Peter Robert Crea v Philip George Camp

Hearing date: 24 June 2025

Approved Judgment

This judgment was handed down remotely at 2.30pm on 15 October 2025 by circulation to the parties by email and by release to the National Archives.

This appeal concerns a boundary dispute between Peter and Helen Crea, who own The Heathers in Nailsbourne, Taunton, and Philip and Christine Camp, who own the neighbouring property Sunnyside. The case was tried by His Honour Judge Berkley sitting in the County Court at Taunton. By his reserved judgment handed down on 1 August 2024, Judge Berkley found that the parties had entered into a binding agreement that they would accept the boundary as determined by their jointly instructed surveyor.

Mr and Mrs Crea now appeal with permission granted by Sheldon J. The central issue in their appeal is whether the trial judge was right to find that the parties were bound by the surveyor's report. Grounds 1–5 address that issue. Should those grounds succeed, the Creas argue by ground 6 that the judge should have determined that the true boundary ran along what was referred to in this dispute (by reference to a 1958 conveyance) as the “60-foot line”.

BOUNDARY AGREEMENTS

Contracts for the disposition of an interest in land must be made in writing and signed by the parties: s.2 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989. Thus, a boundary agreement that purports to convey land cannot be enforced unless it complies with the section. Very often, however, the purpose of a boundary agreement is not to convey land but to confirm the boundary line between two neighbouring properties. Such agreements are valid and enforceable even if they don't comply with the provisions of the section.

The seminal case in this field is the decision of Megarry J in Neilson v. Poole (1969) 20 P.&C.R. 909. The judge identified two types of boundary agreement at p.618:

“Now a boundary agreement may constitute a contract to convey land. The parties may agree that in return for a concession by A in one place, straightening the line of division, B will make a concession in another place; and the agreement may thus be one for the conveyance of land. But there is another type of boundary agreement. This does no more than identify on the ground what the documents describe in words or delineate on plans. Nothing is transferred, at any rate consciously; the agreement is to identify and not to convey. In such a case, I do not see how the agreement can be said to constitute a contract to convey land.

In general, I think that a boundary agreement will be presumed to fall into this latter category.”

In Neilson, Megarry J found that the agreed boundary coincided with the proper construction of conveyancing documents. He added, at p.619, that even if that had not been the case then the agreement would still not have been registrable under the Land Charges Act 1925 because it was not a “contract to convey” but rather a contract “merely to demarcate and confirm”.

Neilson has been repeatedly approved by the Court of Appeal, most recently earlier this year in White v. Alder [2025] EWCA Civ 392, [2025] 2 P.&C.TR. DG11. Neilson directly concerned the 1925 Act, but in Joyce v. Rigolli [2004] EWCA Civ 79, [2004] 1 P.&C.R. DG22, Arden LJ held by parity of reasoning that an agreement fixing the boundary such that it might have encroached on one party's land with the consequence that a small parcel of land was given up was nevertheless an agreement merely to demarcate the boundary. Since the parties' purpose had been to fix the boundary rather than to sell or dispose of land, it was not subject to s.2 of the 1989 Act.

In Neilson, Megarry J described a boundary agreement at p.919 as “in its nature, an act of peace, quieting strife and averting litigation, and so is to be favoured by the law”. Endorsing this view in White, Asplin LJ added, at [59], that a boundary demarcation agreement was “an act of peace that should be encouraged” and that avoids the uncertainty and risk of litigation. Such an agreement does not undermine the formalities for the transfer of land because its purpose is not to effect such a transfer. Megarry J observed that many boundary agreements are of the “most informal nature”. Indeed, the boundary agreements in both Neilson and Joyce had been entirely oral.

The primary issue in this case is not, however, whether a proven informal boundary agreement should be enforced but whether the parties entered into a binding agreement as to the demarcation of their boundary at all. While public policy rightly favours the enforcement of boundary agreements that avert ruinously expensive and disproportionate litigation and have the potential to restore good relations between neighbours, such policy cannot extend to finding such an agreement where it does not exist. Indeed, Norris J stressed this point in Bradley v. Heslin [2014] EWHC 3267 (Ch), at [51]:

“Third, although properly proved agreements or understandings are favoured by the law some caution must be exercised. Simple acts of neighbourliness should not ripen into legal rights vested in the beneficiary of the actor's kindness, or amount to an abandonment of some legal right already vested in the actor.”

That said, sitting in the Court of Appeal in Stephenson v. Johnson, unreported, 12 July 2000, Bennett J rejected at [41]–[42] a submission that the law should not strive to find boundary agreements. In both that case and Burns v. Morton [2000] 1 W.L.R. 347, the Court of Appeal found there to have been implied agreements as to the true boundary.

THE PARTIES' PLEADED CASES

Mr and Mrs Crea commenced proceedings against the Camps seeking, among other relief, a declaration as to the true boundary between their neighbouring properties. Their case was put on two bases:

10.1 First, they relied upon the existing physical features in the vicinity of the boundary. They particularly invited the court to infer that the bank on their land had been created when a ditch (which no longer exists) was dug. They argued that the court should therefore presume, in accordance with the so-called “bank and ditch rule”, that the ditch was dug on the Creas' land such that the true boundary ran along the edge of where the ditch nearest to the Camps' land would have been, and that the excavated soil was piled up on the Creas' land to create the bank.

10.2 Secondly, they relied on a conveyance of the Camps' land dated 10 May 1958 that stated that it had a frontage to the main road of “sixty feet or thereabouts”.

While the Creas asserted that part of the Camps' bungalow and garage had been built on their land, they did not seek the removal of such buildings. Rather they invited the court to declare a boundary line that adjusted the true boundary to allow such encroachments to remain but to order the payment of damages in lieu of the parts of their land that had been built upon.

By their Defence and Counterclaim, Mr and Mrs Camp pleaded that the boundary had been determined in accordance with a boundary agreement that the parties would accept the boundary as determined by their jointly instructed surveyor. They pleaded the agreement as follows:

12.1 First, they relied on their letter offering to instruct a surveyor jointly with the Creas on the basis that they would agree beforehand to accept the result of his work. They proposed using Lewis Brown Chartered Surveyors. There are two copies of this letter before the court; one dated 9 December 2016 and the other dated 11 December. Nothing turns on that and I will simply refer to this as the letter of 9/11 December 2016.

12.2 Secondly, they relied on the Creas' letter of 12 December 2016 by which they asserted that the Creas had accepted their offer.

12.3 Thirdly, they pleaded that Lewis Brown was jointly instructed and that the firm thereafter prepared a report and plan dated 6 February 2017.

12.4 At paragraph 10 of their Defence and Counterclaim, they pleaded:

“Accordingly, by reason of the correspondence between the parties in December 2016 … and the joint instruction, the parties entered into a boundary agreement on the terms set out in the Lewis Brown Report …”

The Camps pleaded that the Creas were therefore bound by the report and boundary as determined within it and further that they were estopped from denying the boundary as recorded in the agreement. In the alternative, they asserted that there was no evidence of any ditch between the two properties, denied the applicability of the bank and ditch presumption, asserted that the true boundary was largely represented on the ground by the present boundary structures, and denied that the 60-foot line was helpful given that in 1958 the westerly boundary had not been delineated and the measurement would have been taken in a westerly direction from the boundary with the Creas' land.

By their Reply and Defence to Counterclaim, Mr and Mrs Crea denied that there was any agreement or that they had represented that they would observe and agree any findings made by Lewis Brown. They pleaded that the Lewis Brown report was prepared in draft and that the work was never invoiced or paid for.

THE FACTS

The idea of instructing a surveyor was in fact first proposed by the Creas. By their letter dated 6 December...