In a decision handed down today by the Upper Tribunal in Bishop v Jaques [2025] UKUT 141 (LC), Deputy Chamber President Martin Rodger KC considered, amongst other things, two interesting questions about boundary agreements:

(1) whether they can be binding on proprietors of land and their successors in title even though the land on which the uncertain boundary is somewhere located could be described as more than trivial; and

(2) whether they can also be so binding notwithstanding that one of the signatories to the memorandum of the agreement is not himself the proprietor of any of the land in question.

The application concerned the determination of a boundary in respect of which the two possible lines were as much as four metres apart for a length of approximately thirty metres, and so concerned approximately 120 m2 of land.

The memorandum recording the agreement as to the location of the boundary was signed not by the proprietor of one of the adjacent pieces of land but by her husband, and the adjacent piece of land was described in it as his rather than hers.

Nevertheless, the FTT judge had found that he was clearly her agent, and authorised as such, for the purposes of the agreement, and that its purpose was to delineate an existing, but unclear, boundary rather than to transfer land.

It therefore met the requirements of an informal boundary agreement set out by Megarry J in Neilson v Poole (1969) 20 P&CR 909, and very recently confirmed by the Court of Appeal in White v Alder [2025] EWCA Civ 392, and the Deputy Chamber President could not find fault with his reasoning.

Simon Williams was pleased to represent the successful Respondent in both the FTT and the Upper Tribunal.

Read the full judgment here.