The Court of Appeal has dismissed Oakley Park Developments Ltd.’s appeal over a boundary dispute with Sean and Pauline Abraham, affirming the High Court’s decision to correct the Land Registry map and its award of damages.
The dispute concerned a strip of land between the Abrahams’ home and a five-acre field in County Kildare. The Court of Appeal judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Costello on 20 March 2019, records that the High Court had declared the boundary and directed the Property Registration Authority to record it as conclusive. The developer also appealed damages, but that challenge depended on winning the boundary appeal.
The land had been divided from a larger holding in the early 1980s. A fence marked the boundary beside the cottage and field, and the judgment says the fence line was not moved before the dispute arose in 2013. The Abrahams later bought the cottage lands and built a home, garage and shed within the existing physical boundaries.
Oakley Park bought part of an adjoining folio in 2000 for €1.5 million. Its transfer described the land by area and attached a map drawn on an Ordnance Survey rural map. In 2013, after a survey for a prospective purchaser of a house being developed by the company, Oakley Park claimed that the mapped boundary included land inside the fence and part of the Abrahams’ shed. Company employees began removing part of the fence; Gardaí were called.
The Court of Appeal held that the transfer and its map did not clearly establish the precise boundary. The map’s scale and margin for error meant it could not settle the line on its own, and the Land Registry map was not conclusive as to boundaries. The court therefore upheld the use of other evidence, including the long-standing fence, the tree and the parties’ conduct on the land. It said there was ample admissible evidence for the High Court’s conclusion that the boundary followed the physical line.
The court also identified errors in parts of the High Court’s reasoning. It said the relative size and importance of the disputed strip, the purchaser’s failure to check the boundary, and the application of a statutory rule about occupation were not relevant considerations. Those errors did not change the outcome: the court refused the appeal and affirmed the boundary decision.
The High Court had awarded each Abraham €15,000 for trespass and intimidation, plus €15,000 for remedial work. Because the appeal on the boundary failed, the Court of Appeal affirmed those awards.