Encroachment of Land.

Progress, Volume XII, Issue 7, 1 March 1917, Page 894

Encroachment of Land.

Judgment was given by the Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, at the Supreme Court Auckland, last month, in the case in which a claim was made for damages and compensation for encroachment on land by the erection of a building in King street, Pukekohe, says the “Herald.” The plaintiff was Robert Fulton (Mr. E. J. Prendergast), farmer, of Puni, and the defendants James Roulston and Duncan Roulston (Mr. R. McVeagh), butchers, of Pukekohe.

The plaintiff asserted that his section of land had been either wrongfully, intentionally, or negligently, encroached upon by the defendants when erecting a new concrete building. The encroachment extended for a length of 14-ft. and in width 4-in. or 5-in. at the greatest point, decreasing until the encroachment ceased. He claimed a sum of £7 10s. per annum for the period of the encroachment, £25 alleged damages, and an injunction restraining the defendants from continuing the encroachment. In the alternative the plaintiff claimed, if the injunction could not be granted, a sum of £7 10s. per annum for the period during which the encroachment continued.

His Honor held that the boundary was a straight line from the surveyor’s peg in the street to the peg at the back of the property, and that the buildup*' had encroached on the plaintiff’s land to a very slight extent. Under the powers conferred by the Judicature Act, he fixed the boundaries in the future as running from the two pegs agreed

upon by the surveyors, except where the building encroached upon plaintiff’s land, in which portion the boundary was to follow the 'outer wall of the building. The defendants are to remove a downpipe, which over-runs the plaintiff’s land.

His Honor fixed the compensation in respect of the encroachment at £5.