Various disputes- Continued

Dispute over identification

          ‘A’ bought a plot in a newly formed residential layout. Most of his friends too invested money in the layout by buying the plots. After around ten years, 'A' wanted to raise a building in his plot.

On his visit, after ten years, to the layout and his plot, he found that the boundary stones of most of the plots are removed and thus he slightly struggled to identify his plot. Finally, by some known local techniques, he identified his plot and built a house.

Later, his friends and neighbours also slowly started building houses and understood that ‘A’ had built his house on the space reserved for road which signified that he could not identify his plot properly in the absence of boundary stones.

This type of trouble is applicable to both approved and unapproved layouts and can be avoided by appointing a surveyor and getting his services in measuring the layout and identifying the plot.

A property lawyer has to advice clients to utilize the services of surveyor.

Dispute over size

A plot of size 60' x 40' formed in layout “AAA” was purchased by one and when he started to construct a compound wall, the neighbor, owner of adjacent plot formed in layout “BBB”, started quarreling and charged that the plot owner is trying to encroach the neighbour’s land. Both the parties brought their respective documents, which depict that both the parties are right.

On scrutinising the documents, it is understood that the layout containing the plot was formed over agricultural lands comprised in various survey numbers owned by different persons.  It is also understood that already there was a dispute over the size of the original larger agri-land and the adjacent land wherein the layout “BBB” is formed.

The real estate men while forming the layout, he planned to make all the plots are of uniform size of 60' x 40' and he could make 40 numbers of that size and two plots of slightly lesser length on one side, as shown below.

           By hiding the fact of dispute over the boundary of the agricultural land, the real estate businessmen prepared a drawing of layout showing the size of all the plots are 60' x 40' as shown below.

Without knowing the fact, the innocent buyer bought the plot just by going through the layout drawing. Even the lawyer, who scrutinized the registered deeds and documents, could not see this as he does not visit the site and the buyer did not measure the plot at the site.

While neighbouring parties approached the appropriate civil court for declaration of boundary, an advocate commissioner was appointed who measured the layout with the help of government surveyor and the FMB sketches and found the above facts.

Thus it is understood that the layout drawing has to be verified on the site and to be compared with the FMB, particularly for the plots formed on the edge of the layout.