Cornwall · Devon · Property litigation
Laurence Gray acts for landowners and homeowners when a boundary, a right of access or other rights relating to the use of land is in dispute — from initial instructions, all pre-action steps, at mediation and, if necessary, all steps to a court hearing.
How disputes are resolved
Laurence reads the deeds, plans and photographs, takes the history from you, and gives a straight view of your position — its weak points included.
A surveyor where one is needed, historic maps and aerial photographs, then a properly reasoned letter to the other side under the pre-action rules.
Laurence represents you at mediation, where many boundary and access disputes settle — often on terms a court could never order.
If agreement cannot be reached, he takes the case to the County Court or, where a Land Registry application is disputed, to the First-tier Tribunal.
A mediator on your side
Laurence is also a CMC-registered civil and commercial mediator, practising as Laurence Gray Mediation. Having run mediations himself, he knows what persuades a mediator, how the day really unfolds, and when an offer should be made — or held back.
Here, he is not neutral. He acts for you.
As mediator
laurencegray.com
As your solicitor
This practice
Laurence never acts for anyone in a dispute he has mediated, or mediates a dispute in which he has acted.
Questions
The deeds come first. Where they do not settle it, the courts have long applied the “hedge and ditch” presumption: a landowner digging a boundary ditch was assumed to dig it at the very edge of his own land and throw the soil up on his own side to form a bank, often planting a hedge on top. So where a hedge or bank has a ditch beside it, the boundary is presumed to run along the far edge of the ditch — and whoever owns the hedge owns the ditch too.
The presumption can be displaced by the wording of the deeds or by other evidence, and it applies only where the ditch was dug as a boundary. On the broad hedgebanks of Cornwall and Devon, where the difference can be a strip a metre or two wide along the length of a field, it often matters a great deal.
First, establish what right you actually have: whether it is written into the deeds, and what it covers — on foot, with vehicles, for agricultural purposes, at all times. Then gather evidence of the obstruction and of how the track has been used, and put your position to the neighbour in writing.
If access to your home, land or livestock is being prevented, the court can grant an injunction — in urgent cases, an interim injunction within days. Speed matters: delay in going to court can count against you. Not every interference is unlawful; the usual question is whether it substantially interferes with the reasonable use of your right.
Usually not. Most registered titles show only “general boundaries”: the red line on the title plan shows the approximate position of the boundary, not its exact line on the ground. On a plan drawn at 1:2,500 — the usual scale for rural land — a line half a millimetre wide covers more than a metre of ground.
To find the legal boundary, the starting point is normally the conveyance or transfer that first divided the land, read with its plan and with what was on the ground at the time. It is possible to apply to HM Land Registry for a “determined boundary”, which fixes the exact line. The Land Registry will notify your neighbour, and if they object and the objection cannot be resolved, the matter is referred to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to decide.
Laurence Gray is a property litigation partner at Keystone Law and he is based on the Roseland peninsula, near Truro. He acts for clients with boundary disputes, trespass claims, adverse possession claims, and disputes over private rights of way, drainage and other easements involving homes, farms and businesses in Cornwall and Devon. As part of that work, he also represents clients at mediation, and brings or defends claims in the County Court and the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber).
He has spent his career in property litigation — at Eversheds in London, at Clarke Willmott in Bristol and, since 2013, as a partner at Keystone Law. From the Roseland, he now concentrates on the boundary and access disputes that are part of rural life in Cornwall and Devon.
An initial conversation is free and without obligation. It helps to have to hand your deeds or title documents, any plans, photographs old and new, and the correspondence so far.
