Any inferences to be drawn from the position of T marks on a transfer plan were effectively countered by the position on the ground

T marks are often used to signify that landowners are responsible for maintaining boundaries with an inward facing T mark. Does this mean that the boundaries marked with a T belong to the owners of the land on whose side the T marks appear? The outcome of a boundary dispute in Lanfear v Chandler [2013] EWCA Civ 1497; [2013] PLSCS 281 turned on the meaning of transfers of properties on an estate. The transfers included covenants that the buyers would maintain the fences marked with a T on the plans.  The owner of the land on the side on which the T marks appeared believed that that this meant that the boundary belonged to her because it would make no sense to require her to maintain a fence that was not hers, but her neighbours disagreed.  They relied on the fact that the fence posts along the boundary faced towards them and suggested that this indicated that they owned the fence because it is normal practice, when fencing boundaries, to place the outer face of the fence along the boundary, so that the posts stand on the land belonging to the owner of the fence.  The Court of Appeal noted that Lord Justice Carnwarth had refused to disregard the ordinary understanding of T marks on a plan in Seeckts v Derwent & Anor [2004] EWCA Civ 393; [2004[ PLSCS 76, but rejected suggestions that there was, as a result, a presumption of law that T marks on a plan indicate ownership of a boundary. It held that the T marks and other features of a plan must be balanced against any other relevant terms of the conveyance or transfer and coupled, when appropriate, with evidence of the position on the ground. The court’s job was to decide, by reference to all these elements, how the conveyance or transfer should be construed and, although they are all relevant, no one element is necessarily conclusive. The parties agreed that the plan was not drawn to a scale that would enable them to resolve their dispute by a process of measurement and that it did not accurately represent what the developer had actually built. As a result, there was an ambiguity that could only be resolved by reference to the position on the ground as it would have appeared to the reasonable layman when the properties were first sold. The developer had used concrete edging stones to mark the front boundary and had used the same stones along the disputed boundary and had then constructed a boundary fence along the neighbours’ side of the stones.  It was also significant that the fence posts were situated on the neighbours’ side of the fence.  Consequently, the Court of Appeal concluded that they owned and were responsible for the area of fence in question and upheld an order for the removal of a car port that was trespassing on their land. Sadly, the case is yet another in an apparently inexhaustible series of boundary disputes arising out of poorly prepared plans and changes in the position of buildings and boundaries during the construction of housing estates, which are not then recorded in the legal paperwork. Allyson Colby is a property law consultant