our garden has shrunk!

[sadie123]

We recently purchased a Bellway home, which we bought off plan. On final check we noticed the garden fence was in the wrong place and we had lost about 15 foot of garden including 2 trees. When we purchased the plot we were told that we had two trees in our garden which had preservation orders placed on them. The sales man named the two trees.We complained about the matter of the fence being in the wrong place to the site manager and sales and they told us that the Council would not let them move the fence without planning to trim the trees and they suggested we leave it unfenced and offered to take the fence down. We said that the fence could stay in the position it was already in (I have two children under 2 and three small dogs), and we would sort it out at a later date, appling for planning permission ourselves. We then recieved the deeds from the Land Reg which showed the border ending where the fence is now. Bellway are now denying we ever owned the land. They refuse to show us the site plans. Any advise on what to do next?

[Tony]

Hi Sadie,

Bellway have made a mistake - they either misinformed you that the land was yours when it wasn't or submitted the wrong info to the land registry. Either way you have been mis-sold and it would be reasonable to expect some kind of compensation. You need to work out the value of the 15 foot - if this is less than £5000 you can go down the small claims route. Which offer a service that was recommended by fellow member MikeMurk.

I hope this helps

Tony