced in the same position in 2011 is far more useful than one who says it has always been there.

Will it delay my sale?

A single boundary enquiry, answered quickly, rarely does. Research from Rightmove reported on 9 September 2026 found conveyancing was the biggest source of delay for 37% of home movers, ahead of survey or valuation issues at 15% and searches at 11%.

What causes the damage is not the question itself but the fortnight it sits unanswered. Sending your solicitor the facts the day the enquiry lands is the whole of your defence here.

How do I fix a boundary permanently, if I want to?

There are two routes, and both need your neighbour on side. Neither is usually necessary just to sell.

1. A boundary agreement. You and your neighbour agree the line, both sign a plan, and it is recorded on the register. HM Land Registry works on a rebuttable presumption that this transfers no land, so it records what the boundary already was rather than moving it.
2. A determined boundary application. This asks HM Land Registry to fix the exact legal line. The plan must show start, end and turning points with measurements accurate to within plus or minus 10mm from at least two permanent features, or National Grid co-ordinates, and is usually a job for a surveyor.
3. Either way, the neighbour is notified. On a determined boundary application the registrar must give notice to adjoining owners unless written agreement or a court order is supplied, and an objection that is not groundless goes to the Property Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal.

Because of that last step, starting a determination mid-sale can create the dispute you were trying to avoid. If the difference is small and nobody has complained, the calm move is to answer the enquiry and leave the line where the law is content to leave it.

A red line on a title plan is a description of your land, not a measurement of it. The law wrote it that way on purpose.

Common questions about deeds and boundaries

ValuQ gives UK homeowners free, side-by-side property valuations from competing local estate agents, so you can see how several agents read your home, and anything unusual about it, before you pick one.