Do you really know what you're buying? Let's talk property boundaries
If you’re buying a country house in Ireland, you’ll almost certainly be buying an acre or several acres of land around that house.
Most buyers have no difficulty comprehending the size and extent of the house they are buying, but the extent of the land can be trickier to understand. It’s the land part of your purchase that we’re talking about today.
I am thrilled to be joined by Sarah Sherlock, former Chair of the Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland Geomatics (Geomatics refers to the methods and technologies used to collect, distribute, store, analyze, process, and present geographic data.)
Sarah has several years of experience spanning many sectors, involving many notable and high-value real estate transactions both in Ireland and the UK. Standards are a matter that Sarah considers very important. She currently sits on a number of standard-setting committees – making sure measurement is carefully considered– in Ireland, the UK, and Internationally. Sarah served as a member of the Irish Defence Forces for c. 17 years.
You can contact Sarah at: sarahmsherlock@protonmail.com
During our conversation today, Sarah mentions a “16 Prepurchase Boundary Questions” Guide, prepared by the SCSI ( Society for Chartered Surveyors Ireland). You can download this prepurchase guide here.
About Breffnie O Kelly Buyer’s Agent.
I’m Breffnie, a licensed property-buying agent practising in Dublin, Ireland, where I was born and bred.
I love the process of assessing neighbourhoods and properties, looking for the features that will enhance the lives of my clients as well as the resale value of the property.
I'm a graduate of the Institute of Technology Tallaght (winning the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers Prize for Leadership) and a prize-winning (Sheehy Skeffington Prize in French) graduate of Trinity College Dublin. I'm also an external examiner on the newly launched National Auctioneering and Property Services Apprenticeship programme.
I love what I do.
I know that finding and agreeing terms on a property can be stressful, and I relish the fact that I can offer you a road map of the journey ahead, expert knowledge and a guiding hand until you have keys to your new property in your hand.
Thank you.
Book a call with Breffnie
Transcript of Video
Breffnie O'Kelly
Hello there, Breffnie O'Kelly buyer's agent here. If you're thinking about buying a property that has some bit of land attached to it, you're going to be very interested in today's episode. Because it's all about boundaries and certain questions we can ask to help us understand better the actual land we are buying and the perimeter of the land the boundaries of the land we're buying. And today, we're greatly chuffed to be joined by Sarah Sherlock. Sarah is a geomatics surveyor. And she has in fact written many of the Irish and European survey standards in terms of boundaries. And going with today's episode is a very handy PDF that you can find in the show notes. And it it gives you a guide of 16 questions to ask in terms of boundaries, before you go sale agreed on a property or maybe once you are sale agreed on the property. So the kinds of things Sara suggests we look out for are if the physical boundaries on the ground actually correlate to the map boundaries, as shown on the title map. Also should be asking us to consider either any indications when you walk the boundaries of the land, that other people have accessed portions of the land, perhaps those well trodden fields, or perhaps there are gates or doors that might indicator that people have been going to and from over this particular stretch, she's going to also ask us to consider if there are any way leaves eg may be shared and shared services, septic tank pipes going from your land to someone else's, or their land to yours, etc. So there's eating and drinking in this particular chart. And I would certainly think if you're buying a property with any degree of land around it, you're going to get a lot of value from this. And certainly I'd suggest get out your pen and paper and take notes because I did enjoy it. And thank you, Siri, Sherlock, for joining us, we're really delighted to have your expertise. So Sarah, we are so lucky to have someone with your expertise on hand to talk to the whole issue of buying land, or houses with land surrounding them. And I know you could and probably have written books on this subject. But what we'd love you to do is just pink with us from an absolute layman's perspective. We've sat in the car, we've come down to a lovely house, were charmed by it. We liked the local village, we liked the view from the house, there's land around, let's say for argument's sake, there's 10 or 15 acres around this house. What if you were there with your sister who was thinking of buying this house, or I was your client, and you were just coming along? As someone who knows land? What would be the first thing you'd kind of look at about this land in terms of is the sea the rivers the whatever the height above what what would be your approach to looking at the land around a house,
Sarah Sherlock
Well Breffnie, Thanks very much for having me. And I'm not sure that I wrote any books yet. But I definitely have contributed to some standards and professional guidance in the area when it comes to property identification, demarcation and boundaries in Ireland and beyond. So I suppose the question you're after asking me is, how long is a piece of string? Really? The first question that I would ask is, Is it a property that the client is interested in and willing to pursue? And if it is, well, then it's not mine to comment on, you know, whether I like it or not, I have to look at it in an objective manner to make sure that their i's are dotted and the T's are crossed. So looking at it from a parcel identification, because ultimately, the most important question for any client or anybody in a situation like that is to know what exactly is it that is being offered to them? And what exactly is it that they are likely to purchase? Should they go ahead? And it's not uncommon that you would be handed a map and told there you go. Or the other one that I love is where an agent comes out. You get the sweeping hand, and it's everything that's included. Where does that stop? So the questions I will be asking is, what exactly is it and what is it not? More importantly, you know?
Breffnie O'Kelly
Yeah, because sometimes you can assume when your eye can see this far, that that of course is included. And of course, it isn't necessarily included. I suppose what I meant and I totally take your point and we'll get into the establishing what is it that you're buying question and I'll give you an example of where I'm coming from a little bit with questions like this, I sometimes have people from America bringing coming online and showing me a property that they've seen. And straightaway, I can see that that property when I Google it is on a regional road, like the road has our beside it. And I can see that that house boundary goes very close to that our road. And I know that my American clients are looking for peace and quiet so but I can tell immediately that they're going to be on an R road or an N Road, which is a national road, a busy road. And that's already making me think that might be a busy road. So that's already getting my antennae up a little bit. Versus if it was on an L Road, say, a local road. So that might be just one thing, that when I see the property, I'm zooming into not just necessarily what's coming with the parcel, because we haven't got there yet. I'm just thinking in general, there is a big ol River. Oh, what does that do? When it rains? There is a road that might be a bit noisy, there is a sea? How far does that sea come right up onto the land? There kind of the helicopter view questions that I can sometimes look at on a map. And,
Sarah Sherlock
you know, Breffnie, as you ask all these things, going through my mind is I'm not aware of any one particular platform that would appraise everything that you're talking about right there. Many times you find yourself having to go to say, for example, OPW, flood maps for information about your rivers. And when you're looking at your roads, you're looking at the National Transport Authority, and they're published. Well, to be fair, though, Tailte Eireann National mapping division has all of our national roads well and truly documented, so you will pick those up there and that, that then transcends down into the property registration map. So you'll get a good handle on the road network, for sure. But the subtler things like the high watermark, or the low watermark, or what a river does, what's the likelihood for a once in 100 year flood or any of that, it's highly unlikely you'll get all of that quality information in the one repository as such. So you're kind of looking at a situation then, where you're pulling in all these various things that you want to look at, to give a proper to give a detailed property appraisal, and then you need to pull them all together. But the fundamentally important question in a situation like that is, when you're pulling them all in together, how are you pulling them in together to be sure that you're looking at them all, in one neat package, that they are actually seamlessly working together, and not conflicting with one another. Or say, for example, you have the position misaligned or any of that. So there's important considerations there, for anybody doing a technical due diligence in that respect, that maybe you might not be consciously aware of. So that's something you would want to be certain that when you're pulling in all these maps together, that they're they're working together in unison to give you the result that you want. Other things you might be looking at is like Irish water information. Is there a mains water pipeline? Is there sewerage outside the property? Is there an electricity line close by? Is it you know? Or is there say for example, a high voltage overhead power line running through the property? Because ultimately, if there is things like that, that comes with his own set of circumstances, because it will be unlikely that you can start developing whatever way you like, underneath that. There's lots of things. Then the other thing I suppose,
Breffnie O'Kelly
sorry about that. The high voltage line, do they go underground ever or are they overground?
Sarah Sherlock
in certain circumstances, I do believe that they can be put underground. They're very visible overground for sure. But in either way, it's not such a big issue because the ESB have very, very detailed property records. So something like that wouldn't go unnoticed. For sure, yeah. And but the other thing that I would say to you, if looking at a nice country property, you know, it's one thing to look at that property. But probably more important is look at all the other properties around it. Because, you know, there's no point in living in a beautiful country pile and having something next door that emits a horrendous smell or, you know, all kinds of things you could have. So we need to look at the property we're looking at, but equally as important is what's in the vicinity.
Breffnie O'Kelly
I'll share a horror story with you if I may about a someone that a friend of mine actually that bought a cottage in the country and didn't realise that there was a good old planning application in for a wind farm. And so within a year of his having bought his lovely, peaceful cottage, he has hmmmmmmmm a subtle hum all the time now. So Oh, I totally agree with you about this planning environment that you have not only Well, I know you're talking about smells, and whatever, also very important, but just actually how secure or stable is the planning environment that you land in? And how do we check that?
Sarah Sherlock
Yeah, well, I suppose there's just two considerations there. And I probably hadn't thought about the one of that. Well, I didn't, I wasn't implying it in the comment anyway. But the one that I was talking about was the existing situation. But then, of course, you can have dotted all around the place a number of plans that have been submitted to a local authority previously, and have received permission, but actually haven't issued a commencement notice or have started the development. So therefore, you could buy this beautiful sprawling green space, and have a live application next door, that could potentially become a real thing in the very in the not too distant future, you know, if you do your planning checks, so these under these
Breffnie O'Kelly
planning checks can be done by laypeople? Which is yes. And so how would you suggest they do that,
Sarah Sherlock
they should contact the relevant local authority and go into their planning office and see, you know, what exactly is lodged, what's in there, what has a lot of valid grant planning, or what maybe is under appeal, or, you know, another important thing for somebody to look at is, if they are purchasing a property, like say, for example, if 15 or 16 acres down the country, and depending on the property or the situation, or what's envisaged for it, they may have some plans to do some development themselves. But if, for example, there has been a number of planning rejections on the site, you should also look for that, you know, because it would impact what you might be able to do. So that's another. That's another important consideration for somebody to be consciously aware that what's there needs to be interrogated, you need to look at it and see how the property is has been like, what were the intentions previously by the past owners, because not everybody will disclose that information might not always be disclosed through the conveyancing process in its entirety.
Breffnie O'Kelly
May I just comment, if anyone's listening to this, and they're living outside of Ireland, you don't always just have to go to the local planning office in the county, that the property is in there, you can search online for these planning applications, which is really brilliant.
Sarah Sherlock
For sure. And since the introduction of myplan, you can definitely access them. But just to be certain, you can only do so much. But then you should definitely make a final check, you know, because there are some historical files that won't be on my plan. And you don't want to get caught out in that in that respect. Okay. And then the other things that you would be looking at, I suppose, if you're coming to the countryside is, you know, schools, the school, what schools are in the area, what other services utilities, you know, one consideration that, that I've seen somebody getting caught out with and been a little bit miffed, there's no local bin collection in an area where they were going to, you know, certain things like that, if you're looking, you might want to delve into that accord
Breffnie O'Kelly
and the WiFi as well, what's what's on what's doable, of what kind of Wi Fi coverage and what's being rolled out in your area.
Sarah Sherlock
And I think that becomes more pressing, depending on the age, the occupants in the house, the younger they are, the less likely they are to tolerate any poor notion of WiFi at all, you know, you might have a very unhappy family. If you had no WiFi, you know
Breffnie O'Kelly
For sure, yeah.
Sarah Sherlock
then coming back to it, there's multiple different types of surveys then that you would be looking at if you are purchasing a property. I just will on this juncture say that the society of Chartered Surveyors has approximately 13 different types of surveying disciplines. So that's a lot of surveying. And it's not all boundaries, it covers the entire of land, property and construction. And depending on the property and your intention, it might be necessary for you to get opinions from a number of those, not just one, it will be unlikely that one would cover all of the disciplines without drawing in some expertise from the other disciplines. You know, I suppose one of the most fundamentally important one is the buildings survey itself as property you know, the building surveyor will do that. And they will look at things like the fabric they use, you know, your future intentions as a possible what's likely, the maintenance of the property, the longevity of everything that's there and what you're likely to have to spend to give it what you need. So there's like a...
Breffnie O'Kelly
For anyone who's listening to this in shownotes are linked to a just an article I've done about surveys with some sample surveys of properties, just your standard physical property survey for people just to have a look at. And as you say, Sarah, you can add and subtract with and in multiple ways, depending on what you're interested in doing with this property or the age of the property. But at least just as a basic to get the ball rolling, I will have one or two surveys for people to look at just for structural surveys. Sorry.
Sarah Sherlock
And then that brings me back into the thing that, you know, the building survey will look at things like the structure, the roof, all of these major components that you have to give consideration to, if you're going to purchase, then you have planning and development. So they will look at the planning questions. And what it is that you're planning on doing, if anything at all, and how likely it is to work. Depending on the age of the property as well as Breffnie, it might be worth some of your clients consider a considering getting advices from a conservation professional because, you know, if it's a historic property or traditionally built property, it will have different needs and demands to that of a newly built property. And only somebody with the relevant expertise would be likely to guide them in the correct direction, and have the familiarity required to have confidence in the advices that they're giving, you know,
Breffnie O'Kelly
exactly, for example, I had a client who was buying a Georgian building and there was a radon issue with it. And when I was before we ever did the radon survey or checked it for it. And the the expert was able to tell me if it's got this kind of a sub floor, we're in business, if it's got that kind of a sub floor, we've got a big lot of work to do in order to remedy this situation. And just even knowing that I was dealing with someone who was used to dealing with the historic property versus a modern property, and knew what issues were likely to arise with this historic one, I found it really reassuring that he knew what the fix was for this and for that, so even when you're hiring your expert, it's great if they can also share with you that they have a knowledge or an understanding of the property type. They may be an expert in the subject matter. But are they an expert in your property type as well? Is it a good fit?
Sarah Sherlock
Yeah and like another important aspect there that might be missed by somebody who doesn't have familiarity with historical properties is the types of funding that may be available for your property, if it's on the record of protected structures, for example, and, you know, so you can be penny wise, but extremely pound foolish if you don't get the right advice from the from day one, you know, then other things that you would consider, you know, you might need the advices of an electrical engineer or the likes to have a look at your electrics if there's any issues over a certain age but then that will come back into the conservation side of it as well. The other thing that regularly catches out people when they're purchasing properties is the underground services and utilities because we don't see them so they're actually sight they're out of mind. And you don't know you have a problem till you put on next two or three rooms and then you realise all the underground pipes might have to be upgraded or whatever you know, so there's lots of hidden things that we need to be conscious of and aware of when we go looking at properties
Breffnie O'Kelly
or the septic tank has you know planning permission for X number of rooms or bathrooms and not y number of if you want to add on a couple of extra bathrooms and the things like city livers buying who live in have serviced or live in a luxurious enough home in another country. Don't consider the fact that very often rural properties in Ireland will not have their own water supply and they won't have their own sewage systems so they'll be working with the septic tank and they'll be working with well water and sometimes the drains as you say are old and they're Victorian and there may be a bit wrecked as well. So you might want to do a drain survey you might want to get your water tested. You might want to have someone very often the surveyor who's doing the structural survey we'll have a look at the septic tank as well and just see well what kind of shape does that look like it's in and is it even in the right position you sometimes you realise the septic tank is located above the house for whatever crazy reason and there's no drainage Do you guys know all sorts of odd things are the septic tanks located on the brother's land!
Sarah Sherlock
and that's probably the most famous Irish one the septic tank is out over the hedge where nobody thought about it. It's not included with the plot. Then when you want to do something you have to go and obviously you can continue with it the way it is probably but you know if you want to do any works with it, it might be yours to decide whether you can or not. You might have to go out and get the permission of the neighbour. You know, who was initially the father in law but whoever your family member that there was no problem when it was within the family, but now that it's been sold to another might not be as welcoming of the idea of additional works happening on their property, you know
Breffnie O'Kelly
exactly, I think it's worth knowing for the person buying the property, the selling agent may be aware of some of these things. But they may well not be aware of many of these things. Because very often, when the selling agent goes out to take a property on for sale, they have a nice cordial chat with the person who's owns the house. And it's kind of a selling chat. So they're selling themselves. And now the deal is done, great. We've got this property to sell. Now we do the paperwork, which is the selling agent sells the contract with the homeowner. But even at this stage, it's all a little bit delicate and tender. So the selling agent doesn't necessarily ask the seller, well, you know, have you got planning permission for that massive extension you've built? Have you got planning permission for that septic tank that looks like it's in your neighbor's field, the agent is still kind of in a tender enough relationship with the seller. So it's really as a buyer, you're, you're buying the house. But you're also need to have an eye to the relationship with the selling agent has with the seller as in how much information have they got from that seller, and how robust a relationship do they have with that seller. So they can actually start getting that information from them early enough in the procedure, so that they can pass it to you and really allow you have access to all this information upfront. Like such as the boundary map the the map that you are likely to get, because very often, when a selling agent puts a property for sale, they show nice photographs of the house and the land. But we don't at this point know, what is the actual map of the land that comes with the property? And very often the selling agent themselves? Don't know. But ideally, let's say they do in this case, let's say we are presented with some kind of a map, Sarah, what how should we approach this map? If the selling
Sarah Sherlock
even if even if you are presented with the map that fundamentally most important questions that you need to ask is who prepared it? When was it prepared? For what purpose was it prepared? How was it prepared? And have any changes occurred since it was prepared to the property now? Because if you're answering any of those, I always say, Kipling, who, what, when, where, how and why. Your questions? They're the essential questions, if you don't answer those, ask them to have them answered, well, you can be in an information deficit, where you're taking something at face value. And it might not be that, like, it's not uncommon, where a map could have been prepared for a property a number of years ago, like, but nothing has really changed around the property. But yet they've put in a new fence, they've done a bit of landscaping, they've upgraded the entrance or whatever, is that caught on the new map. And, you know, those things usually go unnoticed. And I will say, based on my experience to date, they normally never become known until the week before drawdown or the week before contracts, would you text or to finalise a close? I mean, you know, that's when they become the problem. But they don't need to become the problem at that stage. Because this stuff, it should be done. Well, I don't know. Is it for the purchaser to do? Or is it for the vendor to do and that's very much a relationship that they have to work out between them? You know. But one of them needs to do it at this particular juncture, when the property is now for sale, to be certain that that map that you have is still correct, and what it is. Now, maps and mapping when it comes to property to give you that degree of certainty, like during this kind of dating phase where we're all you know, are we buying are we selling? What are we buying? What are we selling, you know, all this negotiation phase, everything's lovely there. But you know, at some stage, we have to have commitment, what exactly is it you know, and for that general discussion, your large stay is the scale national topographic mapping. Then the other thing when you if you look in the consumer guidelines, it triggers multiple questions down the along it that you end up maturity as to what you have and a wonderful question in that consumer guideline that everybody should be extremely conscious of. You may have title maps from before you may have ground truth survey done from 10 years ago, and everything was fine. But a question in the guidance or in the consumer guideline is have any changes occurred to the boundaries since the title map was created? And if so, what are they right? So it really forces the situation where somebody would have put in a brand new fence, it gets clarity around that, you know, that this was put in at this time it was put back in the exact same place or it was put back on the same alignment. Those kinds of things become evident for you. Recently enough, I worked on a property where it was a abutting a former stretch of a canal. It's now closed. But we could find the original fencing from the Grand Canal Company, the stain, or this cast iron uprights, and you can see where the new timber post and rail fence, follow the exact same alignment. But you know, that question would be bottomed off, changes have occurred and new fence went in. But it's not a material change because it followed the exact same alignment, you know, so they're the kinds of things you should be doing. I'm always amazed when, you know, not as surveyor, but anybody comes out to a site to verify the boundaries. And they just have a piece of paper in their hand. They don't get behind the stuff, but yet they're able to come away saying everything's fine. How would you know, you know, you have to get in there, you have to look behind, you have to walk along what is the external perimeter of it? Because in every reality, those areas generally are not any... unless it's a brand new property right? Or it's a property that has been completely looked at for the purpose of having all these questions never become a problem. And it's regularised. But the majority of properties, what you have is a mixture of things all the way around the external perimeter, you'll have a bit of a fence, you'll have some hedging, you'll have maybe a bit of a wall, you'll have maybe the neighbor's shed, or do you know what I mean? So boundaries are always comprised more or less of multiple things are trying to find out is what are they? Who owns them? And how do they affect what you can do with yours in the future?
Breffnie O'Kelly
Yeah.
Sarah Sherlock
And it's good practice to get yourself a good photographic survey as well. So that map that you have, it would be well wise for anybody to turn around and take photos along the external perimeter of it, and document what the physical features are, and have it confirmed by the vendor that that is what it is that you're buying and how they've used it, you know,
Breffnie O'Kelly
okay, so say, say we're ready. We're, as you say, We're past the dating phase of our house we like isn't we've we like our we've figured out all our questions about the house and the water and the septic tank, etc. And now we're looking at our boundaries. And we've been given this piece of paper, which is the, as you say, the probably the folio map that comes with the property. And your questions are so valid, which is what changes were made since that was, and then you are suggesting getting a ground truth survey done. And Sarah, who would do such a survey for us,
Sarah Sherlock
just to come back there. The one word that everybody no matter who they are, probably would attempt to answer is what is the boundary, you know, everybody knows what it is. And they'll give you some kind of an attempt of an answer, right. But in reality, when we're talking about property boundaries, they're made up of a couple of different components a boundary is not just one thing, because you have to check the settled boundary on the ground, the paper on title, and then if registered Tailte Eireann registration map. So a boundary is actually three things there. So don't ever just check one thing, because you will be left three legged stool have one stand on one, you need all three, right? So just be awfully conscious of that for you and your clients. That if you're talking about boundary, and its property, it is three things most likely that you're talking about. And what you need is all three things to stack up and say the same thing within tolerance. Okay,
Breffnie O'Kelly
and so so just as if, when we spoke before you met made a really good point, because maybe at this point, people listening will say, Oh, for goodness sake, like we're buying, we don't really care, like we don't really care if it's an inch in or a metre in rebind lovely country home. And it's much of muchness to us whether the boundary is here or there, you know, so long as that hedge stays or whatever. And you know, that could well be the thinking in someone's mind, and they're buying a property like I don't much really care whether we've got two feet or... But you said to me before in a conversation that was so useful a thought about insurance, in that getting this really care right now is like paying your insurance into the future for that, like it may be very well you might not care too much today, whether you've got a metre here less or a metre here more, but you really will care if you start to see someone arriving up one day with a digger and a couple of fence posts to put a new gate somewhere that you thought was yours and it doesn't take much space to create a gate. So I liked your idea that you know, I'm only saying this now because a lot of people who have when the blood is up and they like a property and they're ready to go and then And the money is up front and what the hell and who cares, they might think, well, what's the point and getting all this, it doesn't really matter to us. But you're saying, it may not matter today. But if you don't know the information you might be in with this shock in the future. So by not overlapping these three layers and making sure they are in sync, you could be in for a shock.
Sarah Sherlock
Absolutely. It's like that age old adage, where the day you buy is the day you sell. And I once spoke to a property developer, and I still laugh at what he said to me. He said, you know, Sarah, I've never once bought a piece of ground, that I didn't have to buy another bit, or sell a bit, or sort out a bit. Because there was always something around or wrong with it, by the time I went to get rid of it, you know, so what you want to do is, know what you're taking in day one, so you can get rid of it whenever that day comes. But a good ground truth survey, and a boundary survey is really like an insurance policy. If all those three things stack up? Well, you know, what chances are, it's just enough money, because you're not going to get much from it. It's there, it's you know, it's a benign thing. But say, for example, something does happen, and you do have it well, then you have all the information that you require, to more or less weed out a boundary issue to within a couple of 100 millimetres, you know, you're not going to have any major things coming out to bite you. They'll be resolved, you'll have had the clarity day one. So you know, it depends, I suppose the question for the client is are you risk adverse? Or do you want to turn around and just take the chance? And if you take the chance, so be it, you know, be what may if the neighbour comes out and you have a new entrance you'll deal with it then! You know what I mean? But, yeah, definitely, just to come back to your question, who would do it? There's a number of really good boundary surveyors in the country. The majority of them would be known as land surveyors as well, or geomatics. Surveyors, those engineers who carry out this work for sure. I do believe there's some building surveyors. But the majority of those practices in the area of boundaries are all geomatics or land surveyors. And the SCSI has a website and on it you can go to find a professional, and they have listed in their, their chartered geomatics surveyors and Engineers Ireland also have a number of others who have their members who would be inclined to carry out this work as well. Sorry, go ahead.
Breffnie O'Kelly
I was just thinking that it the whole area of surveying for the layperson, is amazing that the language around it is quite interesting in that some people say, well, we need to get an engineer to look at that property. And what do they mean? And you really don't know, they usually don't mean an engineer, actually, they usually mean we'll get a surveyor right to look at that property. Or we'll maybe get a builder to look at that property. But people use words and surveyors, and words like engineers and surveyors quite interchangeably. And they're not always clear what they mean. And I'm not always clear what they mean when they say it, either. Because they may say, engineer or is, in fact, they mean, structural surveyor?
Sarah Sherlock
Well, I think, I don't think that needs to be a question to be honest. And because if you go Tailte Eireann land registration mapping guidelines, Appendix A section 2.2 B, it clearly states that maps and mapping for the purpose of registration should be compiled by competent land surveyors. So why we're having any doubt as to who you really should be going to to verify and validate your boundaries is beyond me. But I do understand why an architect is normally asked for for this, or an engineer, it's down to the standard forms of contract, they seem to be specified more liberally than surveyors would be. And then as I said, you can specify a surveyor. But if you don't specify what type of surveyor Well, there's 13 there to choose from. So you're not going to get an arts and antiquity surveyor to come to confirm your boundaries. Do you know what I mean? So there's certain it's horses for courses. But when it comes to boundaries, I don't think there's any doubt as to who you should be getting and like a good boundaries surveyor will be able to help you with many of those other things that we're talking about. Because remember, we spoke about lots of different maps be there for flooding, be they for overhead lines, be there for services and utilities running through your property, most of that information, they can collate and present to you in a manner that you will find it easy to digest it and use it and work with it. You know, so there's merit in, definitely contacting a boundary surveyor to help you with some of these questions. Yeah,
Breffnie O'Kelly
that's a very good point that, given that there'll be the mapping is not always at the same scale, so they'll know how to interpret the overlay. Fantastic. So, Sarah, in terms of just the physically walking the boundaries, or what are issues that you have come across, like one of them say might be right of way, what might be kind of indications to us if we're walking a boundary, that there might have been a right of way, here or there? Potentially? Is there anything that might raise our hackles?
Sarah Sherlock
I'm laughing because it brings to memory one day that I was walking along a boundary. And I think it's the closest I ever came to having a heart attack. As walking, like, as I say, I always would stick my head in and have a look and be sure. And if the neighbour wasn't adverse to it, I would walk it from the other side as well, because what you see on one side is not generally the same as the other. So in situations where you can inspect it from both sides, absolutely, that should be done. But anyway, I remember a lady contacted me, she had a major boundary issue. And anyway, we walked along her garden and down to the bottom of it. And there was this lovely door and I posted it on LinkedIn, actually, I can send it back to you, I can send you a link to it. But there was this lovely door presented at the end of the garden. And I said to her, there's a door. You said, oh, yeah, that's a mass path. I was like, Oh, my goodness, like, you know, some people would put a door at the end of the garden, because maybe did you know what I mean? Yeah, beige or something? Yes. Next thing, we launch into a mass path? And I'm like, Oh, my goodness, that's probably the worst possible thing you could say to me, because this is presented nowhere. So that in itself has multiple different considerations that you'd have to think about. But yeah, the things you'd be looking for. And if you're walking along the property for certain you need to be checking. Is it? Is it all presenting similarly? Or is it presenting differently? If it presenting differently is some of it looking like it's in use? Because if an area looks like it's trodden and worn down, but then chances are there's either something or someone coming through it? And your question is, what is it? Who is it? have the rights to be doing it? You know, how long is it for? Because if somebody's doing something like that for long enough, well, that can have its own lead to its own problems, you know, so what you want to be doing is going along the entire of it, and asking, and don't be afraid to ask because one of the biggest problems is people don't ask, they don't get the assurances, and then sale has closed, vendor has gone. And you're they're picking up all these questions that you can't answer because you don't have the familiarity. So ask the ones that are there and in, in, in occupation of it. And other things to look out for, like now, it wouldn't apply to a large country property as such, but it would apply in an urban area where you have what looks to be a boundary wall, but you have an eaves or a gutter, coming down, and sitting on top of the wall on your side of it or possibly draining into your property. You know, these are the things you need to be looking for. When you look at a boundary, it's a definitive line from heaven to hell, generally, unless it's a multi storey type registration or a multi type ownership. And what you need to do in that law in that in that instance, is have a very benign, look at everything you're doing. You're walking along it and you're checking up and down. And anyway, there's a penetration through that you need to know what it is why is there who's doing it and back to the Kipling questions, you do those, you won't have a problem.
Breffnie O'Kelly
Really interesting and also just in terms of I'm thinking of two kinds of boundary issues I had recently with clients buying properties one was a property in south side of Dublin and in terms of things that might have risen made your hackles rise or make you ask a question, there was a lovely old stone wall along a lane and I noticed that the stone wall had a kind of a topping along it, that it in a certain spot and we're just asking that that anyway it turned out that the person who was selling the house to us had actually gone out into the had seen fit to gone to go take his boundary wall out into the lane and reclaim maybe a metre so a metre wide and you know, a couple of metres long along this lane for his own reasons. So when we saw the house, we saw a lovely garden with a rockery. But actually, if we were to draw that line legally, that rock really didn't come with the property. It was on the other side of the wall. And it was just the new topping on the lane on the wall that kind of alerted us to ask the question. Another one was where the agent was telling me that the seller had this was on the land of the original family farm this house they were selling. And it turned out that the mapping had been done incorrectly. But the very fact that he he knew that this house that we were buying was on land that was originally part of another parcel of land that came with another house. It alerted us to the fact that there might be a recent mapping issue. Because something had happened since that map was drawn. And what ended up happening was that it all been incorrectly mapped and the whole thing needed to be remapped. So it's just, you never know exactly what it is you're looking for. But it's just it's a bit like Hercule Poirot going along, you're looking for something unusual, as you say, an indent in the ground or a gate or,
Sarah Sherlock
yeah, not even, that's another property I worked on, I remember tearing my hair out because there was like it was an urban garden. But it was all walled, and it was like clutched limestone walls. So it wasn't an insignificant wall, it was quite, quite well built, it was substantial. And the title definitely extended further, much further. But it was very, very clear from visiting the property, that it couldn't have been any of that because they would have had to get an aerial drop to get in and out, you know. And so after doing all of our surveys and our overlays, I'd multiple questions at the end of it. And then it was only not all of the title deeds had been sent over just some of them. And when I was insistent that there was something very much the matter, other documents became apparent or were sent over and when I went through them anyway. And here in just a really innocuous little clause down at the end, there was a commitment that a new wall will be built in the exact same manner and style as the remainder, I was like, well, that that's the wall they're talking about, it can be nowhere else because it clearly showed the rest of it. So you know, when you do your checks, and you go through things. And that's why it's important to have a lnad surveyors does it because they will do their new survey at a scale that picks up all of this, that when they pick up the other maps, they can have confidence that they can go back and take their feet and inches and scale it and know what it is in relation to it. Because if we're relying on national topographic mapping at a scale of one to 1000, every millimetre on that map is a metre on the ground. You know what I mean? So we're starting to accumulate, we're looking at my new things, we need to be doing more detailed surveys, and
Breffnie O'Kelly
what detail would that happen at what detail would that survey?
Sarah Sherlock
we're like, if a wall is only 300 mil tick, you're not going to see that on a map.
Breffnie O'Kelly
on this map that we are commissioning now from from we're doing up as you suggest, yeah, you would probably
Sarah Sherlock
have your ground truth survey depicted on a map but a scale of one to 100. So you will pick one to 100. And so you'll have plenty actually, I've quite a, this is a story from a survey I did not too long ago, where I'd two farmers, and I said to them, guys, listen, you know, you have a wooded area, it's quite clear that we're going to be sitting here for a long time bickering over millimetres this way, that way, in the other way. And in every respect, does it really matter? And they both agreed that it didn't. And I said, Well, once you're both have that opinion, can we buy a couple of steaks and bang them into the ground, and you both agree what you're going to abide by for the rest of your time. They both said, Okay, grand. So we got a couple of steaks. And we got us kind of spray paint and we dotted it all along the side of it and down along it. And we created a new boundary agreement map. And anyway, one of them had recently got another map from when he acquired the property. And he came to me and he said, God, that map you have It's a horror grid map, you'd know exactly what's what like, and I said, right. And he said, So then he pulled out the other map he had and he said, you wouldn't have a clue with this York. And I said, Well, that's the idea of a boundary agreement map. The idea behind the boundary agreement is that you're never going to have a disagreement in the future because the two of you are crystal clear as to what it is. You have and do not have. So there were Laughing. But that is the idea. That's the way maps and mapping should be. That's the way property should be. It can be clear, the only reason it's not clear is because we're all flewstering around with these maps afraid to bite the bullet and say, Come on, let's get the survey done. Let's get the clarity. Let's work with it and move on that there's a time and a cost for everybody not getting it done. Because we're going around in this greyness, and it could be this could be that no one can make a decision. There's almost paralysis, whereas if you turn around get the work done, yes, it's a difficult pill to swallow. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, there's a bit of time in it. But guess what, when it's all done, you never do it again.
Breffnie O'Kelly
Well, it makes such a lot of sense, such a lot of sense and it just makes me think that not only are you getting certainty in terms of your boundaries, but you also are to some extent, future proofing your relations with your neighbours to because you're really clear about what it is you own. And what it is you've title to.