Someone has encroached on my land. What do I do now?

If you have just discovered that somebody has built on, fenced across or occupied part of your land, what you do in the first few days shapes how difficult and expensive the rest becomes.

First: record what exists today

Before any conversation, before any notice, document the current state.

• Photograph the encroachment from several angles, including wide shots that show its position relative to your boundary markers.
• Record the date and, if you can, the coordinates of each photograph.
• Photograph your boundary stones — present or missing.
• If you have earlier photographs of the same corners, put them side by side with today's. That comparison is the most useful single thing you can produce.

Evidence gathered before anyone knows you have noticed is worth more than evidence gathered after positions have hardened.

Second: establish where your boundary actually is

Do not rely on memory or on what looks obvious. Pull together the title deed, the survey number and extent, the revenue records, and any survey report or coordinates you hold.

If there is real doubt, commission a survey. It is far better to know your line precisely before making a claim than to discover mid-dispute that the encroachment is smaller — or larger — than you asserted.

Third: raise it in writing

A verbal complaint leaves no trace, and in a dispute that turns on how long a use went unchallenged, leaving no trace is costly.

Communicate in writing, keep it factual and unemotional, state what you believe the boundary to be, and keep a copy. Many encroachments — particularly the two-feet-of-fence kind — are genuine mistakes and resolve at this stage.

Fourth: get advice before it becomes possession

The reason to involve an advocate early is not aggression. It is that the legal significance of an occupation changes with time, and the options available to you narrow as it continues unchallenged.

An advocate can advise on the appropriate notice, on approaching the revenue authorities, and on whether the matter belongs before a court. What they cannot do is recover time already lost.

What not to do

Do not remove or demolish anything yourself. However clear you are that the structure is on your land, self-help can expose you to criminal complaint and will damage your position.

Do not let it run "while we sort it out amicably". Amicable is the right approach — but pursue it in writing and with a timeline, not as an indefinite absence of action.

Do not accept payment for the occupied portion without advice. Money changing hands can be characterised later in ways you did not intend.

Do not lose the photographs. Keep them somewhere that is not one phone.

Afterwards

Once resolved, close the gap that allowed it: re-mark the boundary, record the coordinates, and put a monitoring arrangement in place so the next change is noticed in weeks rather than years.

Encroachment is opportunistic. It happens where nobody is looking, and it stops being attractive when somebody is.