Shoul this be in grump of the day?

[overlander matt]

Buying a listed property is sure to bring a number of new experiences but I had not expected to find the purchase so frustrating! I still have no idea which way this is going to end. Perhaps this should have gone in grump of the day...

It turns out the driveway for the house passes through a small funnel-shaped plot of land that has never been registered at Land Registry. It's a driveway that has been there for a good 200 years so the application for a possessory title was made by the vendor's solicitor. Meanwhile, my solicitor carried out a formal search to check the extent of the highway/pavement maintained with the council.

The plot in question looks a bit like this:



Land Registry drew up the new possessory title placing the boundary of the plot where the block pavers start. It is clear that the council had maintained the pavement up to this point and the current owner had assumed responsibilty for the driveway beyond that point. Great! Sorted! Time to discuss exchange of contracts then? Not so fast say the solicitors. The new boundary on the Land Registry plot now creates a 'ransom strip' between the driveway and the extent to which the council maintains the pavement... The search result shows the boundary is probably the pavement side of the brick pillar. The solicitors ask the vendor's solicitor to go back to Land Registry and get it changed. Fair enough I would say - best to get the details right at the start. 'No way' they say - it's just been surveyed and in the right position even though they obviously haven't checked with the council. Meanwhile the council won't change their plans to reflect what they currently do in reality. It all ends with the solicitors sending a snotty letter to say theu cannot advise we purchase the house until this is resolved.

What a pathetic carry on from all involved. Anyone ever come across anything similar that might provide some ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Matt

 

[Abi Cott]

Not me, but my parents have, and based on their experiences, I would say get every I dotted and every t crossed.

Their issue was with a developer that then came to own that tiny strip along with the rest of the development.

Not a mistake they would make twice.

 

[Flyfisher]

Firstly, while your solicitor is right to advise you of such matters, that's all it is, advice. You can instruct your solicitor to do as you wish (assuming it's legal!) - at your own risk.

We have the right to lay a surface water drain through the garden of one of our neighbours. It's a right on our deeds from a time before the neighbouring house was built and the right is also recorded on the deeds of the neighbouring house, which was built before land registration was compulsory. After the house was built (but not registered) the drain was in fact installed but, quite sensibly, it now followed a different route to avoid the new house. All's well and everyone is happy. Until, many years later, the house owners decided to sell, which necessitated a first registration and their solicitor noticed the right to lay a drain across their garden whereupon all hell broke loose! Long story short, their buyer was desperate to complete asap but their solicitor advised not to proceed until the issue with the drain rights were sorted out. We explained that the right to lay a drain would never be exercised by us because it had already been laid along a different route about 40 years previously. Sure, we couldn't guarantee the right would never be exercised in the future by another owner but the buyer was happy to proceed regardless and ended up threatening to fire his solicitor if he didn't proceed with the purchase! So the purchase went through, the deeds were duly registered and we still have the right to lay a drain through their garden!

But, having said that you can ignore your solicitor's advice, ransom strips are not something to be taken lightly!

Another long story short. Some years ago there was a deadline for registering 'historic rights' at Land Registry, eg. manorial rights. So the chap who owned the manorial rights in and around our village decided to lay claim to all the bits of unregistered land in the village, of which there were quite a few odds and ends - typically narrow verges between houses (many of them new-ish) and the road. If no one could legitimately contest his registration it went through and he became the legal owner of these parcels of land. He tried it with our lane, which was unregistered at the time, but we were able to refute his claim based on our own deeds and we subsequently registered it ourselves - but it was something of a rigmarole! Anyway, having registered his parcels of land he then proceeded to write to the owners of various houses informing them that they had no right to cross his land but that he would consider granting a right of way on payment of a one off fee. I know of one elderly couple in the village who paid a rumoured £10k because of all the worry it caused them.

But I digress. What I was going to say is that the actual ownership of such strips of land can be less important than any rights over it. Thus, just because that bit of driveway was unregistered does not mean that the house in question has no rights of access over it. I would ask your solicitor about the rights of access for the house. Presumably the previous owners, and the owners before them etc etc) have been passing over that piece of land for many decades. If that access has never been contested then it might have established a right of way for that property, in which case the actual ownership is irrelevant. For example, our lane belongs to us but we have a few neighbours who have the right to 'pass and re-pass' along it to access their property from the main road, so the fact that we own the lane is of no hindrance to them. Your solicitor should be able to advise if you have, or can claim, such a right of way based on historical usage.

Also, check the deeds carefully to be certain that the extent of the property does not extend right out to the road. In my experience of our old deeds, some of the conveyances were drawn up with coloured pencils for the boundaries that were so thick they probably represent a few metres on the map! The good thing about old houses is that the original deeds usually pre-date many road and pavement features and it's possible this could give you a prior claim on the area that is now pavement. The original deeds for our lane show it extending out to the middle of the adjoining road! Probably because the 'road' at the time was unpaved and has been widened over time. Also, at some stage the council have laid a footpath, which technically goes over our land at the top of the lane. I've no idea if they just did this or whether a previous owner came to some arrangement, but it means that we can easily defend any council claim of a 'ransom strip' - just as we did with the local Lord of the Manor!

All of which is a long winded way of saying yes, these things can be complicated, but rights of way should be taken very seriously indeed - frustrating though it will undoubtedly be at this stage of the purchase negotiations.

Good luck and let us know what happens.

 

[overlander matt]

Thank you Abi and FlyFisher.

I made contact with both council and Land Registry today so I will see what they have to say about the situation. I thought both parties were very reasonable. What a contrast to the solicitor...

I agree it is the right approach to tidy up this discrepancy at this stage but I cannot comprehend that this matter really could scupper the purchase as the solicitor suggests. To suggest that this situation could effectively leave us landlocked sounds a bit far fetched.

Looks like I will have to try to be patient for a little longer and hopefully work through this with Land Registry.