Graham Porteous Bishop v Linda Margaret Jaques

A boundary demarcation agreement resolves uncertainty about the true boundary; it does not transfer land merely because its effect may be that a small area is treated as belonging to one neighbour. Such an agreement requires no transfer formalities, has proprietary effect, and binds successors because it identifies the extent of the estates originally conveyed.

The agreement must be construed in its factual context. It need not contain a plan, measurements or coordinates if its subject matter and the boundary it identifies are sufficiently clear. An agreement made by an authorised agent for the owner is binding.

The appellant applied for a determined boundary between The Avenue and the garden of Beacon Cottage. He contended that the boundary lay along the former 1949 hedge, several metres east of a line of pine trees.

The First-tier Tribunal dismissed the application. It held that a 1971 memorandum between the then owner of The Avenue and the husband of the owner of Beacon Cottage fixed the boundary at the strip on which the pine trees stood. It also made alternative findings on the paper title and adverse possession.

The appellant appealed, challenging the authority of the husband to make the agreement, its construction and validity, and the alternative findings. The central issue was whether the 1971 memorandum was a binding boundary demarcation agreement.

1. Appeal dismissed. The 1971 memorandum established that the strip on which the line of pine trees stood formed part of Beacon Cottage. The appellant's title did not include that strip, so his application to determine a boundary incorporating it could not succeed.
2. The First-tier Tribunal was entitled to find that Mr Dewar acted with Mrs Dewar's authority. The respondent's pleaded case, witness evidence and the contemporaneous circumstances gave the appellant fair notice of that issue. Whether Mrs Dewar was an undisclosed principal was immaterial.
3. The memorandum was a boundary demarcation agreement, rather than an agreement to transfer land. It resolved a pre-existing uncertainty over ownership of the pine trees and the boundary. Applying White v Alder [2025] EWCA Civ 392, such an agreement identifies the physical extent of the estates from the original conveyance and binds successors in title.
4. The agreement did not require compliance with section 52(1) of the Law of Property Act 1925. Its purpose was to record the true boundary, not to convey land from one title to another. Any question whether a transfer might in fact have occurred was irrelevant to its effect as a demarcation agreement.
5. Read with the contemporaneous title report and planning plan, the memorandum plainly concerned the line of pine trees and the verge on which they stood. The absence of a plan, dimensions, coordinates or title references did not create material uncertainty. The locations of the stumps remained known.
6. Those conclusions were determinative. It was therefore unnecessary to decide the challenges to the First-tier Tribunal's alternative findings on the 1949 paper-title boundary and adverse possession. The Chief Land Registrar was directed to cancel the application if that had not already been done.

• Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber): In [2025] UKUT 141 (LC), dismissed the appeal and upheld the dismissal of the determined-boundary application.
• First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber): Dismissed the appellant's application, principally because the 1971 memorandum was a binding boundary agreement. No neutral citation is stated in the judgment.